What Do You Do if a Politician Surprises You With Unsolicited Nudes?

Like everyone else, I have been staring at the Scene’s stories about state Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) sending people dick pics with a kind of horrified fascination (here and here). Sending unsolicited nudes is the equivalent of being the flasher in the park or the dude pleasuring himself on the bus, except I think it's more stupid and cowardly. At least the park pervert and the public wanker know whether there are any kids around. The surprise dick pic sender is just blithely sending his junk off into the world without considering at all whether the underage relatives of the person getting the picture might be watching videos or playing games on her phone.

I keep waiting for Taylor, also the Republican candidate in the 9th Congressional District race, to make one acknowledgement that he might need to apologize for subjecting his recipients — and potentially anyone near them — to this when the text arrived. But no. He only says that his wife and God have forgiven him. Which — I guess in a “best”-case scenario where he maybe understands who his victims are — we can take to mean he’s been sending them unwanted nudes too. I don’t know if Baptists do excommunications, but they might want to figure out how to do so right quick, because I’m sure God doesn’t take too kindly to getting unsolicited dick pics.

Brent Taylor's Sexting Problem

Republican congressional candidate asks voters to forgive past sexual advances as 'youthful indiscretions'

But what do you do if some grown-ass politician surprises you with unsolicited nudes? Having been a woman on this planet for half a century, I can tell you that, when you get a unexpected nude from a married man you don’t have feelings for, it feels really gross and a little scary. After all, why would a man send you a picture of that if he didn’t intend to show it to you in person? And then what?

Sometimes after receiving a photo like this, a lot of people feel ashamed, like they’ve done something wrong or something to indicate that they might be open to seeing this person's genitals. Or they might be embarrassed, because now they just have this random dick on their phone, and like, what do you even do with it? And sometimes you feel like you can’t do anything, because maybe it’s not that big a deal and you’re going to ruin his life over a stupid thing. And who would even believe you or take it that seriously anyway?

Don’t worry! There are many ways to deal with a politician who sends you unsolicited nudes when you don’t want him to. Here are some options.

1. Immediately reply with: “No. Absolutely not. You sending me a picture of your dick is inappropriate and gross. I do not want to see this.” Keep a record of this exchange. This approach is most useful if law enforcement gets involved, because it shows that you clearly said no to the activity.
2. Reply “Oh.” Wait a few minutes. Then follow up with “I don’t know. I think your wife is being a little judgmental about it.” Wait a few more minutes. Follow up. “Eh, I don’t want to get involved in a medical issues, but maybe your wife is right. You should have a doctor look at that. I don’t know if it’s normal or not.” Now he thinks his wife has been so concerned about something about his penis that she’s been talking about it to other people. And he knows you know he has a wife. And he has to sweat over whether you’re going to mention this picture to his wife and whether he has something wrong with his junk. Obviously, this doesn’t work if you’re a medical professional or a penis expert, but it’s good for the rest of us.
3. Find out when his church meets on Sunday. Text the picture back to him during that time. Pray he opens it during the sermon.
4. If your name is close to his wife’s name, like, if you’re Betsy and she’s Becky, text a screenshot of the text to her and say, “This is awkward, but I think your husband accidentally sent this to me instead of you.” You get to seem like an innocent bystander who is assuming this is all on the up-and-up, just fun between spouses, and she gets proof her husband is a jerk.
5. The option taken in this case: Share it with the media.
6. Tell his mom. You can’t really help him if he has such porn-addled ideas about sex and not much real-world experience with actual women that he thinks random women are just going to see his dick and want to jump him. But hopefully she can. Oh wait, except he’s not a 17-year-old. OK, never mind this one.

Brent Taylor Dodges Details About Sexting

'Whether it was one or 21 really doesn't matter, and I'm willing to be held accountable for the past indiscretions,' Taylor says at Franklin rally

The important point is that you are not to blame, and you shouldn’t have to carry around any shame or guilt about this. So shove it right back on to him. Things like sending unsolicited nudes are tactics to see how you’ll react to egregious behavior aimed at you — specifically, will you keep quiet while you’re being mistreated? People who do this kind of stuff are testing your boundaries. And people test your boundaries to see where the weak points in your defenses are.

We all laughed when Taylor told Scene reporter Eli Motycka that these pictures were just evidence of his "rounder" past, from an era of “youthful indiscretions.” But this is the second time this year when stories swirled that seemed to indicate Taylor’s “youthful indiscretions” might have left women traumatized in their wake. At a debate in July, a caller asked Taylor and his Republican primary opponents about whether there should be a congressional slush fund to pay sexual harassment victims. Mediaite described the exchange:

"Hi, this is an issue that is very near and dear to me," Marie began, "and the reason why I ask is- so, I'll ask the question first, and then I'll give some background. The slush fund for Congress when someone sexually harasses someone. I have a good friend who was actually a victim of sexual assault by the senator on a conference in Oklahoma. And so, how do we have confidence in someone that we're sending to Congress that has been on a legislative conference — paid for by taxpayer dollars — and has sexually assaulted a woman before? And so, are our taxpayer dollars going to fund a man who has already taken advantage of a woman-"

Marie seemed to be referring to state Sen. Brent Taylor, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump just hours earlier.

We can’t stop politicians from terrorizing women and then trying to hide behind their wives and God, but we can up the cost of doing it, and the person(s) who leaked this information to the press upped the cost to Taylor considerably. If we ever find ourselves in a similar position, we should do likewise.