“I present to you my wife”, here is the group where thousands of men publish photos of their companions without consent

On Facebook there is a public group in which about 31 thousand subscribers share photos of their companions, often sowed, without their consent. Is called “My wife” And in these hours it has been reported thousands of times to the social network and the postal police with the aim of closing it. The language that is used under each published photo leaves no doubt: “I present to you my wife”; “Tonight at dinner”; “What would you do?”; “What do you think”; «Desire of a ice cream cone; “I know what I would do”. And it can be continued, unfortunately, very long. The collective rite is taken served: women’s bodies become collective consumption objects, it is called male violence and travels on social networks without anyone, for now, having to respond. Some of the men who comment and publish the photos have profiles with name and surname, others write anonymously but it is possible to trace the original profile with which they entered the group.

To bring to light the existence of the group was the author Carolina Capria, with a post on her social profile A female wrote it. “Yesterday I was reported the existence of a Facebook group of 32 thousand people in whom the members exchange intimate photos of their wives to comment on their aspect explicitly and give voice to their sexual fantasies”, reads the post. “Women often unaware of being photographed to become a prey to a virtual rape”. The group, which is still open for now, does not live only on Facebook but has an active channel also on Telegram where there is less control. In fact, in Italy, the non -consensual diffusion of intimate images is considered a crime, punished from article 612-ter of the penal code, With penalties that can go up to six years of imprisonment. Even those who participate with violent comments risk legal consequences.

A case, which although with evidently different dynamics, brings to mind what happened s Gisèle Pelicotwho for over ten years has been abused by eighty -three men, contacted by her husband via Chat, who drugs it and then filmed and cataloged everything. The woman, at the end of the trial that saw her husband and the other condemned rapists, said: «Opening the doors of the process I wanted the company to take advantage of what was said in the classroom and I never regretted the decision. I did it because I hope to help the other women, the unrecognized victims, whose stories often remain in the shadows ».

What happens in the “My wife” group, recalls the same basic logic: the consent of the ignored women, the body that becomes the object and is offered as properties to be shared, finally the public performance of intimacy. The cartoonist also expressed himself on the matter Stefania Lancia, aka Sted. «In light of this I would ask all men: what do you do to stop this shit? Because it seems clear to me that not doing anything is not enough. It has never been. “

Groups like this have been on social media for some time. Based on the data of the Postal Police, in September 2020 there were over six million men registered in similar groups. “In Italy there are about thirty million men,” continues Sted. “Six million out of thirty means one in five”