Part 1 of 9 in the Toxic Masculinity in 2026: A Field Guide series.

Let's start where no one wants to start: the unsolicited penis.

It arrives in DMs like a dead fish on a doorstep. Unrequested. Unwelcome. Baffling in its optimism. The sender apparently believes this will work—that the recipient will see his genitals and think yes, this is the man for me.

This is insane. And yet it keeps happening. Which means we have to ask: why?

Not to excuse it. To understand it. Because "men are trash" isn't analysis—it's catharsis. And the phenomenon is too widespread to be explained by individual pathology. Something structural is going on.

Let's investigate.

Actual research exists on this.

Psychologist Cory Pedersen and colleagues have studied unsolicited dick pic senders. The findings are more interesting than "they're all predators."

The researchers surveyed hundreds of men who admitted to sending unsolicited genital photos. They asked about motivations, expected reactions, actual reactions received. They compared dick pic senders to non-senders across various psychological dimensions. They controlled for general sexual behavior to isolate what's specific to this particular phenomenon.

What emerged wasn't a single profile. Not one type of sender with one motivation. Multiple distinct patterns, each revealing different failure modes of male psychology.

The research identifies several motivations:

Exhibitionism. Some men are genuinely aroused by the act of exposure itself. The recipient's reaction—even disgust—is part of the charge. This is the smallest group but the most pathological.

Misperceived reciprocity. Many senders genuinely believe the recipient will enjoy it. They project their own psychology: I would love to receive unsolicited nudes, therefore she will too. This is catastrophically bad theory of mind, not predation.

Transactional thinking. Some men send hoping to receive pics in return. They're trying to initiate an exchange. It doesn't work, but the logic (such as it is) isn't aggressive—it's transactional.

Mate-value signaling. A smaller group believes genital size signals mate quality and that displaying it is rational courtship behavior. They're wrong, but they believe it.

The research found that the majority of senders aren't trying to intimidate. They're genuinely confused about why it doesn't work. They lack the imaginative capacity to model female psychology.

This is somehow worse.

Here's the theory of mind failure in stark terms:

Men are, on average, more visually aroused. Male sexuality responds strongly to visual stimuli—images, videos, bodies. This isn't controversial; it's why pornography skews male. Show a man an attractive naked body and arousal is the typical response—immediate, automatic, requires minimal context.

Many men project this onto women. They assume female sexuality works the same way. I would be thrilled to receive nude photos from women. Therefore women will be thrilled to receive nude photos from me.

The projection is wrong. Female arousal, on average, is more context-dependent. More narrative. More relational. A disembodied genital arriving without warning doesn't trigger arousal—it triggers alarm. The context is all wrong—no trust, no buildup, no invitation. It's not erotic; it's invasive.

But the dick pic sender doesn't know this. He's modeling the recipient's psychology on his own. And his own psychology says: naked = good. More specifically: seeing attractive naked bodies makes me aroused, therefore showing my naked body will make her aroused.

This is a failure of imagination so profound it's almost pitiable. Almost.

The sender literally cannot model a psychology different from his own. When he tries to imagine what the recipient will feel, all he can access is what he would feel. He has no framework for understanding that female arousal works differently. That what triggers arousal in him might trigger disgust in her. That his immediate positive response to nude images doesn't predict her response to his nude image.

This isn't theoretical. The research shows that many senders are genuinely surprised by negative reactions. They expected positive responses—not because they're delusional about their attractiveness, but because they genuinely believed visual genital display would be welcomed. The surprise is real. The confusion is genuine. They actually thought this would work.

This is somehow worse than malice. Malice can be identified and condemned. This is... absence. An absence of the capacity to model other minds. A psychology so self-enclosed it can't imagine outward.

There's a dominance-display hypothesis too.

Some researchers argue the dick pic functions like a peacock's tail or a gorilla's chest-beat. It's not about seduction—it's about dominance display. Look what I can do. Look what I have. I can impose this on your attention.

This reading makes the behavior more aggressive. The pic isn't trying to attract; it's trying to assert. The violation is the point, even if the sender doesn't consciously frame it that way.

Both explanations are probably true for different senders. Some are projecting their own sexuality and failing at theory of mind. Some are asserting dominance and enjoying the imposition.

The first group needs education. The second group needs consequences.

The platform matters.

