By David Futrelle
So a young gentleman turned to the Am I The Asshole subreddit today with a simple question that, at first glance would seem to have a simple answer: “[Am I The Asshole] for intentionally sending my mom a dick pic to prove a point?”
Oh dear. Obviously, unless you’re literally a modern day Oedipus who doesn’t know that your mother is your mother, there’s pretty much no circumstance in which sending a picture of your erect penis to your mother makes you anything but an asshole. So yes, he is by definition an asshole. But is he the asshole?
That’s where things get complicated.
So let’s wade into these murky depths.
I know, i Know. Hear me out.
I’m currently 20, going to college, and live a hour away from my parents. My mom has always been invasive. Living at home I had no privacy. She would always want to see what was on my phone, pc, laptop, etc. She insisted on me not having a lock on my room door and would barge in when ever and when ever. Now that I live on my own, this has only gotten worse. She demands to know everything i’m doing and stalks me on any social media she can find.
Holy crap. That’s not just invasive; it’s abusive.
I went home for christmas and during that time she found out through my sister that i’ve been seeing a girl on campus and have not told her. She has not stopped invading my life since and has demanded all the information she could get on her. I didn’t give her anything and did not let her look at my texts when she demanded to see them. Now that I’m back on campus she’s only ramped up.
It just gets worse.
Last night she called me prodding for more, and eventually she started to accuse me of “illicit” behavior with my girlfriend. She claims that “If i can’t show my mother my texts, then I shouldn’t be sending them”. My mom decided to lecture me for half an hour last night. I had enough and said I would send her a full log of our texts. After I hung up though, I sent my mom a picture of my erect penis and turned my phone of do not disturb.
Needless to say, his mother was not pleased.
I only just barley [sic] checked my phone and she had called me over 10 times last night and sent over 50 texts. My dad and sisters also blew me up with texts calling me an asshole.. I just called my dad and he said that it was way out of line and that i’m a major asshole. My mom left me multiple voice mails crying and saying that she went wrong while calling me a degenerate.
A bit excessive, but then again what on earth did he expect?
At this point our, er, hero then asks the assembled Redditors for a ruling on his behavior.
Honestly. she wanted this. She already assumed my texts had dick pics so I just gave her what she wanted. AITA?
Well, yes, you’re being a huge asshole. Sending anyone an unsolicited dick pic is asshole behavior. But sending one to your mom? Off the charts, asshole-wise.
But at the same time he’s right about one thing: she was demanding to see texts that she presumably knew would contain dick pics and other “illicit” material. So had he given into her demands, she would have seen the pic and perhaps even worse.
So I think it’s fair to say, in the parlance of the AITA subreddit, that this is an “Everyone Sucks Here” situation. And that, given her ongoing invasive and abusive behavior, the mother is the biggest asshole of these two big assholes.
Also, everyone in the family should immediately go into therapy, because holy crap.
H/T — Thanks to Twitter’s @AITA_reddit for featuring this lovely post
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I have to admit I did a much milder version of this. My mother-in-law would insist on re-cleaning my house every time she visited, no matter how much we asked her not to. At some point she would insist on staying at home due to “tiredness” while I went out with my husband and father-in-law, and I would return home to find that all our drawers, including the underwear drawer, were reorganised. I bought unmistakable sex toys and left them in our night table before one visit. Nothing was said, but she stopped doing it.
@Mogwitch, that’s hilarious, nicely done.
@Sinkable John, how are you? Great to “see” you.
@Mogwitch
That sounds more or less like what her sons intention was. Someone won’t respect your boundaries, give them an eye-full of more than they bargained for.
Maybe he could have just left his phone unattended where she would find it, rather than intentionally sending something to her. Because now she gets to play victim
Everything Crip Dyke said.
My mother is emotionally abusive, always has been, and I am financially forced to still live with her at 40 because I am a disabled dialysis patient.
It’s never-ending. You find yourself walking on eggshells with every interaction, because while you know that certain things WILL set them off, you don’t know what many other things might ALSO set them off.
Such as, say, letting some irritation into your voice because the delay between “I need to go to the ER” and actually getting into the car is two hours because things like taking fifteen minutes to “change into a nicer shirt” were more important to her than getting her child emergency medical care that wound up requiring surgery. Non-verbally express irritation about that? Get a tearful diatribe about how rude and inconsiderate you are. While further delaying your emergency medical care.
There is very, very little this guy could do to possibly approach the level of assholery that his mother has clearly been inflicting on him for years.
@ allandrel
Ugh; that sounds awful. You have my sympathies.
