Release party for "Unsolicited Drawings of Unsolicited Dick Pictures": An unsolicited report.

“Please don’t be the fifth person he’s bitten tonight! He draws blood.”

The object of the warning was a swaying cockatoo in a large cage (I quickly pulled back my hand), and the occasion a release party for the zine Unsolicited Drawings of Unsolicited Dick Pictures (and a Commentary on Using Grindr as a Trans Person). Zine author and parrot keeper Iko, a lavishly coiffed Brazilian-Oaklander who works mononymously in several media, welcomed me warmly and directed me to the bar across the room. Under a Mosswood Meltdown poster and the Richard Ellmann biography of Oscar Wilde, I mixed myself a gin cocktail and turned to consider the original art for sale.

Nothing captures being online while femme quite like the unasked-for dick pic, and Grindr’s user base stands out for its prolificacy and persistence. Once Iko hit on the idea for the zine project, they immediately had to set rules in order to navigate the torrent of material. “They really did have to be unsolicited, like, first thing in the conversation, no prior introduction. When they do that, I think all right, you didn’t ask if it was okay to send, I won’t ask if it’s okay to draw.” The results were pasted up in a grid, thirty-odd postcard-sized demonstrations of how few angles are actually available when taking photos of one’s own crotch, although a couple of wide-angle splays implied the use of a mirror, and one subject had included a ruler for scale. The drawing style, realistic to start, turned more expressionistic and whimsical as the series went on, lending charm to what could have been a parade of aggression. Iko had parceled out the task of coloring to the local trans community over a series of visits and art parties, and the results ranged from faithful shading of flesh tones to Fauvist eruptions of lemon and violet.

Said local trans community was on the back patio, chatting, lolling and casting glances through various thicknesses of eyeliner. I talked with several of the colorists, who had contributed their own Grindr stories to the zine text; there were tales of good-natured erotic banter alongside aggression, entitlement, and frequent non sequiturs. A young woman told me: “One guy got to the point of making actual offers, like, two hundred dollars, and when I didn’t answer he came back with, okay, how about one hundred. It’s like, dude, what’s your strategy here?”

I texted a photo of the art grid to a male friend, who promptly wrote back, “How much for the one with the ruler?” I tapped back a laugh and he replied, “No really. One side of the ruler is insecurity. The other is hubris, and insecurity.” Touched by this glimpse of the other side of the dialectic, I went back indoors and learned that the ruler drawing could be had for fifty dollars. A sale was made. Unsolicited Drawings of Unsolicited Dick Pictures is available for purchase at Crisis Club Gallery, 5887 San Pablo Ave, Oakland.