Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Man asked by wife to pose as a woman in a chat-room to prove a point - the results were 'horrible'

His phone crashed because he received so many messages

David Maclean
Wednesday 30 August 2017 04:02 EDT
Comments
(Getty/iStock)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

A woman asked her husband to pose as a woman online to discovered the gulf in how different genders are treated – and he was bombarded with sexual messages within seconds.

Feminist speaker Jessica Eaton, from Staffordshire, wanted her husband Alex to discover what it’s like to use the internet as a woman.

She had him log into the same chat room with a male profile and a female profile – and the difference was startling.

The male profile received no messages, while the supposed 18-year-old woman’s profile was bombarded with sexual images within seconds.

Her husband said: “This is horrible.”

Jessica described her experiment on Twitter, saying Alex received “hundreds” of messages, and many people responded that they wanted to test it out for themselves.

Jessica tweeted: "Just did a social experiment with my husband to teach him what being a female online is like.

"I got him to enter a generic non sexual forum as an 18-year-old male with boring chat name and guess what? Nothing happened."

After logging in as a woman, she said: “Within seconds he had eight inbox messages from men and the first one he opened was a full picture of a guy's d***."

Within half an hour, the fake profile had been contacted by 40 different accounts. At one point the messages were being received so often that his phone crashed.

Details of the experiment were favourited or retweeted more than 1,000 times – with one user replying: “I am not surprised by the result of your experiment - any idea how to fix this? It’s revolting."

Another said: “Thank you for this info. That is a great lesson for us guys.”

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in