The book with a self-explanatory title, written by Swedish journalist Caroline Hainer, dwells on men sending pictures of their genitalia and is largely based on her own unpleasant experience on the receiving end.
The very idea of "Men Are Showing Me Their Pricks" was to understand why men engage in sending "dickpics" at all.
According to Caroline Hainer, it began when she herself started receiving unsolicited pictures of men's private parts on different dating forums. She found this experience quite uncomfortable, but never received a satisfactory answer when asking her correspondents why they engaged in such an activity.
"Then it turned out that almost all my female friends had experienced the same thing, and the men did not seem to understand the symbolism of these pictures," Hainer told Swedish Radio.
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According to Hainer, the symbolism is about power, danger and advantage, which are properties a woman cannot not convey through the image of her own genitalia. In the book, Hainer maintains a deep discrepancy between the feelings of the sender and the recipient.
"Men send them as part of the courting ritual, simply to show off. They seem to include it when you're on a dating site," Hainer ventured, adding that men generally risk a lot less by sending pictures of their private parts compared with women, who are at greater risk of suffering from "revenge porn."
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According to Hainer, sending "dickpics" is a serial activity, most often involving multiple recipients.
"It's is performed in the hope of a sexual relationship. And if you don't come across, then you may at least get a sexy response to your picture. And ultimately it's just a reaction that you want," Hainer told Swedish Radio. "It doesn't seem to worry them, they seem to be proud of it," she added.
— Caroline Hainer (@Jaxxhands) February 16, 2018
According to Hainer, sending dickpics is connected to the insecure image of today's men. With an image of an erect penis, the sender wants to subconsciously prove to himself and the recipient that he is a "real man." This, she argued in an interview with the Svenska Dagbladet daily, was "the biggest communication miss of our time."
One-fifth of Swedish girls aged 10-16 have been subjected to sexual harassment online (which includes "dickpics"), according to a survey from pollster Sifo. Another survey by Intel Security showed that 13 percent of respondents have sent naked images that do not show the face, the majority of them aged 40-50.
In a review by the "Feminist Library" website, Hainer's book was compared with the classic "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" by John Gray which dwells on the most common problems in male-female relationships.
Caroline Hainer is a Swedish cultural journalist, film critic and author, with publications in the national dailies Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet, as well as the national broadcaster SVT. Her latest publication is titled "Only a woman can cure noxious masculinity."
