Why Do Men Send Unsolicited Pictures Of Their Penises?

The internet has made life so much easier in so many ways.

You can shop online for just about anything, browse vast libraries of information, watch a lecture from a world-class university, keep in touch easily with family and friends from all over the globe and… get hundreds of unwanted dick pics sent to you from strangers.

Most women who have ventured online will have experienced it at one time or another – men sending unsolicited pictures of their genitalia. If you’re a woman who’s involved in online dating, it’s probably happened to you at some point, but the phenomenon isn’t new.

Twenty years ago, it was happening in chat rooms and on instant messaging services. You’d be minding your own business and then the next thing you know, some dude on the other side of the world (or maybe even a few blocks away) sends a photo of some erect, throbbing, veiny, one-eyed purple trouser snake and you’re supposed to be impressed.

The reality is for these guys that: a) women really don’t want to see it, and b) often these photos are sent without asking and without any explanation or context. The dick pic might be sent before the guy even says “hello”. And c) it’s probably the 100th unwanted dick pic a woman has seen that week, especially if she’s on a dating site. Yawn.

Sometimes, the dick pic isn’t sent instantly. A gal might be having a nice conversation with a guy online, getting to know him, seeing what they have in common and then he’ll just randomly send the dick pic in between asking what she does for work and what sort of music she likes. Ugh.

For many heterosexual women, penises are great and we enjoy having sexual intercourse with them, but they’re just not that great to look at. They are NOT pretty. Sorry, guys. But if we want to look at it, we’ll let you know.

If you met a guy in a bar, or on a public street, on the train, at a party, wherever, and he was interested in you and showed you that he wanted to get to know you more by whipping his penis out and flashing it, he’d know that he’d probably be done for indecent exposure.

That’s not to say that there aren’t creeps out there that don’t do this. Sadly, there are. But online, something changes and many guys (yes, not ALL men!) who would never do this thing to you in person, face-to-face, think that randomly showing their trouser snake to you over the internet is polite conversation.

You don’t really hear about women sending unsolicited vag pics to guys on social media very often (usually if you DO hear about it, it’s satire, or someone is trying to prove a point about sending unsolicited pictures of genitalia).

Overwhelmingly, the issue seems to be a male thing.

Why do they do this?

Do they think that showing off what’s in their pants is going to make women decide that they really really really want to have sex with them? Really?

According to David Ley, Ph.D writing in Psychology Today, it’s likely that the sending of the dick pic highlights male misperception of female sexual interest.

“Men love the idea of receiving such pictures from strangers and they assume women do too,” he writes.

“Men notoriously misperceive women’s sexual interest in them and project their own sexual interests and desires onto women. In this situation, men really are hoping and thinking that you’ll be turned on and send them a pic in response.”

Continued on Page 2