I recently received a dick pic from a guy I met on Grindr.
Warm and well-lit, the framing on the photo was perfect and the texture appeared to benefit from one of those “bright” Instagram filters — probably Mayfair, given the thin black border.
The shaft’s skin was luscious, healthy and blemish-free. Even the scrotum lacked wrinkles, suggesting the sender used Facetune, a mobile photo app that can lift your face, whiten your teeth and remove even the slightest imperfection, leaving you (or your scrotum) to resemble a TV news anchor.
I passed, figuring any guy who spends so much time doctoring his junk would be high maintenance.
But it got me thinking: Why shouldn’t a dick pic — the lowest form of photography — benefit from a touch up or a little bit of added jazz? Besides, haven’t women been doing this to their nudes for years?
Or as Alix Mcalpine, director of content strategy at GIPHY Studios, tweeted:
https://twitter.com/alixmcalpine/status/868545722714472448
Turns out, technology has blessed us with a variety of ways to be thoughtful when sending a dick pick…
Make Your Dick A Beloved Cartoon Character
Reddit user wackyg recently posted a photo in the cospenis Subreddit with the title “Kermit the Dong Here,” which he made with Snapchat’s cutting tool. “I have a 4-foot tall stuffed Kermit,” he tells me. “I took photos of his head and limbs, snipped them in-app and then pasted them on a regular dick pic.” Pics on /r/cospenis are more for comedy than titillation, he explains. But most people sew real costumes or lift them from a Ken doll, making wackyg’s digital alteration rare, especially among top-rated posts.
Besides varying angles and pulling back the head so it looks bigger, wackyg hasn’t done variations on Kermit the Dong, but he wants to, believing more men should get creative when photographing their penis.“Dick pics have a reputation for being pointless, especially when compared with nudes taken by women. I think that taking them for yourself, whether that’s just taking a full-body mirror shot, or doing something like cospenis, can result in a lot of beautiful, funny and honest photos.”
Tell A Story
Simon* was taking some tasteful nude shots when he noticed his dick had been resting on a pillow the whole time. So he decided to put a sheet over it halfway like a blanket as if it were was sleeping, a gag that was well received by his lover. “I’ve always wondered what my dick does in the times he is up before I am, he must get so bored waiting for me to wake up,” the 30-something photographer from San Francisco tells me. This thought inspired him to started drawing arms, hands and a face on his “Little Dude,” as he calls his penis, before photographing it in different situations, like voting on election day or mourning David Bowie. Though his girlfriend lost interest in these photos, they led to popular Tumblr blog called Things My Dick Does, which features the Little Dude on a never-ending adventure. “I feel like he’s like a little kid seeing the world for the first time,” Simon says. (*Simon’s not his real name. He manages the blog anonymously, for obvious reasons.)
Sometimes Little Dude bakes a cake:
Sometimes he dresses up for Halloween:
And drinks too much:
“People were always telling me that they were so unimpressed with other dick pictures they would receive and that I took really good ones,” Simon explains. “It’s all about lighting when it comes to dick pics. And angles. Get down there.”
Make Them SFW
TrickPics from PornHub, available for free on the App Store and Google Play, allows you to share photos of your penis on Facebook by covering your dick with animated stickers. The app currently offers more than 15 filters, including “Hand Solo,” “D-Moji,” “Dickin-a-box” and “Midnight Snack,” though PornHub promises more are coming soon. “Selfies are essentially the self-portrait of the digital age, capturing individuals in all their glory,” Pornhub VP Corey Price said in a statement. “Our new app provides graphic animation which overlays an image’s NSFW components to create a SFW, shareable image. Our fans can now share sexy pics with a twist, in a fun way that evokes their creativity.”
The idea for the app came when a PornHub staffer was banned from Instagram for posting too many racy photos. (The promotional video refers to Instagram as “Dickstagram,” calling attention to the social network’s nipple-censoring policies.) YouTube reviewer Davison explains the app is all about censoring your selfies so they don’t set off the “ban hammer,” as she describes it, on various social networks. She even demos the app by censoring a photo of her dog who’s showing a little too much nip.
The idea for the app came when a Pornhub staffer was banned from Instagram for posting too many racy photos. (The promotional video refers to Instagram as “Dickstagram,” calling attention to the social network’s nipple-censoring policies.) YouTube reviewer Davison explains the app is all about censoring your selfies so they don’t set off the “ban hammer,” as she describes it, on various social networks. She even demos the app by censoring a photo of her dog who’s showing a little too much nip.
Hire a Professional
Soraya Doolbaz, an Iranian-Canadian photographer living in New York, received tons of dic pics when she was single. They varied in quality, she says, depending on the guy and the relationship. Doolbaz knew she could do better, so she made Dicture.com, a gallery of dick pics she treats like high-fashion shoots. “I realized I could create a personality out of penises,” she explains on the “About Me” page.
“The goal of Dicture is to make people laugh by taking something many see as dirty and making it funny. “Women want to laugh,” she told BuzzFeed. “So I think having a costume or character added to the dick pic takes the vulgarity away, while still getting the point across.”
On Dicture you’ll find, “Dongye West” a.k.a “Cockeezy”:
“Mr. Dickman”:
“Rabbi Shaftstein”:
And “Fidel Cockstroke,” the costume for which came from a bidding war online over a limited-edition Fidel Castro doll, a one-of-a-kind collector’s item (“I eventually won, took all the clothes off, and threw the doll away)”:
As Doolbaz explains on her website, until now, men have largely controlled the nude content that’s created. “As a result, tits and ass have owned the spotlight,” she says. She believes, however, that we’re entering a dick-pic renaissance. “The penis is re-emerging through dick pics whether for sexual liaising or just a ‘hey how you doing I’m thinking of you’ text from your partner. It’s a cock revolution people!”
C. Brian Smith
C. Brian Smith writes hard-hitting gonzo features for MEL, whether it be training with a masturbation coach, receiving psycho corporal treatment from a spank therapist, or embarking on a week-long pleasure cruise with 75 Santa Clauses following their busy season.
