Keep Your Pants On: Guys and Their Junk

April 9, 2015

Last week in my hometown, a local physician was arrested for exposing himself to a young woman who was walking across her college campus, minding her own business and probably contemplating the lecture on thermodynamics she’d just attended, or perhaps working out the first draft of a paper tracing the vicissitudes of the American economy from the trickle-down economics of the 1980’s through the dot-com boom of the late nineties, followed by the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008.  Because that’s what rigorous women at college should be doing.  You know, thinking about shit and puzzling out thorny, complex issues.

Anyway, Dr. X (who hopes to have a career in plastic surgery, probably so he can see a lot of boobs whose owners want them enhanced) was apparently sitting in his car doing that thing you’re not supposed to do if you’re Catholic.  He spies our intellectually formidable young woman walking towards him, and he beckons her over to his car.  She responds and approaches, probably because she’s a trusting sort who feels relatively safe on her nice suburban campus, and probably because she assumes that maybe he needs help.  Which, apparently, he does (because when you’re sitting alone in your car on a college campus and you’re not wearing pants, chances are you’re in serious need of help in the form of psychiatric evaluation and treatment).  When our college student sees what’s going on, what she DOESN’T do is stride on over to the passenger side of his car, open up the door and say, “hey, guy, can you keep doing that, and can I keep watching?”  What she DOES do is contact campus security and have him arrested.  Which should be surprising to no one, except, perhaps, Dr. X.

This story got a fair amount of coverage in the local media, probably because the guy involved was a doctor, and we tend to expect just a tad bit more self-restraint from our healthcare professionals.  If the last several years have taught us nothing, however, it’s that some men, no matter what their station in life, find it difficult not to share their genitals with the rest of the world, whether the rest of the world wants to see them or not.

Think former congressman Anthony Weiner.  Think Green Bay Packer great Brett Favre.  Think NBA player Tony Parker.  What do these guys have in common?  Well, they’ve all been caught texting photos of their junk to women who hadn’t signed up to be on the Celebrity Dick Pics mailing list.  At the time these guys sent their X-rated communiques, they were married to women who, presumably, did not know, and were not pleased to learn, about their husband’s texting habits.  Although two of those marriages seem to have survived (only Eva Longoria was miffed enough to give her hubby the heave-ho), the conduct in question forced Anthony Weiner to resign from public office and cast an unseemly haze upon the legacy of Brett Favre, who, up to that point, was widely considered to be not only one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history but also a loving, faithful husband and all-around good guy.  Now, maybe not so much.

When you consider the fallout, one has to wonder why men so powerful, with so much to lose, would take such risks and behave in such an absurdly stupid fashion.  You could ask the same question about other men who have been embroiled in sex scandals – Tiger Woods and Bill Clinton leap to mind – and there are probably a lot of explanations, including that the rich and famous are used to doing whatever they want and often forget that they’re not invincible.

What fascinates me, however, is not so much that people in search of sexual gratification sometimes behave recklessly, but that there are men out there—a lot of them—who believe that there are women out there who want to see their dicks.

And so, on behalf of all women, everywhere, from the beginning of time to the present, let me say once and for all, so that it never has to be said again, ever:

Gentlemen, women don’t want to see your dicks.

There.  Are we good now?

Good.

To be clear, I’m not saying that we don’t want to have anything to do with, or hope never to encounter, male genitalia – there are plenty of us who do.  It’s just that before most of us are interested in seeing your junk, we’d probably like to know a little bit about you first, like, your name, for starters.  Some of us would even like to have shared an interactive experience with you before we get a peek at your twig and berries – you know, like, having a meal, going to a movie, or maybe chatting over a cocktail (no pun intended), so that WHEN it’s time for you to take off your pants (not in your car, sitting on a college campus trolling for barely legal co-eds), we know a little something about you, and trust me, we can wait – truly, we can wait – before we find out once and for all whether or not your circumcised or shave your balls.  Call me old-fashioned, but I think I speak for the majority of women out there.

I think some of the misunderstanding on the part of all those guys out there with a cell phone and a penis is that men tend to be more visual than women when it comes to sexual attraction, and men kind of figure that if they like seeing and are aroused by pictures of naked women, that the converse must also be true—that is, that women like seeing and are aroused by pictures of naked men.

Well, we’re not.  Not even a little bit.  Which is perhaps why “Playgirl” magazine is no longer in print.

There are some women, I suppose, who find the male organ attractive, and, upon receiving a text of some guy’s willy, are ready to rock and roll.  Perhaps getting a digital preview of the main event gets certain girls going, but most of the women with whom I’ve ever discussed this issue have been of a pretty similar mind, which is to say that the penis takes some getting used to.  There’s a lot going on down there, and it’s a lot to take in.  Opening up a text from someone with whom you’ve exchanged nothing more than some casual conversation and finding some full frontal instead is kind of disconcerting; you can’t just spring those things on us, guys, because let’s face it—your junk be weird looking, and we don’t need to look at it to know whether or not we want to date you.

Despite this fact, there are men out there—a lot of them—who really, really, REALLY WANT TO SHOW US THEIR WIENERS.  Perhaps the impetus is as simple as that felt by a little kid who wants his mommy to watch him jump off the diving board, or perhaps it’s as insidious as the impulse which leads some men to commit more violent acts of sexual assault.  Whatever the reason, these guys can’t really be thinking that texting a woman a picture of their wing-wang is the surefire way into her heart (or her pants), can they?

If you are, guys, let me say it again:  It’s not.  It’s really, really not.

Now, let you feel I’m being unfair to the penis, I want to acknowledge that since the beginning of time, the male organ has given a lot of pleasure to a lot of people, including some women, but not because they were staring at one.  Men, we all know you’ve got one, and trust us, if we want to see it, we’ll ask.  But until then, please…keep your pants on.