Meet Leorose, founder of the Instragram account NoDickPic
©Manon Léauté (Instagram/@manonleaute)
A year ago, a man I barely know sent me a dick pic. Angry and feeling powerless, I blocked him and never mentioned it again until I came across this Instagram post:
Translation: "Automatic response : We have detected a transmission of non-solicited ad potentially illegal pornography imagery [art. 36489-a]. Your device's IP address has been transmitted to the police department and is awaiting inspection. If you believe this is an error, respond STOP.
Translation: STOP ; I went too far ! ; Sorry ! ;
The fake automatic response and the perpetrator's panic, thinking they might be facing legal action, made me laugh. Finally, the shame and fear switched sides. It was the first time I encountered an online community that talked specifically about the violence of dick pics. I felt validated, and later on, protected, because I learnt via the same account that it was a crime punished by the law.
"There are actually two fines", Leorose, founder of the Instagram account No Dick Pic, explains to me, while casually sipping his vanilla coffee latte in a small brasserie at Convention in Paris. An activist who uses Instagram to change the conversation about cyber sexual harassment and bullying, Leorose tries to create a friendly and non-hierarchical relationship with his followers and only goes by his first name. It's how he presents himself at sexual health conferences and events in schools to raise awareness about the laws on safe conduct online.
According to the 2010 Article 624-2 of the French Penal Code, if the victim is under 15 years of age (which is the age by which the French legal system defines sexual majority), the fine for sending a sexually explicit picture is 1,500 euros. If the victim is over 15 years old, the fine is 750 euros. Specifically, the law criminalizes "indecent images and messages," which include unsolicited explicit photographs.
"We're taught to always be careful on the internet but no one teaches us about the punishments we can face if we do something unlawful, like sending a dick pic. No one tells us we have the right to file a complaint if we receive a dick pic. No one talked about this law," he says.
Leorose would know. Now 29 years old, he got his first dick pic when he was just 14. He thought he was messaging someone on MSN (Microsoft Network) who was his age. Instead, on their first video call, he found a 50 year old man behind the camera with his erect penis out. Like a lot of victims, he blamed himself.
"I was ashamed because I'd grown up in an environment where my mother always told me not to talk to strangers. But it's not my fault, it's this stranger's fault. He shouldn't have taken advantage of me and lied about his identity. That's pedocriminality."
A former bank employee who quit his job because he received little emotional support, Leorose created No Dick Pic in 2019 as a last straw after having received unsolicited dick pics from complete strangers on his public Instagram account for three nights in a row.
"I texted my friend saying that someone had sent me a dick pic again and I laughed it off. Then I realized that it wasn't normal to laugh, I'd completely trivialized the situation when it's actually quite violent."
It was during the pandemic lockdown that his account exploded with personal accounts. Now followed by more than 41,000 people, Leorose lost count of the number of messages he gets every day. He posts them to raise awareness. He also helps the victims seek legal action against perpetrators of cyber flashing, assuring them that dick pics are a form of sexual violence that should be taken seriously by the authorities.
One problem: not all policemen are aware of this law.
"Lots of policemen completely normalize the dick pic and don't even know about this law. A month ago, one of my followers told me she'd filed a complaint and the policeman refused to file it because he believed an unsolicited dick pic wasn't 'an indecent image'. He didn't consider it as sexual violence," Leorose exclaims, scandalized, his loud voice startling an elderly couple sitting across the café.
He ignores them, sipping his coffee like it's completely appropriate for a trans man and a ciswoman to be talking about dick pics in the middle of the afternoon at a café. But dick pics are inappropriate so I guess it's fitting.
They're also widespread. In fact, 63% of French women between 18-24 years old received an unsolicited dick pic on a dating app in 2018. A year later, French journalist, Éloise Delsart, talked to female high schoolers for a podcast on feminism and said almost all of them have received dick pics before. There are currently no statistics on how many seek legal action.
More broadly, No Dick Pic talks about cyber sexual harassment, something Leorose suffered at school after his ex-boyfriend published his naked pictures when they broke up. "It was a positive revenge for what I went through", he says. "I wish an account like this existed when I was in school."
For some followers, No Dick Pic bridges a gap of knowledge between the public and the laws that govern cyber consent. For others, it's more about prevention. Milvia Iannantuoni, co-author of Perils of Patriarchy, follows him since the lockdown, and said the creative way in which people respond to dick pics gave her ideas on how to defend herself in case she receives one.
As we leave, the waiter misgenders Leorose and calls him "Mrs". Leorose corrects him immediately.
He later explains to me that it's very tiring to constantly have to correct people who misgender him. "Sometimes I'll cancel plans to go out with friends because I can't handle being misgendered again. There's an emotional burden that comes with trans identity."
Despite this, there's a twinkle in his eyes that probably wasn't there a couple of years ago when he was working at the bank. That's the spark of passion, of someone who found his place in the world and who loves what he's doing.
"I once thought that I wasn't legitimate to talk about these issues, to go to public schools and talk about cyber sexual harassment, to talk at conferences. I'm very shy, I wasn't sure I was capable. But recently, more schools and conferences have asked me to come talk to people so I realized I had legitimacy."
Comments