Looking at Dicks Didn’t Come Naturally to Me
Appreciating the aesthetics of a penis
I used to quote a line from Gigli quite often. Yes, I know the movie is terrible, but this one line stood out. It’s the one where Jennifer Lopez’s character compares the penis to “some sort of bizarre sea slug.”
That hit the nail on the head for me.
Not because it captured the limp dick’s undeniably sluggy shape, but because it also corresponded to the way I felt about them in general.
I loved cock. I liked stroking them and being fucked by them, but I didn’t really bother to look at them. I just didn’t find them aesthetically pleasing.
It’s not like I didn’t have enough exposure to them. It’s true I mostly had sex in the dark (and my vision’s not that great to begin with), but I started watching porn at a rather early age and I watched a lot of it.
I was fascinated by what I saw, but the cocks on screen felt mostly functional to me. They were the organ that enabled all the oral and penetrative sex I watched excitedly. But to me, they looked sort of oddly long and weird, almost fake.
It would take me a long time before I learned to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of a dick.
And that makes me one of the lucky ones - some straight and bisexual women never get to.
The Penis as Grotesque Object
It’s strange now to think back on my earlier attitudes, but stranger still to think about how common it is. I’ve known so many straight women who love dick but didn’t care to look at them.
Our cultural conditioning around nudity is decidedly gendered. We get the message early on that women’s bodies are to be ogled and admired.
By the time we see our first pair of tits, we’re primed to enjoy it - I know I did. By the time I saw pussy in porn films, I was ready to see it as something worth showing off.
But when it comes to male nudity, we’re a lot more conservative. We straight and bisexual women learn to appreciate a man’s physique - so long as he’s got swim trunks on.
The penis just isn’t usually seen as an attractive organ, and some women are practically repulsed by the sight of them.
I was never really put off by the sight of a penis, but I didn’t find it appealing, either. I have my visual preferences for just about every part of a man’s body - including the forearms, of course - but I was thoroughly indifferent about what men had going on between their legs.
I Taught Myself to Appreciate Penises Aesthetically
The more I thought about this strange attitude toward penises, the more I felt like I should do something about it.
So, I went to the tool I often use to explore or learn about sex: porn.
I went on a quest to look at dicks differently, and that meant I’d have to look at a lot of dicks.
Luckily, the internet is awash with dick-centric porn, so I was quickly served up a smorgasbord of erections.
And I watched them - I mean, really watched them. I studied them carefully. Their shape, their size, their definition - whatever qualities they had, I was going to take them in.
For the first time in my life, I tried to look beyond what these guys were doing with their dicks and tried to just look at the dicks themselves.
And it worked.
I can’t count the number of penises I’ve seen in my life. If you add up all the porn I’ve watched, the men I’ve been with, and then the odd glimpse here and there, it’s got to be in the hundreds. Not a bad number for someone who has never even received a dick pic.
But even with that much exposure, I never paid enough attention to realize just how different and unique each penis is.
Right up front, there’s the whole business of whether the penis is circumcised or is still sheathed in its foreskin.
There are those with smooth and sleek shafts, while others look powerful and veiny.
Some are ramrod-straight while others have curves at various angles.
There’s the color and skin tone of the shaft, of course - including the rare two-toned shaft - and the heads that sit atop them, which run the gamut from brown to beige to pink.
Speaking of the head, they can be a little more chiseled and defined or they can be smoother. How proportionate they are to the shaft matters, too. Is it flush with it like a rod, expanding past it like a mushroom cap, or just extending by a modest little edge?
Whether they’re framed by pubic hair - and how much and of what type - makes a big difference to the entire presentation, too.
Then there’s the only thing we ever seem to talk about when we talk about the way a penis looks: it’s size. From two or three inches to lengths that rival your average forearm, and with thickness that ranges from a hotdog (sans bun) to a soda can.
One thing I didn’t expect is that the way dicks produce semen is part of the overall aesthetics. Some shoot their loads while others erupt and spill. Some blast out come that is ivory white while others eject come that is more clear. Sometimes the come is thick and other times it’s got a thinner consistency. And some guys shower out a ton of semen while others produce a more modest load.
Just like the way a woman sways her hips can make you look at her ass in a whole different light, the way a dick comes is part of what makes it special.
And all of that is just based on looking at hard cocks. I have a personal preference for the penis in its erect state, but there’s a whole world of soft penises to explore.
When I embarked on this project, I was sure I’d be ranking and rating penises until I had a good idea of what kinds of penises I find appealing and which types I find ugly. But that hasn’t happened. Because in the end, I didn’t just learn to appreciate penises; I learned to enjoy the huge aesthetic variety they have to offer.
Each cock has its own personality. And although I have some slight preferences here and there, I find it hard not to appreciate what each of them has to offer.
Liking the Way a Cock Looks Makes Me Better in Bed
Becoming a cock connoisseur is a lot of fun, but that’s not the only reason to do it.
What makes us good in bed isn’t just the physical stuff we do - how we stroke, lick, and angle ourselves. It’s also psychological. Great sex depends on everyone involved feeling safe and sexy. That means being good at sex means knowing how to make your partner feel attractive.
One of the reasons I wanted to teach myself to appreciate penises visually is that I imagined the tables being turned, and I didn’t like it one bit.
If I undressed for my partner and they told me they just didn’t find pussy attractive, I think I’d be incredibly disappointed and self-conscious. If they told me that they like pussy, they just think it’s kind of ugly to look at, I think I’d probably close my legs and go to sleep.
And yet, there I was sending the message to any guy I was with that I liked their cock, just not in that way. That this part of their body that I played with, took inside me, and that was so important to the way we interacted together was just not that appealing to look at.
When someone I’m sleeping with shows that they’re attracted to my body, it makes me feel incredibly sexy. I wanted that to be reciprocated.
But until I could appreciate the way a guy’s cock looked, there was a limit to how hot I could make them feel.
And there’s nothing sexy about that.
If you liked this article, you should totally check out the Glory Glory Holelujah (Glory Holes, Reverse Glory Holes, and the Glory Box) episode of my dirty and intimate sex podcast, Pillow Talk With Emma Austin!
