In August 2023, Roger Huskens and his brand Dicks Don’t Lie came to Antwerp for a few days to showcase his merchandise. As I’m an adept of male nudity and an advocate for more male nudity in public art and design, I went to have a look and a quick chat with Roger.
Born and raised in Heerlen, Roger now lives in and operates from Maastricht in the Netherlands. Although he still designs for other people via his design bureau ROGER+, he stopped accepting commissions in 2018 and invested his savings in Dicks Don’t Lie.
The journey
Roger has always been fascinated by penises. As a child, he used to draw penises at school. Roger’s parents were even called into school and questioned about their child’s view of the world. The designer tries to keep this innocent take on penises to this day. His ‘Cheeky Chappy‘ design for a T-shirt still is a very simple man with a big cock.
Three steps
Roger describes his journey to Dick’s Don’t Lie in three steps. Once, he photographed his penis every day for a year and noted how he felt and how his cock looked liked that day. He saw a correlation between emotions and his penis.
“The conclusion of this study was that your emotions and your mental and physical state all influence the appearance of your genitals. You can pretend to be cheerful and energetic, but your penis doesn’t lie; it shows exactly how you feel”, Roger says.
Step 2. Once upon a time, Roger took pottery classes. After each class, the ceramics were placed in a drying cabinet and baked the following week.
“But some housewives wanted to keep my jars for themselves and appropriated them. To protect my jars, I scratched cocks under the jars to make it clear they were mine. And that worked. One day I heard Shakira‘s song ‘Hips Don’t Lie‘ on the radio while signing a jar with my well-known cocks. Jokingly I sang along, but I changed the lyrics to ‘Dicks Don’t Lie’ and scratched that in there. Then I got a love tickle in my stomach; I knew I had something great on my hands. That evening I immediately claimed the domains. I knew that penises would become the foundation of my brand.”
He quickly claimed the domain name and social media handles.
Step 3. Roger wants to create an underwear line. He’s in talks with manufactures to create the perfect men’s briefs. “I want them to be perfect. I want them to feel great, so great I want to wear them myself every day.”
“After claiming the name Dicks Don’t Lie, I immediately got my first tattoos: tighty whities on my arm as a reminder that I wanted to realize this idea within a year and a plaster on my knee to cherish my childish enthusiasm. The underpants tattoo also ended up being my first pin design and the concept for an underpants line is still evolving. All these elements together gave me the idea to start a brand with funny products in which body parts such as penises and hairy legs, but also underpants, are central to break the taboo on this.”
As briefs can’t be gender neutral if they are to be really comfortable, Roger is considering designing more gender neutral underwear such as boxers as well.
Innocence
It’s important for Roger to emphasize nudity and cocks are not necessarily sexual. His ligne claire designs show this. His penises are cartoon-like, using pastel colours and tongue-in-cheak references.
A few examples. ‘Cheeky Chappy’ is not only that T-shirt, but also the drawing of a guy pulling up his shirt to hide is face because his embarrassed. But by doing so, his showing off is hairy cock.
‘The Elephant‘ is abstract design of a huge penis. The elephant refers to size, but also to the expression “the elephant in the room”, as there is still a taboo on penises.
Roger wants people not to be embarrassed showing his designs. His customers not only consist of gay or queer or other LGBTQIA+ people. Yes, even straight people buy his merch. While I was having a chat with Roger, a straight couple bought a T-shirt, a textile patch to iron on clothes and a tote bag showing ‘Peenocchio‘ having two expanding pieces of wood.
Then came COVID-19
You can do the math. Roger invested time and money full time in his project in 2018 and worked a year on developing products and the brand. Actually designing and having the products made, designing the website and web shop, marketing, getting the products in some quirky concept stores.
Roger succeeded to get his collection in some museum shops and stores in the Netherlands and Belgium, notably at YOUR Concept Store in Antwerp. But with the pandemic, a few of them went bankrupt and museums closed.
“Those were tense times, but I always stayed positive”, Roger says. If anything, he’s happy he can know connect in real life with his online customers.
What does Roger design?
We haven’t talked about the collection. Roger has some 150 products. T-shirts, caps, buttons, pins, posters and prints, art cards, Christmas cards, his doll as an effigy, coasters, patches, …
Where to find Dicks Don’t Lie?
His website updates the physical locations you can find his range of products. There are shops in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France and the United Kingdom.
And online? On his website, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter / X.com.
Queerness and art
- EXPO | Florian Hetz, ‘Unusual experiences’, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp.
- PARIS 2022 | ‘Oh! Charley, Charley, Charley…’ by Charles Ray pushes male sexuality from the bottom to the top.
- MSK Gent – Museum of Fine Arts Ghent introduces LGBTQ+ tour.
- British National LGBTQ+ Museum at London’s Granary Square, King’s Cross.
- REVIEW | David Hockney double exhibition at Bozar Brussels’ arts museum.
- City chronicle ‘De kleur van de stad maakt mijn ziel amoureus’ recounts Queer Antwerp history.
- ‘Masculinities: Liberation through Photography’ exhibition at FOMU, Antwerp’s photography museum.
- Antwerp’s LGBTQI bookshop Kartonnen Dozen looking for a new home.
- Antwerp’s LGBTQI+ bookshop Kartonnen Dozen wins Çavaria Media Award.
- BRUSSELS | Exploring gay intimacy and sexuality at ‘In The Mood For Love’ exhibition.
- Bums out in Saint Petersburg.
- Exposing nudity at the British Museum.
- ANTWERP | Discovering queer(ed) art with the Queer Tour at the KMSKA fine arts museum.
Autumn 2025. We – Sam and Danny, Michel and Wille, and Timothy – are travelling to Japan for a quite classic tour of the Land…