There are no girls on the Internet

[pplwatching]

Since things are slow around these parts ... I guess that I'm behind the amateur porn times, because I only just found out about imgur/r/gonewild (gonewildcouples, etc). I looked a little deeper and learned that it's images collected from a subreddit. On the imgur side of the fence you can see a different picture as fast as you can click. On the reddit side of the fence there's chatter with the pictures, but seems to be a love / hate relationship with the women (and sometimes men) who post these pictures.

This phrase seems to be everywhere "There are no girls on the Internet". One contributor thinks that the phrase means that to be male is normal and expected, whereas to be a woman is noteworthy and offensive.

Another contributor says that (to paraphrase) the internet makes everyone equal so men and women are equally judged on their ability to contribute to an intelligent conversation. Women who post pictures are doing so only because they can't hold up their end of a conversation.

I found a few articles discussing this.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pop-psych/201409/there-are-no-girls-the-internet
http://www.dailydot.com/society/reddit-gone-wild-dark-side/

I suppose by the "we're all judged equally" logic one could say "There are no girls on lit", even though this community embraces sexuality. "In real life" (my life anyway), guys have never had any trouble sharing their sexual preferences (though not as much now that my friends are older), but women have always been a mystery. There used to be a joke about Playboy along the lines of "I only read it for the articles" but here at Lit there are many women who are intelligent, expressive, and eloquent. I gravitate to threads with an emphasis on intelligent conversation, and enjoy reading what they have to say about sex, their thoughts and insights, and their experiences (and like the occasional picture to fill in the blanks ).

So, let me just throw this out there... What do you think about "there are no girls on the Internet", and the articles I linked? Does the context of being on an erotic web site versus a different kind of discussion board matter? Is flirtation any different than posting pictures? Any other thoughts or ideas?

 

[stickygirl]

After the quick 5 minute read I gave to both long articles, I got the impression they were explaining the bleeding obvious - perhaps to people who had never been on the internet or chat sites?

Stealing people’s pictures, peeping in bushes, flashing your cock and rape ( yes, sorry to bring that much-pilloried word to Lit ) are all about the power of men over women. Women already know about this - why should the internet be any different from real life? It doesn't take long to figure it out.

Women might come to Lit for a laugh or engage in a discussion for a few minutes, before a male troll comes along and trashes it, but we are seldom as obsessive about logging in as men. Ultimately, just like in real life, we realise there are more important things and go do those instead. Power comes in different forms and nothing is more satisfying than the power to disconnect the trolls and read a good book with a glass of wine. The trolls will be there tomorrow, but an afternoon alone in the garden with a good book is gold.