Texas Man Charged After Sending Dick Pic With Job Application

TEXAS—A Texas job-seeker made the unconventional decision Friday to include a photo of his penis with an application submitted to the Texas Workforce Solutions in Dallas. According to the Dallas Observer's Eric Nicolson, however, "TWS is not the proper launching point for your porn career; its bureaucrats aren't paid nearly enough to stare at your junk. And if the caseworker is anything like the 25-year-old worker at TWS' Alpha Road office who found a client's dick pic waiting in her email this morning alongside his job application, she will promptly call police, who will know from the personal email address who sent it and thus gets a ticket for 'obscene display or distribution.' That's a class C misdemeanor." Of course, adds Nicolson, "Before jumping to a conclusion about the Alpha Road case, it's worth considering the possibility that the email was an accident, misdirected from the intended recipient to the TWS worker. Anyone who's ever hit 'reply all' or experienced an autocomplete fail can sympathize with that." True enough, but we got to thinking about that penis pic and the law, and whether it really could be labeled "obscene" under Texas statutes. A closer look indicates the job-seeker may not have done anything wrong at all. The follow sections pertains to the alleged offense: § 43.22. OBSCENE DISPLAY OR DISTRIBUTION.  (a)  A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly displays or distributes an obscene photograph, drawing, or similar visual representation or other obscene material and is reckless about whether a person is present who will be offended or alarmed by the display or distribution.             (b)  An offense under this section is a Class C misdemeanor. That's good as far as it goes, but then you have to look and see exactly what the statutory definition of "obscene" is, and that's where it gets a little fuzzy as far as dick pics go: § 43.21. DEFINITIONS. (1)  "Obscene" means material or a performance that:                                                              (A)  the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest in sex;                                     (B)  depicts or describes:                                                                                                   (i)  patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including sexual intercourse, sodomy, and sexual bestiality;  or                                                 (ii)  patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, sadism, masochism, lewd exhibition of the genitals, the male or female genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal, covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state or a device designed and marketed as useful primarily for stimulation of the human genital organs;  and                                     (C)  taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value. Assuming English is understood in Texas the same as it is in other states, not one of the definitions above appears to apply to a photo of a penis in a non-aroused state, which, for all we know, is what the job-seeker sent, willfully or not, to TWS. If that is the case, and the penis was nowhere near turgid, it's hard to see how the individual it was attached to is guilty of the crime for which he was reportedly ticketed. But it's even worse than that. While certainly guilty of stupidity as far as his job-seeking chops are concerned, isn't the fact that the guy sports a willy that fails to inspire offers of work punishment enough? Did Texas really have to add a misdemeanor charge on top of that unfortunate shortcoming? That said, as penises of all shapes, sizes and situations are of unduring interest to the labor force at AVN, it may come as no shock that we have addressed the inherent offensiveness of the penis before, and anticipate we will do so again many, many times in the years to come.