A Woman’s Perspective On Dick Pix
By Nicole James
Fourteen years after a French inventor successfully sent out the first cell phone photo of his newborn daughter to his friends and family, here we are — yawning through each other’s Mobile Uploads albums on Facebook and “at” replying to TwitPics with the swipe of a finger. The once state-of-the-art technology of instantly viewing unique photos from around the world has become lackluster and commonplace. But the most prolific byproduct of the camera phone that remains rather puzzling is the dick pic.
A dick pic, known in some circles as a “cock shot,” is a photo of a man’s penis transmitted via the multimedia messaging service on your cell phone. Some are tall, some are short. Some are dark, some are bright. Some are vivid, some are dull. Dick pix, like dicks themselves, come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Sometimes it’s a curt close-up of the friendly member, other times it’s a coy peek of the pubes. And sometimes it’s a full nude body shot, face included, sent from the cell phone of a man that just eliminated his chance of ever running for public office.
Despite the deep shit so many men have gotten themselves into by soliciting their dick pix and having them leaked to the public (Pete Wentz in 2006, Tiger Woods in 2009, and Brett Farve in 2010, to name a few), it seems as though most of them are still ready and willing to send a woman they barely know a photo of their penis with little to no coercion. Why is this? Evolution, probably. Throughout history, the moment a new technology has been created and released for mass consumption, men seem to ask themselves, “But what about my dick?” The wheel: “I’ll put my dick in it.” The automobile: “A metaphor for the dick I’ve always wanted.” Steel-framed skyscrapers: “Let’s make them look like dicks.” So the transition from camera phone-as-major-innovative-tool to another-vessel-whereby-others-can-admire-my-penis was a natural one.
Dick pix can and will show up in your inbox at any time and can come with little to no warning. After we might meet and take a liking to a seemingly normal adult male with no apparent mental disorder, chances are we’re not returning the picture text of him holding his boner in a well-lit bathroom mirror. We were just in the middle of an apple and a pile of expense reports in our office, so a screen full of unexpected cock doesn’t exactly merit a “Fine, thanks, how’s your day?”
I’d like to let all the dick pic senders out there in on a vital piece of information — there is only one time when our phones start vibrating that we’re hoping when we retrieve the message it will be a photo of your dick, and that is when we explicitly, clearly, and distinctly ask you to send us a photo of your dick. All of the other times it’s fucking weird. All of the other times.
Dicks are a beautiful part of your anatomy that we love and appreciate, but let us decide when we’re ready to see it before you photo bomb us in the middle of a grocery store on a Sunday afternoon. Besides, do you really want the first time that we see your dick to be when it’s pixilated on a three-inch by three-inch screen? (While we’re buying cucumbers?) We do want to see your dick eventually, but only if you don’t scare us off with a surprise photo of it first.