Why do men feel the need to flaunt their junk

“Penis pics are also a sad example of how technology is helping us lose the plot about what it means to be human’. Picture: iStock

In all the hoo-ha over Tim Paine’s text messages, we seem to have lost sight of an important question: how on earth did we evolve into a society in which grown men take photos of their penises and send them to other adults?

We know penis graffiti is as old as Rome and that once we started carrying camera-computers in our pockets that it would be hard for the males of the species to resist flaunting their junk online.

In other words, it’s not the blokes who have changed, it’s the distribution platform.

We understand, too, that penis pics play a special role on gay sites where the images are part of the dating profile and where they are posted as invitations, not harassment. But, just as we know that little boys eventually tire of poo jokes – at least in public – we had rather hoped they would grow out of texting shots of their genitalia to women and might realise that as a seduction technique for heterosexuals it’s about as sophisticated as a date night at the servo.

We get that teenagers are obsessed with their body parts, in part thrilled by their emerging sexual power; in part terrified about not measuring up (sorry about that) to unreal standards of beauty as dictated by the internet.

We appreciate it is all but impossible to expect children to tear themselves away from the world they access through their smartphones and build their lives outside the bubble of social media.

Tim Paine steps down as Australian men's Test Cricket Captain at Hobart. Picture: Chris Kidd

We know the addictive quality of digital technology and the extraordinary tools that have opened the planet to us in ways once thought unimaginable. And if the internet is now one of humankind’s most intimate emotional spaces, why not share intimate images of your body? After all, who can really blame a horny teenager hoping for a trade – I’ll show you mine, you show me yours – or at least a smiling or thumbs-up emoji in return?

Even so, we had thought the penis thing eventually would bore people as they matured, that this was a generational rather than a gender issue and that the adult males of the tribe eventually would get over themselves.

Paine’s silliness has dented that belief.

Leave aside whether his is a hanging offence, or whether Cricket Australia mucked up the whole shebang, or quite how severe was the offence suffered by the recipient. Forget for a moment the irony of a sport that, having been elevated by politicians and the media to divine status in this country, now scrambles to maintain its unrealistic brand of goodness, patriotism and manliness in the face of yet another cringe-worthy incident.

Instead, just focus on the image of Paine one evening deciding that the time is right to turn his phone on his penis and throw caution to the wind. Is he 13, 14, 15 at this moment in late 2017, a boy-child navigating his way through the confusion of appropriate and inappropriate sexual behaviour?

No, Paine is at that point just shy of his 33rd birthday, married, with two babies. What was he thinking? Or, rather, why was he not thinking at all?

We’ve all slipped up, broken the rules, made incautious or even dangerous choices around sex, so judging the behaviour of the former Test captain is tricky and won’t necessarily help us understand what, let’s face it, is an unsettling phenomenon to many of us. Let’s look instead at the context he was operating in, one that is increasingly and blatantly sexualised.

Ours is a society in which flashing your penis is now easy, acceptable and mostly free of risk, given that it’s also OK to send a photograph of your groin only so that you are not identifiable. No need to think twice, to worry what your mother might think if she stumbles across the image. Let’s party, this is fun, right?

Tim Paine with Tas 2 team mates at Lindisfarne. Picture Eddie Safarik

Cricket has again been left stumped by the loss of another capatain.

And like all parties, there’s a spectrum of behaviour from the drunks who force themselves on women (unsolicited, aggressive pictures sent as part of an unhealthy power play) to the sweet boys looking for love as well as sex (intimate pics shared as part of a relationship). And like all parties, there’s a range of girls – from those up for it and happy to share back, to those who are uncertain, shy and vulnerable and worry that if they don’t come across, they’ll be scorned or ridiculed.

It was ever thus, so should we worry? Should we be surprised that capitalism, where everything has a quantifiable value, has commoditised sex and turned the penis into yet another product? Does it really matter if a cricketer or a chief executive, or your father or your fiance, fires off the occasional penis pic? You might have individual concerns about what the behaviour represents but is it society’s business?

Well, yes it is, and not just because the traffic in penis pics is all a bit unseemly, a bit low rent, compared with the passionate possibilities offered by sex or even the more prosaic versions in a long-term relationship. And not just because unsolicited pictures of genitalia represent online harassment of women and are potentially frightening for young girls.

Penis pics, especially those detached from the rest of the male body, are close cousins of pornography. They objectify the sender and the recipient, and limit rather than expand the possibilities for rich, respectful personal connections.

Silly fun they may sometimes be, but penis pics are also a sad example of how technology is helping us lose the plot about what it means to be human.