Depictions of dicks have been an obsession in art for as long as art has been around, but the act of sending a real life image of ones penis is a cultural phenomenon all of its own.

Additionally, the implications of receiving a dick pic nowadays isn’t just the image itself, but the context of it being one that you maybe didn’t ask for - a form of sexual harassment and violence in and of itself.

So why do men send them? Is there an equal culture of a female equivalent? And what have images of dicks meant to different cultures historically?

Today Kate is joined by Andrea Waling, researcher and author of Exploring the Cultural Phenomenon of the Dick Pic, to look long and hard into all of these questions and more.

Senior Producer Charlotte Long. Edited and mixed by Tom Delargy.

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Kate Lister, Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Mary Beard and more.

Get 50% off your first 3 months with code BETWIXT. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.

You can take part in our listener survey here.

Dick Pics: The History

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society