An Open Letter To The Policeman With The Crotch Shot On Tinder And The Woman Who Defended Him

Dear Tinder Man In The Baltimore Police Department Uniform Who Also Used A Photo Of His Bulge,

Hey. You may remember me from the time you messaged me OKCupid. Or the second time you messaged me on OKCupid despite me politely letting you know I wasn’t interested. Or the third time you messaged me on OKCupid despite me politely letting you know BOTH previous times I wasn’t interested.

I remember you, because you have a fairly distinct look about you, and also because I remember thinking when I read your profile on both OKC and Tinder, “Wow, he has a long commute to work for the Baltimore Police Department.” I knew you worked for the BPD when you messaged me on OKC because you have a photo in your uniform on your profile. So, when I saw you on Tinder, I swiped left because we had already interacted before. I’d see you every few weeks on Tinder and casually flip through your photos to satisfy my nosy curiosity over if anything about your profile had changed, and it usually didn’t. Until the other day, when I noticed that you had added a photo of your abs and bulging underwear. This seemed like a terrible idea for several reasons, but I thought maybe this was some kind of new idea you had since you had never used that photo before, and I thought maybe you just didn’t think it through, so I decided to send you this message:

Since you unmatched me right away, I thought I would elaborate for you here why this is a terrible idea.

You are a police officer in a major city. A major city with A LOT going on. A major city whose drug trade and police response to it were profiled in an extremely realistic way on a very popular television show. You could be called upon to help anyone, going through any situation, at any time.

What if a woman is scrolling through tinder who, god forbid, was a victim of sexual assault or rape. What if she has a negative reaction to your crotch shot, and sees you in your police uniform, and then sometime later you are called upon to help her. As I said, you have a distinct look about you. Do you think she will be able to fully trust you or feel comfortable around you? What if a different woman sees your photo, who maybe doesn’t think much of it aside from the fact that it is inappropriate and unnecessary, but some time later she has to call the police to help with something involving her teenage daughter. Do you think she will feel completely comfortable with the fact that the type of officer who would post a photo like that is helping her teenage daughter?

What about the one time that I needed to call the police — when a student at my job was threatening me. I was very conflicted about calling the police to begin with, because when you work in high-needs communities, you don’t want to create more interactions with law enforcement than these students may already have. But, my program shared a building with a preschool, and my colleagues and I decided it was the safest thing for the entire building for me to call. What if you had been one of the officers that showed up? I was already in a situation that was stressful, emotionally draining, and leaving me conflicted. Would I have been able to take you fully seriously if I had seen your bulge on tinder? Would it have impacted whether I wanted to be alone with you, or share personal details about my job and the backstory of this student’s situation with you?

Once you match with someone, what you choose to send them is between you and them. Personally I don’t feel like you should ever send bulge shots or dick pics to ANYONE unless they specifically ask for it, but I can’t tell you how to live your life. But to have this type of photo on your public profile along with your place of work, when your work is in such a serious public service field, is irresponsible and potentially harmful to yourself and the community you are supposed to serve.

I know that may feel unfair — we are, after all, allowed to have lives outside our job. And our social media and general personal pursuits should not impact our jobs if our job performance remains the same. I understand this mentality to a degree — I’d be embarrassed if a student or a student’s parent or even a coworker found my twitter, yet I continue to publicly tweet on an unlocked account. The difference is, I never mention my place of work. I don’t talk about the organization I work for, I never post work photos or photos in shirts that have my organization name on it. Nothing I say is purported to be a representation of my place of work. If you want to be the kind of guy that puts bulge shots on tinder, take the photo in your uniform out. If you want to have the uniform photo, take the crotch shot out. Like it or not, there are some professions that just have to be held to a higher standard when it comes to this kind of thing. Law enforcement is one. Teaching is another. There’s a few other examples, but they don’t really matter. I think the fact that you unmatched me so abruptly means you already know this.

And for the record, this has nothing to do with you being a man. I would give the same advice to a female police officer who had a photo in her bra on tinder. Please think about someone and something other than yourself, and change these photos.

