Drake's Nudes & Men's Relationship With Consent

Men are often the first victims of their own patriarchy

As I was sitting down to write this piece about Drake’s nudes, I came across this one on PopSugar. In it, writer Lola Méndez succinctly explains how male privilege creates a double standard and different reactions when nude photos of men are leaked vs. those of women. While women experience judgment and ostracization, men are allowed in on a joke, celebrated, or otherwise unaffected. At first, I thought I had been scooped and was going to scrap this essay, but then I realized I had more to say.

Here’s the backstory in case you missed it: A video of Drake, nude from the waist down and flopping his dick around, went viral on the internet last week. The thirst tweets flooded the timeline. Many of them were from people who are openly attracted to men, i.e. straight women and queer men. But the straight niggas also added themselves to the chat in a brazen display homoerotic fandom. (What they implied was that they couldn’t “compete” with Drake for the attention of women. What it gave was that they couldn’t compete with each other for the attention of Drake. No shade.)

The rapper hasn’t confirmed or denied whether or not the content was leaked without his consent. However, I like to err on the side of caution in these situations. I’m assuming he didn’t intend for the video to be shared with the general public, and if that’s the case, Drake's consent was violated. If I were in his shoes, people finding me attractive or aspirational wouldn’t make me feel any better about said violation. But I’m also not a man. For so many people, using this moment to marvel at the size of Drake’s dick instead of being concerned about who put his nudes on the internet and why was acceptable because Drake is a man.

This got me thinking about how men are so often the first victims of their own patriarchy, something feminist scholars like bell hooks have reminded us of time and time again. While I can’t and don’t desire to save niggas from the hellscape they created and sustain, it begs the question: Will we (Black folks, in particular) ever realize a world free from sexualized violence when the primary perpetrators can’t even recognize it when it happens to them?