When popular weekly podcast Shameless Sex hosts April Lampert and Amy Baldwin asked their listeners to help them celebrate Masturbation May 2019, they were hoping for a PG response. “Our instructions clearly ask for an anonymous photo holding a sign in front of the face,” said Baldwin.
Instead, the hosts of the podcast, which celebrates sexuality in all its forms with “unabashed real talk” has been inundated with—you guessed it—a deluge of dick pics.
“Apparently we underestimated that a number of folks would interpret this Self-Pleasure Challenge as an opportunity to send us photos of them touching their genitals,” Baldwin continued. For two weeks since the challenge was issued, they’ve been receiving what they call “an unusual amount” of snapshots of listeners’ genitals in their Instagram inbox.
“We don’t want to be hard on our male audience—pardon the pun,” Baldwin said. But, she continued, “It’s interesting to note that they are all from penis owners.”
Baldwin and Lampert have discussed the ‘dick pic’ phenomenon during their podcasts, particularly Dr. Justin Lehmiller’s theory that cisgender men may hope dick pics will lead to sex, while others are excited by the shock those pictures cause.
But just because they’re willing to talk about nonconsensual dick pics doesn’t meant the hosts of Shameless Sex want to receive them. “In no way did we ask for actual action shots or videos,” Baldwin said. “We are neither shaming nor validating (and obviously not having sex with) anyone who sends us a dick pic. Instead, they are instantly blocked.”
With two more weeks of May and therefore two weeks of the challenge to go, Baldwin is also “lovingly reminding our Instagram followers to respect our boundaries and relearn what consent means by keeping their genitals to themselves.”
