It Is Now Illegal to Send an Unsolicited Dick Pic in Texas

It’s not always super fun to get an unsolicited dick pic, and in Texas, it’s now illegal to send one.

Fox 4 News reports that starting this past Saturday, sending an unsolicited nude in the Lone Star State is a a Class C misdemeanor, and violators are subject to fines of up to $500. Weirdly enough, the new law is a collaborative effort between state Rep. Morgan Meyer of Dallas and…Bumble, the dating app.

Per Fox 4 News:

“They had a number of people who were using the app complaining about the sending of these images and they quickly realized there was no recourse,” Meyer said, recalling how Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd approached him about crafting a measure. “There was nothing that could be done. It wasn’t a criminal offense – although it was definitely digital sexual harassment.”

Texas’s law is an interesting one because it doesn’t hinge on intention. Though a number of states have laws regulating digital sexual harassment, a dick pic (or any nude) sender doesn’t have to actively be attempted to harass someone to be subjected to the law. If, for instance, you meet someone on OKCupid or Tinder or, for the sake of this blog post/law, Bumble, give them your phone number, and get a dick pic instead of a nice text saying hello, they can be fined.

This is true even if you don’t mind the dick pic—if you haven’t explicitly told the sender you’d like to see a photo of their junk and they send you one, they’ve violated the law. Apparently, the law might run up against some First Amendment issues—an Austin-based attorney told Fox 4 that the law was kind of vague, and could “cover images related to medical advice or moms sharing information about breastfeeding or their babies’ health,” which could be a problem.

But at the very least, the implementation of this law, and any law regarding sending unsolicited nudes, should serve as a reminder that no matter how great of an itch you have to show a prospective paramour what you’re packing inside your pants, keep it to yourself until that person asks for a visual. And definitely DO NOT Airdrop a dick pic to a stranger, you monster.