Dick pics increased as communication moved to phones. The technology created the possibility. Before smartphones, you couldn't instantly transmit genital photos to strangers. Now you can.

This doesn't cause the behavior—plenty of men have smartphones and don't send dick pics. But it enables the behavior for men already inclined.

Every technology creates new affordances for human nature. Smartphones afforded instant visual communication. Some humans used this to share food photos and baby pictures. Other humans used it to transmit unwanted genitalia.

Technology reveals what was already there.

The dick pic is diagnostic of something larger.

It reveals a population of men with functionally broken theory of mind for female psychology. Men who cannot model what women actually want, what women actually experience, how women actually respond.

This isn't universal. Many men understand perfectly well that unsolicited dick pics are unwelcome. They don't send them because they can accurately model the recipient's likely response. They can run the simulation: If I send this, she will feel imposed upon, possibly threatened, certainly not aroused. Therefore I won't send this. That simulation is basic theory of mind.

But enough men can't do this that the phenomenon is ubiquitous. Enough men are so trapped in their own psychology that projecting outward is impossible.

This has implications beyond dick pics. If substantial numbers of men can't model female psychology for something this obvious, imagine the subtler miscalibrations. The missed signals. The misread responses. The genuine confusion about why she's upset.

Consider: If he can't predict that an unsolicited genital photo will be unwelcome, what else can't he predict? That she's uncomfortable but being polite? That "maybe another time" means "no"? That silence after a statement means she's processing, not agreeing? That her smile is social rather than genuine interest?

The dick pic is the loud symptom. It's legible, visible, undeniable. But the theory-of-mind deficit it reveals operates constantly at lower volumes. Every interaction where the man can't model her actual psychology. Every miscalibration. Every projection. Every time he reads his own psychology onto her and calls the result "understanding."

The dick pic is the visible symptom. The theory-of-mind failure is the disease.

And the disease doesn't limit itself to dick pics. It shows up in every domain where understanding female psychology matters. Dating. Relationships. Workplace interactions. Friendships. The inability to model minds unlike your own is a global deficit, not a local one.

The man sending dick pics is an extreme example. But the underlying pattern—projecting male psychology onto women and being confused when reality doesn't match—that's shockingly common.

What do we do with this?

Education helps some. Explicitly teaching that female sexuality works differently—that women don't respond to disembodied visual stimuli the way men do—reaches the men who are merely ignorant. The ones who genuinely didn't know, who were projecting without malice, who can update when given new information.

This should start earlier than it does. Sex education that actually addresses gendered differences in arousal. Not as essentialist prescription—not "all women are like this, all men are like that"—but as population-level pattern with massive individual variation. Teaching young men that their own response to visual stimuli doesn't predict others' responses. That theory of mind requires actually modeling other minds, not just projecting your own outward.

Consequences help others. Platform bans, social consequences, legal consequences where applicable. For men who enjoy the imposition, only costs change behavior. Some jurisdictions now treat unsolicited genital images as sexual harassment or exposure. Good. The exhibitionists and dominance-displayers aren't reachable through education. They know it's unwelcome. That's part of the appeal.

But the structural issue remains: we've built communication systems that allow instant visual transmission, and we have a population partially unable to use them wisely. The mismatch between technology and psychology creates the phenomenon.

Before smartphones, you couldn't transmit genital photos instantly. The friction was high—you'd need to take a photo, develop it (or save digital files), physically deliver or email it. The friction gave time for second thoughts. For consideration. For the brief pause where impulse might give way to reflection.

Smartphones removed that friction. Now the distance between impulse and action is seconds. Take photo. Send. Done. The technology doesn't cause the behavior—but it enables the behavior for people already inclined, and it removes the pause where better judgment might intervene.

This is a semi-serious investigation because the topic is absurd but the implications aren't.

The dick pic represents male sexuality at its most unmediated—and its most alienated from the recipient. It's what happens when desire meets zero theory of mind. When projection substitutes for imagination. When technology enables impulses that social friction used to suppress.

It's not all men. It's not most men. But it's enough men that every woman with a phone has stories.

And that's worth understanding, even if understanding doesn't excuse.

The unsolicited penis: a monument to the failure of imagination. A case study in projection. A semi-serious window into what goes wrong when men can't model minds unlike their own.

We begin here because it sets the tone. The zoo tour through toxic masculinity starts with the most baffling exhibit.

It gets weirder from here.

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