We’ve all been there.

Third email commenting on a picture with my feet. I never responded to any.

The unsolicited ‘dick pic’ in your DMs. The ‘heyy beautiful’ comment on your Instagram photo from the guy who’s come out of the woodwork to like all of your posts from the last several years. I’ve even had the same guy message me through my website from three different addresses (with the same variation on ‘Ira’) telling me how nice my feet looked in my martial arts pictures. Most of the time, this is an easy fix with an eye roll and the delete button, occasionally it requires a ‘block,’ but what about when the harassment doesn’t start out so blatant?

Regardless of the field that you’re in, having a social media presence is almost a necessity in the current climate. Doubly so if you’re trying to break into a creative field. Are you a newbie? Is your work good? That might be enough. But if you have a dedicated social media following, you have a leg up on everyone else with good work. Anyone looking to back your work assumes that you’ll bring that following with you. If you’re already well established, you may have the option of staying off of social media, or restricting it, however if you’re trying to break into your field, chances are you need to be active in at least one channel.

One of the more popular spaces for writers is Twitter’s #writerscommunity. Writers will help each other boost pitches during pitch events, offer advice for new writers trying to navigate the submission process, even literary agents occasionally will pop on and answer questions or share their MSWL (Manuscript Wish List). The community is generally supportive and writers reciprocally boost other writers.

One man in particular made a name for himself boosting new (mostly female) writers (largely erotica) and helping them gain followings. He would even buy their books and leave reviews. Often slide into the DMs, at first wishing them harmless ‘good mornings’ and ‘good evenings’ and occasionally complimenting their content. In short, he’d foster a sense of obligation before he started getting creepier: from getting angry when they change their profile picture to an avatar to avoid unwanted attention, to straight up offering to fly them up to meet him for thinly veiled sexual favors. (Maybe some weren’t thinly veiled, I could only go so far down the rabbit hole before I noped out for my own emotional health.)

His name is Dave Westfall and if you look up the Twitter hashtag #DontBeDave you’ll get a very quick rundown of what went down. Sadly, most of it likely won’t surprise you.

This is one of the tamer ones. Several called her a whore or said she should expect it because she writes erotica.

What infuriated me most were the men who came out of the woodwork to jump on the first woman to come forward (encouraging and warning countless others, I might add). She went through a painstaking 25+ count thread detailing how Dave had gained her trust, made her feel obligated, then turned abusive. She stated how stupid she felt for being taken in and how she was making the post so that others might avoid her mistakes. She then went to cry and drink.

If you’ve spent any time as a female presenting person, you probably immediately empathized with her. Someone took an interest, seemed to genuinely want to help, appeared to be mentoring others, but at the end of the day it all boiled down to one thing.

I will start by saying that some men were supportive of her (and the others who came forward). But many of them attacked her. Read that again.

Attacked her.

First they claimed she was doxxing someone with no evidence. Nevermind that she would have no reason to spill her shame the way she did otherwise. In response, she went through even more emotional labor and published the DMs she and Dave had exchanged. She was then accused of (get ready to scream, ladies) ‘overreacting’ to a man who was ‘just flirting’ with her. Here is another blog post by a lady named Alice that posts screenshots of some of the worst comments, if you want to upset your stomach.

But “why don’t victims of abuse come forward?”

Fortunately she did have supporters.

Several other women dug into their own DMs with #DontBeDave and published them as well. This was obviously not an isolated incident, this man was preying on women, attempting to groom them, and then going after their careers when he didn’t get what he wanted. (I.E. Trying to find out their real names when many erotic writers attempt to stay anonymous to avoid backlash from their dayjobs/outside lives. Leaving a glowing five star review only to return the book and drop a scathing one star review once his overtures were rebuffed. Things like this.)

But this post is not really about #DontBeDave, it’s about the men who jumped forward to defend him.

Our society has—for centuries—told us that women are responsible for the way men view and treat us. This has to be unlearned, but it is uncomfortable and hard.

I firmly believe that the reason those men jumped all over these women is because they recognized some of their own behavior in what #DontBeDave had done. Rather than get uncomfortable and honest with themselves for a second, they opted to place the blame on the victim. Where it’s always been.

While we’re here, let’s go further and ask why this woman felt such shame for being ‘taken in.’ Because it’s ingrained. It’s our responsibility to keep ourselves safe, not the man’s responsibility not to take advantage. When dudes screamed at her that she had to ‘prove it’—because heaven forbid we cause anyone to question a man’s Twitter integrity without due process—she didn’t flinch, but threw up more tweets that I’m sure embarrassed her further. Wasn’t enough for some guys, in fact, it probably fueled their angry fire if they’d ever done a ‘heyy baby’ in anyone’s DMs.

We all feel ‘like idiots’ when we find we’ve been duped in some way, but there is a special kind of shame that women feel when they thought they’d made a friend and ‘once again’ he was only interested in objectification and sex.

Fortunately, most of the Twitter writer community is rallying around protecting women writers and are actively using the #DontBeDave hashtag, among others, to out Dave as he changes his handle again and again, blocks anyone criticizing him, and continues to try and find new women to manipulate.

In this case, pushing through that shame and embarrassment was ‘worth it.’ I hope, at least, that the women who did come forward get a measure of satisfaction from this. I had no idea who this person was, but I immediately checked my friends to make sure I wasn’t following him (I wasn’t) but saw that many of my mutual friends were, so I retweeted the initial thread I had seen concerning this fiasco. At least one of my other friends did check it out and unfriended him. Word is getting out about him and hopefully a few people won’t have to experience his abuse. He still has 42.5K followers.

So why don’t more victims of abuse come forward?

In so many cases, we decide to cut our losses. We’ve either been conditioned that this is our fault, told that it’s our fault, or have felt enough shame over it already and don’t see how putting ourselves through more will benefit anyone. I actually had a boyfriend tell me that something horrific I had personally experienced was my fault when I opened up to him about it. This was a man I was living with. We’d discussed marriage. (Bullet dodged.) And when I communicated an event that I felt terrible about, that happened to me, he shrugged and said it was my fault.

So my ask at the end of all of this is for the guys to help us out. If you hear a woman opening up about something that happened to her and it makes you feel uncomfortable and defensive, take a breath and ask yourself why. Before you jump all over the person in front of you. If you feel that you’ve behaved similarly, be brave, take a deeper dive, and ask yourself what drove you to act that way and whether this new perspective might offer you an opportunity to change. We can all create a more supportive space for people to come forward.

Are You A Dave?