Our new sex columnist answers the crucial question Anthony Weiner (and every man) wishes he'd asked
This week, I also got a penis direct message on Twitter. It was from my friend Gina, who was worried that a penis direct messaging scandal might get in the way of our mission to get Fred Durst to direct message us a picture of his penis. I guess it's more of a contest, really, since the loser has to take the winner to Friendly's.
I must say: though there are many far more important considerations, I hope that the takeaway from this Anthony Weiner snafu is not that men should stop sending pictures of their penises to women.
Not only because this would throw a wrench in the contest and effectively end my social life, but because sometimes, penis pictures are great. I've heard the mendacious hypothesis floated that because these women didn't want penis pictures, no women want penis pictures. That's just a bad syllogism. Some women want penis pictures. No women want them under the wrong circumstances.
So let's talk about the right ones.
Like it or not, penises are not breasts. (Like it!) Even people who love penises don't really want to be surprised by one, even if it's a great penis or the penis of a great guy. Like, Drew Barrymore seems like a cool lady who likes penises. Remember when Drew Barrymore surprised David Letterman with her breasts, and everybody was like, Ha ha. Oh, that Drew. If David Letterman had surprised Drew Barrymore with his penis, everybody would have kind of been like, Whoa! Not cool, Dave.
It's a double standard, to be sure, but we knew this. So, for the life of me, I don't understand why you would send a penis-surprise to somebody who you weren't absolutely sure would treasure it.
Sometimes when I'm on a particularly boring conference call, I'll just idly draw, only to realize that Hey, that's a pretty damn good sailboat I've got going there. You know what? I'm proud of my sailboat and I think I'd like to show it to somebody else. I can't, however, fathom of making someone's fresh acquaintance and going, "Hey, we're hitting it off and you seem like an art lover. Look at this drawing of a sailboat." For one, I couldn't take the rejection if they said they found it simplistic or small and floppy. For two, what if they went to the police, or worse, the Internet? If you wouldn't show a woman you just started flirting with at a bar a picture of your sailboat, don't text her a picture of your sailboat!
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you actually know a woman well enough and she's seen your penis—or you'd eventually like her to. Don't send a penis picture when you're trying to woo. I'm not pointing any elbows here (ahem, Favre) but boudoir photography is for someone whom you have 1) established a mutual rapport with and 2) established is a freak. Penises are not a valentine! Imagine if, when Simone de Beauvoir wrote, "I'm lacerated everywhere by being far away from you," Sartre had sent back a snap of his wang. No.
I can't stress how important it is for you to know that a girl likes you in that way first. We don't even want a funny email forward from a guy we're not into. Half of what women who like penis pictures like is the idea that a guy we are turned on by is turned on by us (what is a boner, in the end, but a compliment made out of meat?). We have to like the guy the penis is attached to. A disembodied penis is not sexy. It is a Troma film.
You also shouldn't just send a penis picture without knowing a girl, period. Because sending a dirty photo is an unspoken pact, like being in a group of promising college-bound teens who accidentally kill a guy with their car. Send pictures of your penis only to women who get this and are sane. This goes doubly if you are someone of any notoriety.
You may be asking, how can you be sure? There's one sure-fire way. When a girl you know, like, and trust asks for a picture of your penis, you'll know it's time to get out your camera, fire up your Macbook, and Photoshop her head onto the body of a woman throwing away a cat. It's called collateral.
Julieanne Smolinski AKA Boobs Radley is a writer who has been in a monogamous relationship with the Internet since 1993. This is her first column for GQ.com. She tweets here.
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/mens-lives/201106/sexting-anthony-weiner-message
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