A recent review of the UK's legislation has recommended making the sending unsolicited naked pictures a crime.
The Law Commission, which is a legal review agency under Parliament, believes cyberflashing should be punishable due to the impact it can have on the receiver.
When you're not expecting a nude image in your DMs, it can be one hell of a shock. Some reckon it's also akin to a person flashing their junk at you on the street.
Advert
The review into UK legislation discovered that digital forms of indecent exposure aren't clear in the Sexual Offenses Act.
The Commision wrote in their report: "Cyberflashing can cause serious harm. It is often experienced as a form of sexual harassment, involving coercive sexual intrusion by men into women's everyday lives.
"It is important to distinguish cyberflashing from other forms of intimate image abuse where the victim is the subject of the image; in cyberflashing, the victim is not the subject but the recipient.
"We recommend that it should be an offence for a person to send an image or video recording of genitals (whether the sender's or not) to another, either intending to cause that person alarm, distress or humiliation, or, where the image was sent for a sexual purpose, reckless as to whether it would cause alarm, distress or humiliation."
Advert
A study published two years ago found nearly half of all heterosexual men surveyed have sent a picture of their penis hoping it would impress the recipient.
There's no word on whether their hopes became a reality or the woman was horrified, shared it with her pals, laughed or simply deleted it.
The survey found most men don't want to cause harm of 'negative psychological outcomes'.
Researchers concluded these blokes are 'motivated by sexist and misogynistic ideologies' because they're under the assumption that women want to see their junk in the first place.
Advert
It's worth keeping in mind that we're talking about unsolicited pictures; the ones that come out of nowhere and without any sort of encouragement from the victim.
Criminal law professor Penney Lewis spoke about the Law Commission's report, saying: "Online abuse can cause untold harm to those targeted, and change is needed to ensure we are protecting victims from abuse such as cyberflashing and pile-on harassment.
"At the same time, our reforms would better protect freedom of expression by narrowing the reach of the criminal law so it only criminalizes the most harmful behavior."
It will now be up to UK lawmakers to determine whether cyberflashing should be included in the Sexual Offenses Act.
Featured Image Credit: PixabayTopics: News