Even the big dick subreddit is mad about ICE
“Fuck ICE first, second, third and fourth. So don’t worry about fucking me,” one Reddit post read. “Immigrants, regardless of their status, are my friends, neighbors and colleagues. »
On the Internet — and in the streets — the feeling is inevitable, especially after a federal immigration agent fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, in Minneapolis on Saturday. The killing came just weeks after an immigration agent fatally shot another person, Renee Good, who federal authorities called a “domestic terrorist” without any evidence. The message of this Reddit post would fit perfectly in online spaces for countless hobbies, interests, and creators: Anti-ICE discussions are happening everywhere, from r/Military subreddits to chats. Except this time it was posted on an adult forum.
r/MassiveCock is a subreddit that primarily contains photos of users’ penises. Before this weekend, the forum was largely apolitical: a place where users could sext or promote their OnlyFans accounts. Over the weekend, in between the usual dick pics, some posts began taking an explicitly anti-ICE stance.
“How difficult I am when I think about the abolition of ICE,” one message read, accompanied by a photo to demonstrate it. “Sorry, I was just thinking about ICE agents rotting behind bars for the rest of their lives,” another post with a photo said.
A user going by the name Tomatoe1987 posted one of the “Fuck ICE” messages in the subreddit that became one of the top submissions of the weekend. The user, who requested anonymity because he is a private person, says he is active in adult subreddits which he uses primarily to meet people and show off. He said The edge that he is moderately active politically – he still votes, has attended a few rallies – but does not consider himself an activist of any kind. His Reddit account is his main platform and he says he has no social media in his personal life outside of it.
“The ICE events have had a devastating effect on my community, my friends and my colleagues. »
“I admit that I find what I did a little (very) stupid,” he said in a message to The edge. “There is certainly much of what I did simply to express my frustration in the only public way possible. The ICE events have had a devastating effect on my community, my friends and my colleagues.”
There were several dozen “Fuck ICE” or similar posts in the subreddit on Monday, some with hundreds of comments.
Many of the comments under Tomatoe1987’s post supported his anti-ICE statement, but there were of course complaints like “Why bring politics into sex?” »
“Someone else told me that nothing in life should seem ‘normal’ when these kinds of things are happening in our country. Even pornography and sex,” he said. “All of this should make supporters of uncontrolled political violence and fascism uncomfortable. He also said it was a way of rejecting the assumption that because he posts on “dominant, physically imposing style subreddits” he has certain political leanings or lacks empathy.
“I hope that at least some people listening to me see that you can be ‘manly’ and still have compassion for other human beings,” Tomatoe1987 said.
Of course, politics and gender have always been deeply intertwined, and adult content online is increasingly under attack, including through age-verification laws that critics say are ineffective at keeping adult content away from minors but have a chilling effect on free speech and raise privacy concerns. In the UK, Reddit requires users to verify their age by uploading a selfie or photo of their ID before accessing adult content, although users have found ways to bypass the verification process.
ICE has become a topic of conversation in other adult subreddits. A moderator of r/RandomActsofBlowJob (exactly what that sounds like) posted Sunday that “Fuck ICE” was the subreddit’s “stance on what’s happening regarding immigration enforcement.” (A related subreddit also had the same stance.) There was also debate over the ethics of continuing to run a fascist subreddit in an era of violent state repression.
Tomatoe1987 says he has no idea if anti-ICE content will remain in r/MassiveCock. For now, it’s just “a little bit of hope every day,” he says. “Just letting people know that there are a lot of people who are concerned about their safety and well-being.”