Sincerely,
Sarah

Now…as far as the woman who defended you…

A little backstory for those who missed it…

Dear Random Woman on Twitter Who Doesn’t Follow Me and Who I’ve Never Even Seen Before,

Hey. I know we don’t follow each other, so you may not know a lot about me. But I feel like you should know that posting profiles or dating site conversations is something I do often. Sometimes I do it for a laugh, other times to express frustration, and other times just because it makes for interesting discussion. Sometimes I post examples of good profiles, and often I post examples of bad ones. Sometimes I may come across a little judgmental to some people, but other times I am actually saying a profile is decent and my followers try to convince me it isn’t. I have gotten into plenty of debates over these posts — some people saying I am being too harsh, others saying I’m not being harsh enough. I enjoy the conversation and the different perspectives, so I keep doing it. Once in a blue moon, one of these debates will get kind of heated, but for the most part, it’s good, respectful discussion.

I also post about a variety of other topics, which sometimes garners me some trolling. I’ve had many political trolls in my time on Twitter; it’s always people who don’t even follow me that just find me in a hashtag or someone’s RT or wherever else trolls search for targets. I expect that to a degree. Once in awhile, I may even get a man that trolls me over dating, but even that is pretty rare. But you earn the distinct honor of being the first woman to troll me over dating. It’s one thing for followers to jump into a debate with me over dating-related stuff that I post. It’s even one thing for non-followers to debate me, now that Twitter shows a lot of stuff from people you don’t follow. I think most people who have followed me for awhile probably knew I wasn’t actually going to send those photos to the BPD. But if anyone was unsure, I wouldn’t have had a problem with them telling me they thought it was a bad idea, and I didn’t really have a problem with you clarifying that with me either. However, it’s another for a non-follower to jump immediately to trying to insult me over a dating app conversation for no reason.

In the interest of brevity, I will put aside most of what you said. I will gloss over the fact that someone who thinks a crotch shot on a public profile (not even one sent directly to me) is “flirting” is a major part of the problem. I won’t go into detail about how making it seem like it is okay for men to act this way on dating apps is part of why it is so hard to make genuine connections on dating apps. I will only mention briefly the fact that I said I wasn’t going to send the photos, and you still made it sound like I was “intentionally trying to get him in shit,” even when I clearly stated I wasn’t, and my message to him was pretty polite all things considered.

I was going to address you from a woman-to-woman perspective. I was going to comment how women shouldn’t spend time tearing each other down, and how dating is already rough enough for us out there without us making it worse for each other. But a quick scroll through your TL shows you are a bit anti-woman at times, so I will try another approach. I will try to just put this in human-t0-human terms.

It would never occur to me to tell ANYONE, male or female, “no wonder you’re single,” over something that they already said they were not going to do. I follow men who talk about dating. I don’t always agree with the way they go about things in their dating lives. I may even debate them on it, depending how well I know them, but I would never try to throw their single-ness in their face as an insult. This is wrong for a number of reasons, but the two big ones are:

• Some people are genuinely upset about being single and it is unnecessary to try to be intentionally hurtful for no apparent reason.
• Some people are not at all upset about being single and it is unnecessary to try to make being single sound like a negative thing when there is really nothing wrong with it.

I have an extremely full life. I have good friends and a good job. I’m almost finished with my doctorate. I volunteer for civil rights’ groups and animal shelters. I travel. I donate to causes I care about. I like my life, and I am, by and large, a good person. Do I get a little sad about being single sometimes? Sure, once in awhile. Do I worry about what the future may look like long-term if I remain single indefinitely? Occasionally; I think people who say they never worry about that are lying. But my life is amazing, and I would rather be single forever than ever treat things like crotch shots on tinder profiles as though they are appropriate or acceptable.

So, random woman, next time you want to enter my mentions to try to make me feel bad about myself, I ask this of you: if you are going to start a debate, see it through without resorting to baseless insults. If you can’t handle that, and are going to try to hurt my feelings, at least don’t be so lazy as to go for the easy move of “no wonder you’re single.” There’s plenty of real things to criticize me over, but the fact that I’m single just isn’t one of them.

Sincerely,
Sarah