If you’re one of those chads who breaks the ice online by sending a photo of your engorged penis, you might start facing fines and criminal penalties, especially if you do it in Texas.
Already in effect as of this month, Texas has banned unsolicited dick pics and other forms of “electronic transmission of sexually explicit visual material” that’s sent without the recipient’s consent.
The bill, HB 2789, was largely a joint effort between Bumble, a dating app designed for women, and Rep. Morgan Meyer of Dallas.
According to Whitney Wolfe Herd, the CEO of Bumble, numerous people have complained to her about receiving unsolicited dick pics online. In a piece she wrote for Cosmopolitan, Herd recounted one story where a teenage girl randomly received airdropped nude photos from a male stranger. Recent studies show that nearly 80 percent of young women have received unsolicited dick pics online, and just over 25 percent of men report sending them without permission.
“I hated that there was no real accountability, and that this digital world we spend all our time in is basically a society with no rules,” Herd wrote.
“There was nothing that could be done,” Rep. Morgan Meyer, the lead sponsor of HB 2789, told a local Fox News affiliate. “It wasn’t a criminal offense — although it was definitely digital sexual harassment.”
Rep. Meyer, who’s been in office since 2015, has made some surprising legislative moves over the years. A die-hard Republican, Meyer supports many of the mainstay issues important to his party, like banning abortion. But he’s also veered far from the party line on other issues, such as voting to decriminalize weed in the Lone Star State. Now, he’s riling up some of his peers by banning unsolicited dick pics, which has some First Amendment warriors jeering.
“It reaches things that arguably could cover images related to medical advice or moms sharing information about breastfeeding or their babies’ health — things like that which certainly can’t be criminalized,” JT Morris, a First Amendment attorney based in Austin, told Fox News.
Under the new law, any image or video depicting sex or showing the genitals — and sent without the recipient’s consent — qualifies as a Class C misdemeanor with a maximum $500 fine. And the law bans pretty much all unsolicited dick pics, even of clothed ones that are in a “discernibly turgid state.”
Stay classy, dudes.
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