“Tribute wank” is a term that I was unfamiliar with until this week, making me think I should spend less time wanking myself and more time conversing with other humans.

A tribute wank is, from what I gather, a wank you have about someone in particular, which you send them evidence of later. It could be anything from phoning them to say “hey, I cracked a quality one off over you yesterday when I was thinking about the hot sex we had last week” to sending them an actual physical photograph covered in your own jizz.

The hotness

I once received a fantastic video from a guy which had – as most of my favourite videos do – his cock in it. He stroked vigorously for the requisite few minutes, just enough for me to start salivating a bit, then came nice and hard all over his hand. So far, so traditionally excellent.

But in the background of the video he had his laptop open, with a picture of me comfortably full-screened. He’d used one of the pictures on this blog, downloaded it, opened it in a new window then – most flattering of all – focused on it for the duration of an entire wank.

The not-so-hotness

So having established that I think tribute wanks can be really hot, I’m going to backpedal madly and tell you to think very very carefully before sending your delightful post-wank picture/video/text. Apart from the obvious problems (once it’s out there, it’s out there), you need to be really sure, before you hit the ‘send’ button, that the person at the other end will be pleased to receive it.

Even as a lover of hot pictures and homemade porn, there are certain things that will turn me off quicker than if you’d taped a picture of Jeremy Clarkson to your bellend. For instance, if you demand an immediate response, you might as well put your camera away and just chuck a bucket of cold water over my privates. Equally if you decide to send me something when I’m pissed off with you, I’m unlikely to leap joyously from my seat and shout “my God, what a touching kiss-and-make-up gesture, I must hump this man into a sticky mess immediately.”

So, if you’re tribute wanking over your partner, and you know they’d be keen to see the evidence, my advice would be to time it carefully: try not to send it when they’re in the middle of a conference call, or angry at you because yet again you’ve failed to do the washing up.

The downright awful

This might sound shocking, but many people just don’t want to be sent homemade pornography at any time. They’d rather you kept your dick/tits/arse/that cool trick you’ve just learned with a Hitachi magic wand out of their inbox.

I’d hazard a guess, based mainly on how many cock pictures I (sex blogger but basically a nobody) receive versus the number of cock pictures my friends (nobodies who don’t also happen to run a sex blog) get, that most of the cock pictures flying around the internet are unsolicited. That is to say, they are not sent between two consenting adults, but sent from one consenting adult to another adult they are really hoping will enjoy the picture.

I fully understand why you might find it hot to send your naked self to a stranger, but do you see the problem here? You can hope, you can wish, you can dream, but if you send any part of your anatomy to someone you don’t know, who has never asked you to send anything, you can’t guarantee that they want it.

So here lies my problem with tribute wanks: while some receivers find them amazing and sexy, I know a lot of people who would find them not just undesirable but awkward, horrible and downright terrifying. Others, of course, might enjoy receiving one from a person they really fancied, but wouldn’t extend this enthusiasm to everyone on their contacts list.

We receive spam all the time, and of course it’s easy to hit ‘delete’ or ‘unsubscribe’. But this is different. It’s not the equivalent of a delivery driver shoving some useless local pizza deals into your mailbox, it’s more akin to … well … a photo of an anonymous nob in your mailbox.

So, in conclusion, tribute wanks are like any other sexual act under the sun: some people like it, some people don’t. If you want to do it you need to make sure that the person you’re sending it to is not just ready but eager to receive it.

Note: I used to ask guys to send me pictures. It was amazing and lovely. I’ve since realised that was a bad plan, as I was inundated with pictures, many of which I didn’t have time to reply to and some I didn’t even have time to look at. I’m sorry. I have learned my lesson.