Dick Pix for a Cause

Men are posting pictures of their penises in socks.

It all started at the Academy Awards, when the actress Kim Novak presented the best animated feature Oscar. The 81-year-old was cruelly ridiculed all over social media for having had plastic surgery, for not looking perfect, and just about everything in between. Critics of the onslaught pointed out the comments were inappropriate, reminding everyone that Novak was a breast cancer survivor. This conversation led the U.S. author Laura Lippman to tweet a picture of herself not wearing makeup as an act of solidarity.

Within days, hundreds of women were tweeting photos of themselves without makeup using the hashtag #nomakeupselfie, which took on a life of its own, soon attaching itself to cancer research. Women would post images of their faces without makeup, add the hastag #nomakeupselfie and include a number that people who appreciate the campaign could text to make a donation to fund cancer research. Most donations were small — £1 here, £5 there — but by that Thursday, Cancer Research UK had received more than 800,000 donations. By last Friday, this seemingly pointless no make-up selfie trend had raised over $3 million for cancer research.

This inspired James Brown, who decided to open up the fundraising efforts to men. To draw public attention to the cause, he focused on male genitals a la Red Hot Chili Peppers, encouraging men to pose with a sock over their penises and post their images on social media. Within days, his Facebook page had received over 100,000 likes, and the #cockinasock hashtag began its rise on Instagram and Twitter. With the help of U.K.-based singer Siobhan Watton, along with Daniel Widnell and Michael Lovell, they took the campaign global.

You wouldn’t believe how many dudes have since gotten naked and put a sock on it. Or how many did until Facebook blocked the tag on Instagram and removed all the photos. They’ve since apparently reinstated the hashtag, but they’ve taken down the campaign page on Facebook proper. The campaign continues on their self-hosted website and Twitter, however, where the cofounders post as @cockinasock and reshare all user-submitted pix.

I’ve been critical of tenuously-related-but-not-really campaigns before — last year, during a conversation with male friends who were considering participating in Movember by growing a mustache, I commented that it was good to raise awareness about male health issues. I was surprised that none of them had any idea that this was the whole point of Movember — they just thought growing a mustache in November was an excuse to, you know, grow a mustache.

This is the risk of campaigns that don’t actually reference the thing they’re trying to help. What #cockinasock — like #nomakeupselfie before it — is doing differently is that most of the participants include information about how to donate alongside their photos. And it’s not just “awareness” they’re going for, but cold, hard cash to fund research. That works — or, rather, that should work, assuming social platforms don’t continue to shut them down for posting “suggestive” content.

Photo by Phillip Bonneau.