The male hosts of NBC’s Today show—one of whom, Al Roker is his cousin, so obviously biased—were very keen to emphasize on Wednesday morning that Lenny Kravitz had nothing to be ashamed of when his penis popped out of a sudden rip of his leather pants.
They meant: it’s a good-sized one, dude: show it off. Now you’re out, you may as well be proud. Except it was just after 9 a.m., so this was all conveyed in butch little gurgles, “yeahs,” “uh-huhs,” and eye-rolls.
The embarrassing wardrobe error, or fine and magnificent moment (you choose), occurred at Stockholm’s Gröna Lund theme park on Monday where Kravitz was playing a concert, and soon migrated to YouTube, generating both hysteria, and also—more quietly—men the world over to nervously compare the swinging Kravitz schlong to their own not-yet-as-liberated trousersnakes.
ADVERTISEMENT
Today’s Willie Geist and Roker must have excellent eyesight, and more extensive knowledge of penis size than many assumed, to make such a flattering judgment, because the footage of Kravitz’s pecker—which suddenly sprang free during an exhilarating-looking guitar solo—is so fleeting.
Or maybe the men were looking at the many freeze-frame images of the Kravitz member in proud crouching tiger, no-longer hidden dragon pose that have appeared online.
#Penisgate became the hashtag of this pivotal cultural moment, even used by Kravitz himself.
The eagle-eyed Washington Post surmised that Kravitz was circumcised.
Poor Steven Tyler felt cheated by the moment: Kravitz himself tweeted out Tyler’s forlorn-sounding text message: “Dude…No underwear and pierced…Fuck me…You never showed me that shit.” (However, it looks like a cock ring, rather than a piercing—perhaps Kravitz will clarify this vital matter soon.)
Tyler’s tweet sounded like a groin-focused, disappointed variant of “And I thought we were friends.”
Those sad little ellipses imply Tyler thinks Kravitz’s member looks pretty good too, as if he’s just looked down and seen how pedestrian his own is in comparison.
The unexpected appearance of Kravitz’s cock has originated—finally, equality!—the “dick slip,” which The Daily Beast here christens as the male equivalent of the “nip slip” that so obsesses the tabloids, when women’s breasts escape whatever clothing is holding them in place.
Kravitz is, for now, the king of the dick slip—the sudden, unintended appearance of a penis in a public place.
Who will be the first red carpet dick-slipper?
Appropriately for this crowning moment, Kravitz’s wayward willy had a golden-looking cock ring plonked on its base. Hail the king of cock ’n’ roll.
In 2004, Kravitz told Contact Music of whatever he has down there: “I’ve never taken it out. It’s a hoop about the size of a quarter. It hits the lady where she likes it and, because it swings, it can be effective in any position.”
Kravitz’s dick didn’t just appear, furtively and scrunchily, like the penises on display in Paris at Rick Owen’s notorious menswear show back in January.
And what fun were they? All pre-planned and shy, meek little woodland creatures framed in ratty-looking holes in clothes.
And Kravitz’s penis was also not the imagined, and much-perved over passion spear that Jon Hamm, another going-commando devotee, was speculated to have.
Hamm’s ham was only ever a shadowy outline in a pair of trousers. His is the Loch Ness Monster of penises: much speculated about in tones of wonder, but never seen.
And Kravitz's truncheon also out-does the other much talked-about cock of our times: Ben Affleck’s fleetingly visible hot rod in that Gone Girl shower scene.
Instead, here Kravitz’s swaggering dick was, proudly and pendulously on display for the masses. And this was no backing singer. It was a second mike stand. It wanted equal billing.
As Buzzfeed’s Dorsey Shaw wrote, the GIF of the bobbing penis was kind of relaxing.
Who knows if Kravitz’s penis-palooza will lead to other men proud to parade theirs: certainly, the tabloids, so long obsessed with female celebrities’ boobs, have just been as focused on Kravitz’s dick. However, pictorially it’s worth noting that editors seem happier to show the flesh of a female breast than that of the male member—in images online Kravitz’s is variously blurred or has a funny face planted on top of it.
If Kravitz is a meaningful example, male modesty, it seems, is still prized higher than female. The media may be giggling about Kravitz’s mishap, but very shy to show us that mishap too blatantly.
Although Kravitz’s own feelings about his liberated todger are not known, readers will note that his latest Tweet is another picture of him looking great on stage.
In this picture, he is wearing (yes, still perilously tight) blue jeans, rather than leather ones—and his guitar is positioned very firmly over the crotch area. Rock on, Lenny.
