Gifting a woman with an unsolicited dick pic is pretty high up on the list of sexting offenses, but there’s obviously some confusion about this, considering the sheer number of men who send surprise snaps of their unsheathed penis to unsuspecting ladies.
A survey by Match.com found that 49 percent of women have received a dick pic that they could have gone another day without seeing. Oof…come on, fellas. 49 percent of women means many, many dick pics. So. Many. Dick pics.
When a woman innocently opens up a text and sees a big honkin’ penis on her screen, it feels like a slap in the face. A slap in the face with a dick. A dick slap, if you will. If your intention was to turn her on with a spontaneous picture of your penis, you were wrong. In case you didn’t know, unsolicited dick pics lead to more unpleasant shock than arousal.
Now that we’ve established that unsolicited dick pics are bad, let’s move on to the real question: Why do so many men send dick pics that they know women are going to cringe/laugh at? Is it worth getting your number blocked? Since there’s no scientific research on the topic of dick pic behavior, psychologist Dr. Justin Lehmiller offered his own hypothesis on the matter.
Lehmiller says that the most likely explanation is that “men are simply misperceiving women’s interest in receiving photos of their junk.” So, you might think that she wants a picture of your penis, but you’re wrong. She doesn’t want it.
“There’s a large body of research indicating that men aren’t very good at determining how interested women are in sex,” he adds, suggesting reading body language isn’t the strongest quality of men. And obviously, that might lead to a misunderstanding about her interest in receiving spontaneous pictures of your crotch.
When a dude talks to a lady, he tends to confuse her friendliness for blatant flirting, and just assumes she wants to see his penis, Lehmiller says. For instance, if she smiles at him, she gets a dick pic. If she laughs at his jokes, she gets a dick pic. If she makes friendly conversation, she gets a dick pic. In many situations, she gets a dick pic.
Lehmiller says this behavior comes from an evolutionary theory called error management theory, which “suggests men and women have evolved specific cognitive biases that are likely to assist in successful reproduction. Overperceiving a female stranger’s interest in sex—whether on Tinder or in the real world—could be viewed as adaptive from the perspective of this theory in that it reduces the likelihood that men will pass up any potential reproductive opportunities.” Cool.
Employing this strategy means that even though the dick pic is going to fail to get the woman on the receiving end hot and bothered 99.9 percent of the time, it will, however, ensure he doesn’t miss out on anyone who might be interested, however rare, nay, impossible, that might be.
Wow, that was a lot of information to take in, but now you know the psychology behind unsolicited dick pics. It’s evolutionary! But even so, unsolicited dick pics will not get you laid. I repeat: unsolicited dick pics will not get you laid. So don’t do it. Just put your phone down until the urge passes, or something.
H/T: Lehmiller