A woman conducted a horrifying experiment to show just how awful sexual harassment is

The internet is great, but we are all more than aware that it can be really grim.

Trolls and unsavoury forums are rife in certain corners of the web.

One thing is certain - abuse on the internet is also bleak, especially if you're a woman.

From a male standpoint it's hard to understand just how much vitriol and grossness is aimed at women online.

In order to demonstrate it, sexual violence researcher and writer Jessica Eaton, conducted an experiment with her husband.

They started out by finding a random non-sexual chat room and registered him as an 18-year-old boy.

Then they changed the account to read that he was an 18-year-old girl and that's where the shocking reality of the internet was unleashed.

This quickly opened his eyes to the vastness of sexual harassment online.

Unbelievably some of the men sending the messages admitted that they had important jobs.

It proved to be a valuable lesson for Jessica's husband.

Her thread soon went viral and it inspired other people to share some of the unwanted sexual messages they have received online.

When someone asked how they could conduct the experiment themselves she offered this advice.

Others then began thanking Jessica for sharing her experiment and expose the magnitude of online harassment towards women.

HT Twitter

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