Image: Dickoupage Project
When Sabrina Cognata created the Dickoupage Project, she wanted to shine a light on the evil that men do. A year later, she’s proven why it still matters.
If there is such a thing as an Alpha male, Sabrina Cognata truly represents the Alpha female.
As an alpha, she effortlessly presents herself as strong, and dare I say, majestic. She intimidates those who would think they could get the better of her, and she exudes an influence that wins her as many followers as it creates enemies.
There’s nothing quite as brilliant as a woman with confidence and ambition. But not just because she’s a woman.
To watch her work, using only words and a images freely sent to her by men who think showing off their dicks will somehow bend her to their will, she’s taken something meant initially as artistic expression and turned it into tangible lessons on how men treat women, but also how we can and should absolutely be better.
Photo: Facebook
In the year-and-a-half since Cognata created the Dickoupage Project, she’s also been a project, a work in progress, if you will. While she is an extremely talented writer, she’s also a living, breathing powder keg, or at least she was.
Her intelligence is matched note for note by a willingness to live life not only to its fullest, but also past it. She has an intriguing, yet dangerous quality to her, and for some, it’s also a point of attraction.
Not the type of attraction you’re thinking, but one of a pied piper sensibility. When Sabrina talks, you listen, and when she acts, you want to follow…wherever that leads.
But as with all things, the party has to end, or at least it has to change, and so has she. Change, however, doesn’t happen overnight, and with Cognata, her evolution is turning into something that is worth watching, even as she drags throngs of men kicking and screaming behind her.
I first learned of Cognata as most people did, via social media. Being a typical man, I found myself attracted by a gigantic pair of breasts attached to a woman who I would soon find out was so much more than the sum of her parts.
Sure, I, like so many others, showed up for the tits, but once I peeled back a few layers, I was hooked.
Here was someone equal parts funny, raunchy and fearless, and she had a plan. The more I found out, the more I wanted to tell everyone, so I asked her to record a segment for the Never Daunted Radio Network, which she graciously agreed to.
Since then I’ve had the pleasure of watching her work, and I’ve become a fan, I’ve also learned quite a bit.
Learning is probably the biggest reason why what Cognata does is so vital to not just feminism, but also how men regard women, not just as equals, but as human beings.
For men, the idea of sending a picture of their penis to an unsuspecting woman, whether they know them or not is some sort of invitation, one they didn’t ask for, and certainly didn’t want. For us, somewhere along the line we were hardwired to believe that all women wanted to see our packages and if they didn’t they were less than (fill in the blank).
By starting Dickoupage, Cognata turned men’s weapons against them. Instead of being objectified, she was doing the objectifying, and men didn’t like it. She runs active profiles on Tinder and OK Cupid in order to get men to submit their dick pics, and when they do and realize that she wants nothing else to do with them other than get their pictures, they feel empty, they feel abused…
They feel like women. Imagine that.
So much of the behavior men routinely visit on women falls far below any standard men would ever allow for themselves, and Cognata uses that reality and wields it like the sharpest of blades, and that blade always hits its target. Deeply.
But more than the public dick shaming, Dickoupage is also a hub for some fantastic reading. Recently, Cognata wrote about struggles with body positivity, and the way she tackled it was to look at how a perceived flaw could be compared to a work of art.
Off I went to the internet to look up Modigliani on dialup. It probably took like 15 minutes for each photo to load. But I waited it out since I wanted to look at them. Not because I wanted to see his paintings. I knew vaguely what his work looked like. I looked them up because I wanted to look at me without looking at myself. God. What a running trend that would become in my life. But this isn’t about that. This is about figuring ways to love and accept yourself. And part of how I did that was with Modigliani paintings.
I can only imagine someone who hates how they look, so much so that it poisons the way they feel about themselves stopping and looking at that piece and maybe, if only for a moment, looking at themselves a different way. All under the roof of a site that exists to shame and objectify the men who would dare shame and objectify women.
And it’s in these ways that you see how Dickoupage matters, how Sabrina Cognata matters.
Much of what Cognata does hits home for me. I’ve always felt that I was better than the average chauvinist. I was no misogynist, but the reality is that I was no better. Even as I’ve gone out of my way to help women, giving any opportunity I had to help them out, I also was guilty of objectifying women as well.
Watching and reading Cognata’s work over time, I would find myself bristling, even thinking that she was being unreasonable and maybe a little crazy at times, but eventually I would come around. I came around because I was learning. It wasn’t Cognata’s job to be some insane man-hating bitch, and it’s certainly not her goal. What she does every time she posts a dick pic, every time she shuts down a man who thinks he knows more or better than her, she’s actually training us to do better.
There’s a right way and a wrong way to talk to a woman, and Cognata is the line. She is the line you cross, and the one you stay behind. If you pay attention, you will get better and you will be a better man than when you started.
Now men may not care, but they should. How we talk to women, how we treat women will define our standing with them. Since knowing and observing Cognata, I’ve found that when I’m with women, whether or dates or on a more professional level, I’m more mindful.
Not because I have to be, but because I want to be. I want to be better, because seeing how men who are unwilling to treat Cognata like a human being makes me want to treat every woman I know better, even if I was already doing OK. Maybe it’s a knee jerk reaction to never wanting to be made an example of, or simply because I’m no longer interested in standing on the sidelines indifferent to the way women are treated by men who believe that they’re entitled to their attention and their vaginas.
I, for one, am glad Sabrina Cognata and Dickoupage are around doing the work that most women could never stomach, despite the fact that they endure it each and every day.
I’m also tremendously proud to know her (as much as I do), because I know that someday soon, everyone will know her, and if you’re lucky, you’ll learn as much from her as I and other have, and you will take that knowledge and make life just a little better.
Hashim R. Hathaway (Uncle Shimbo) is the host of the Never Daunted Radio Network, and proud father to NeverDaunted.Net. You can reach him on Twitter @NeverDauntedNet