Why Are Grown Men Throwing Dildos at WNBA Games, and WTF Does Crypto Have to Do With It?

Last week a third man was arrested for allegedly throwing a sex toy—specifically, a dildo—toward the court during a WNBA game, a trend that started in July and for which a cryptocurrency group has taken credit, while claiming not to be associated with (all of) the people who’ve been apprehended by law enforcement. If you can understand every individual word of that sentence but feel like your brain might explode when trying to figure out what each means in context, we’ve got you covered.

Let’s rewind for a second. On July 29, a man attending a WNBA game (the Atlanta Dream versus the Golden State Valkyries) threw a green dildo onto the court during the fourth quarter; play was stopped and an official kicked the object off the court. Days later, at a game between the Valkyries and the Chicago Sky, another green dildo was thrown onto the court during the third quarter, similarly leading to a stoppage in play. On August 5, a similar sex toy was thrown at a game between the Los Angeles Sparks and the Indiana Fever, seemingly in Fever guard Sophie Cunningham’s direction. At least two other incidents have been reported.

A consortium of cryptocurrency traders has taken credit for the stunts, claiming that they were planned in order to promote a meme coin called Green Dildo Coin, which was launched the day before the first dildo was thrown. A spokesman for the group, who would only reveal his social media handle, @Daldo_Raine, told USA Today that the meme coin was created as a way to protest the “toxic” environment of the crypto world. He claimed that there has been no intent to hurt anyone and that the group has definitely not been engaging in misogynistic behavior. “We didn’t do this because we dislike women’s sports or, like—some of the narratives that are trending right now are ridiculous,” he said. “Creating disruption at games is like—it happens in every single sport, right? We’ve seen it in the NFL, we’ve seen it in hockey, you know…fans doing random things to more or less create attention.” Posts from the group’s Telegram community, reviewed by ESPN, show one user declaring, shortly before tip-off on the night of the first incident, “We will soon buy the league.”

On August 1, Delbert Carver of Marietta, Georgia, was arrested for allegedly throwing a green dildo onto the court during the Dream game against the Phoenix Mercury; according to ESPN, police records show that “Carver was detained after trying to flee and confessed to throwing the first sex toy July 29 as well. He faces counts of disorderly conduct, public indecency/indecent exposure, and criminal trespass.” (Carver did not respond to multiple requests for comment from ESPN; @Daldo_Raine told the outlet that Carver was not the thrower of the object on July 29, but declined to say who threw it.)




https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/why-are-grown-men-throwing-dildos-at-wnba-games-and-wtf-does-crypto-have-to-do-with-it