These days, any person with a smartphone, no shame, and the resolve to shove said phone down his chinos can fire his nethers halfway across the planet on a sine wave of physics and hobgoblins. Think about it -- the commoner now has the power of Zeus; namely, his power to emerge from the clouds and waggle golden Olympian junk before confused yogurt farmers. In a historical context, even those of you with the most bare-bones data plan qualify as demigods.

Getty
"Here's a dollop of sugar for those cold winter nights. XOXO, Anubis, the Jackal Lord of Death."

But let's remember that Zeus frittered away his unfathomable cosmic abilities by acting like Scrooge McDuck in pon farr. We too are squandering our unprecedented ability to teleport our wee-wahs and hoo-hahs across time zones. Let me put it this way -- can you name any crotch shot role models?

No, you can't. Anthony Weiner, Brett Farve, Ron Artest ... these guys aren't exemplars of the dick pic. They're the goddamn Dick Pic Legion of Doom. These are the kind of mustache-twirling doofuses who spend all day sending dick pics to the Hall of Justice's super answering machine for Wonder Woman, oblivious to the fact that Superman's talking pets are the ones manning the switchboard.

Comicsalliance.com
Truly magnificent beasts.

No, if humanity is to truly reach a new golden era of peace and acceptance, we as a species must reclaim the crotch shot from those evil forces that seek to abuse it. When Johannes Gutenberg invented his famous printing press, his first thought was "Gott in Himmel, I have developed a device that will facilitate the dissemination of millions of dick pics." But did he do that? No, he printed the Bible instead.

And did he print up an illustrated Bible with Noah as a jolly bearded phallus, shepherding all the spoon worms and naked mole rats into the ark, two by two? Of course not. Gutenberg's historically undocumented restraint should serve as an inspiration to us all. Here's my threefold plan for salvaging Earth's cultural heritage:

As is typical with most things I write for the Internet, this article idea germinated when rapper Soulja Boy recently unveiled his scrotum to his Tumblr following.

Ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com
Inspiration rears its head OH WE TOTALLY WENT THERE.

He claims that it was unintentional, but until we someday discover the whereabouts of a Being John Malkovich-style tunnel into Soulja Boy's skull, we have no clue whether this was an accident, a premeditated mass flash, or simply a cry for help indicating that Soulja wants to abandon the rap game and explore employment as a Bhutanese folk artist.

L. Shyamal, Wikimedia Commons
It will go over better than 50 Cent's acting career.

Such ambiguity does not bode well for the future of the crotch shot. And while smartphone science has yet to invent some sort of dick pic Mjolnir or Excalibur that judges the sender's moral rectitude, we can look to the past for guidance. For example, take science fiction pioneer and futurist Hugo Gernsback's 1964 attempt to reduce marriage compatibility to a science using Kinsey questionnaires, lie detectors, and presumably a phalanx of wolf-whistling grad students.

Imgur.com
"Darling, can we practice kissing while not attached to this car battery?"
"No."

Gernsback's incredibly questionable sour grapes about being excluded from secret lesbian slumber parties aside ("Many of history's -- and the present's -- irresistible, beautiful women heartbreakers can't tolerate mere males," he moaned), his model proves instructive here. What if -- in order to catapult a portrait of one's own tumescence over continents -- you had to receive specialized license? You know, like a forklift operator or a Highlander trainer.

"Why yes, it does say 'Prince of the Universe' on my resume."

And what if thousands of academies dotted strip malls across the land, issuing these licenses and informing pupils which Instagram filter will not make their loins look like a bucket of dead lampreys? Hell, there could even be a thriving offshoot industry of SAT-style prep books catering to a club sandwich of demographics (like Kaplan's South Beach Guide to Acing Your Dick Pic Exam / GED in Cuneiform).

I don't know about you, but I think dick pics might just be the catalyst to get the economy back on track. And as for those skinflints who refuse to pony up for these classes, we'll just have to make unlicensed cellphone camera usage anywhere a Class 5 felony. We all know that the Library of Congress will someday need visual documentation of that liverwurst hoagie you ate for lunch yesterday, but come on. Don't be a jerk. The gross domestic product is at stake.

Getty

Yes, a sprinkle of free market pixie dust can transform even the most raging mastodon into Babar, King of the Elephants. Whenever I hear Iggy Pop's help-me-I've-hit-rock-bottom opus "Lust for Life" nowadays, I don't want to shoot heroin with a comatose, nearly dead Mr. Pop. No, I suddenly want to go on a cruise to the Bahamas with all 34 of my non-existent children.

We can apply this exact same principle to dick pics. What if -- whenever you bequeath your significant other a still life of your groin -- you could make a dollar or two sneaking a product (say, a bowl of Hormel chili) somewhere into the shot?

Family Dollar
Choose beans at your own discretion.

The way I see it, all parties benefit here. You benefit by showing your mate that you are a hard worker, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and sex organs. Your partner can delight in your Horatio Alger-like industriousness and rest assured that a publicly traded canned goods manufacturer has lent its seal of quality to your reproductive system. Hormel wins, too, because emerging markets, narrowcasting, viral commerce, TiVo, Hulu, and business school words.

Sure, it may take a little while for the stuffed shirts on Madison Avenue to accept this bold new marketing strategy, but who's to say you can't kick-start the trend with your own product placement? Support neighborhood small business owners by throwing their addresses into the shot (Deborah's House of Yankee Candles at 383 Jefferson Pike South will thank you later), or increase your own personal brand by repping luxury goods. Like so:

"Bellissimo! The check's in the mail!"