If you can get this link to work; you might get a wry smile from this story maybe.
http://storage.cloversites.com/christianlifecollege/documents/The%20Way%20up%20to%20Heaven.pdf
Addendum:
Upon reading what other commenters have said, I’ve re-evaluated the situation and now think that the mother is definitely at fault. I’m sorry that I was too quick to lay blame upon the victim, and I’ll make sure not to do that again. Thank you to everyone who shared your stories, I’m sorry that you experienced abuse and I hope that your situation has improved/will improve.
Anyway, the point is I’m sorry I made judgements without fully understanding the situation and I’ll try to do better moving forward.
The mom puts her son quite in the shade, asshole-wise. The whole family dynamic sounds bad. I’d say the son should run fast and far.
Ugh, moms who don’t respect boundaries. Boy, do I know that sort of mom.
*Hugs Crip dyke. From one abused child to another.
As others have said, I think the mother is the asshole here, but no one can deny that it was a dick move.
…I’ll show myself out.
Look how reasonable and untrollike Iron Cthulu is being. I wonder if he’d be this magnanimous if this was a woman retaliating against a male abuser.
Nah. In the manosphere, victims are only to be believed if they’re men with female abusers.
@Crip Dyke
As another survivor of parental abuse, thank you. Consider hugs offered. 🙁
@Naglfar
It’s okay, seriously. For people who don’t grow up with abuse on this level, it is really, really hard to understand intuitively how damaging it is.
And like to be clear sending your abuser a dick pick is still not okay, but wow, this guy’s family sounds beyond the beyond and I hope he can get some help. Both for his own sake, and because from the sound of it he’s at risk of becoming an abuser himself some day.
The very opposite of a slow clap. Especially for Gaebolga.
I think they are both past the “asshole” point. I don’t feel a need or care to rate assholitude past that point, and they both need to cut it.
(assuming the story isn’t too deformed, since the guy here isn’t objective)
That’s similar to how I don’t find useful or productive to see if Hitler or Staline was the biggest villain.
One small point here:
If she is his mother, then presumably she has seen his penis before.
And from the sound of it, she liked how things were when she had full control over all his bodily functions as well as every aspect of his life.
The guy is a decent enough person to at least consider whether his actions were out of line or not. His mother seems to have no insight into her own behavior whatsoever.
Hugs to @cripdyke and @Allandrel.
As for this story, invading your adult offspring’s private digital space is… hell, I didn’t know that was even a thing. I can only imagine if my mom started demanding my computer passwords and codes.
Furry smut as far as the eye can see….
@WWTH
Of course, because the majority of abuse against men is by men, the manosphere ignores this and makes things much worse for men who are victims of abusive men.
@Cyborgette
I agree. I hope the OP gets some help. It sounds like the father is probably abusive as well judging from what little we know about the father.
@ IronCthuhlu:
No, if he’d left the phone unattended, or shown her any of his actual texts, she might have been able to get his girlfriend’s information and then you can be sure she’d have started to stalk and harass *her.*
My parents were super emotionally, sexually, and verbally abusive.
This line right here:
is sooooooooooo incredibly triggering to me. My parents used that line as an excuse when they would get caught getting into my stuff (journals, etc.) “if you can’t show this to us, you can’t do it!”
This guy needs to get out of this bullshit situation.
To the person lecturing about knowing right and wrong, when you’re abused as a kid, this concept can be fuzzy and vague at best, and non-existent at worst. When you are being abused, you are taught that a whole bunch of things are technically wrong but fine when they are done to you, or fine if the person was drunk when they did it, or ok because it’s mom and she’s “like that when she’s anxious”, etc, etc, etc…
@Cryp Dyke:
I forgot to say, thanks for your post up there. You said so much of what I was already thinking.
Also, everyone, I’m not defending sending your mom a dick pic either, that behavior is not ok!
@Moon Custafer
That, and also it would give her what she wants, so she’d still abuse him just for different reasons.
@Yutolia
I wasn’t lecturing, but okay.
I also accepted that possibility because I DO know what growing up in an abusive home is like, thanks.
I think we need some brain bleach here. How about sand cats?
Would people like some baby bats?
http://www.jesternoir.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/bats.jpg
@Sheila Crosby
Those baby bats are adorable.
I must say, though, having had bats in my home, they are not particularly fun to deal with. I didn’t have a net or other means of catching the bat and I didn’t want to hurt it, so I lured it into the bathroom, left the window open, stuffed sheets under the door, and it flew out a few hours later. I then had to clean bat guano out of my bathtub.
Now it’s an amusing anecdote, but at the time it was rather frightening because I didn’t know what to do or whether the bat had diseases.
Would not recommend to keep in home.