Yes, among younger men and among older men who are doing this sort of thing right now. I would classify it as contempt, though, rather than not caring.
But there was a time, and some of us are old enough to remember it, when many women felt that they could not express an explicit interest in sexual matters because it was unfeminine to do so. In those days, a woman who said “I don’t like pornographic pictures” might have meant “I am actually interested in pornographic pictures, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to admit it.” Guys might not have been able to tell the difference.
Google around a bit and I think you will find that people of all ages are sexting - women and men alike. So I am not sure that we can conclude in any broad sense that women do not like it or participate in it.
The general consensus among women on this forum is that we wouldn’t like it and are not turned on by it. If I received a picture like that I would immediately conclude that the man was not interested in a serious relationship and did not respect me. I would move on. But that’s my own thinking and I wouldn’t conclude that all women would feel that way. And this is also generational since sexting is so prevalent among both women and men of high school and college age.
I am not defending Barton or the practice of sexting – I think it is a negative trend.
@HarvestMoon1 I think you would be surprised. It’s quite common among all ages including Thise in their 40s and 50s. All of my single girlfriends have a story of a man sending them a junk pic.
The young single women I know have stories of men they don’t have a sexual relationship with sending them unsolicited and unwanted junk pics. Why do men do this?
I’m wondering if the men think that their photos will so excite the women they are interested in that the women will change their minds and all of a sudden WANT a sexual relationship. Who knows? Egos can be linked to magical thinking.
Change of direction, but I just listed to a Longform podcast with Jodi Kantor, one of the reporters who broke the Weinstein story. It is fascinating, I’d recommend it. You have to scroll down a few to find it.
Lots of things she said struck me, but one thing was when she said that when you are reporting on a story, the time when you have to listen extra carefully is when someone is trying to kill the story. There are often clues in those conversations that can give you new directions to explore or help you understand the power dynamic that has kept a story quiet for a long time. Apparently there were LOTS of attempts by reporters to get this story out in the past, and many of them were killed/derailed. She also talks about this story in the context of today’s politics, and says that some of the women definitely felt like this was a critical moment for them to speak out.
^^
Excellent recommendation @intparent --I just listened to it over a glass of merlot.
I am going to bet that Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey heard from hundreds of women before they published so the nuance she is able to provide is quite valuable and credible. So much of what she said struck me but what stayed with me was what the response was from some of the older and senior executives in the industry when they got wind of it. They told her this was “old news and an open secret.” Then went on to say “no one cares, no one has ever cared. You will publish your little story (if it isn’t killed first) and life will go on.”
This is an attitude that women really have to push back extremely hard against. And if we don’t care then we can’t have expectations that anyone else will.
But the more senior women who said this was old news and no one cares, were they saying what they believed, or what they were resigned to thinking no one cares because of all the previous times when they tried to draw attention to harassment and were blown off?
I don’t think they were all women who had been harassed saying that – some were employees of Miramax or the Weinstein corp. The writer says it was cynicism – I think she meant that because no one had been able to bring attention to it and get any changes made. Not that they thought it didn’t matter, but that they just didn’t believe these reporters could get it done.
It was an “open secret” – Oscar hosts joked about it, for crying out loud:
I got the impression it was the senior male executives who wanted to kill the story that said “no one cares.” How many senior female executives are there in that industry?
ETA: I listened to that portion again and she just refers to them as “sources” but then goes on to say that these same people were attempting to “gaslight” her. So I assumed they were men trying to dissuade her from publishing but she didn’t specify if they were men or women.
If you are a fan of Annabella Sciorra, check out “True Love,” her first movie. It reminds me of my young adulthood. Although I am not Italian, I did grow up in the Bronx. I have often wondered what became of her. I had assumed she had found a different career or was raising children. Sad to hear that she was another victim of Weinstein.
Yes, I think I saw that movie long ago when it first came out! The one where she wanted to dye the mashed potatoes to match the bridesmaid’s dresses? And her future H, the immature idiot, at least had the sense to say no to that?
So on one of the ABC news talk shows, Cokie Roberts said that every women in the press corps knew not to get on an elevator with John Conyers! They knew about this problem for years. So where was the reporting? Why would the news media cover up this sort of thing?