If there was one thing that Jamie Dornan wanted you to know about landing the leading role in bondage and kink extravaganza Fifty Shades of Grey—which just so happened to be one of the most anticipated big budget movies in years—it's that under no circumstances would he be asked to show his dick. But back in his modeling days, he wasn't—or, at least, wasn't able to be—so picky.

Of all the storylines that sprouted up from the film adaptation of Fifty Shades, the depiction of Christian Grey's penis was, if not one of the most important, then at least one of the most interesting. The book necessitated that the movie contain a certain level of nudity, and considering E.L. James' gratuitous description of her titular character's member—"soft and hard at once, like steel encased in velvet, and surprisingly tasty" (very good and normal description of a penis)—it was definitely plausible that Dornan would be asked to let it flop, even considering that Hollywood often goes far out of its way to not show dick.

And despite some weirdly prude comments from the film's director Sam Taylor-Johnson about her desired level of explicitness, Fifty Shades doesn't exactly shy away from skin. Taylor-Johnson's camera often lingers on Dakota Johnson's breasts, and if the actress wasn't asked to go frontal, her character—who had pubes added in post-production—at least sort of was.

Dornan, meanwhile, has his ass displayed a few times, but in many scenes is completely clothed from the waist down as Johnson, fully nude, writhes and gasps on camera. Of course, if you were someone who was paying attention to the film's infamously bad press tour, you would have known going into 50 Shades that Dornan's dick was staying in his pants.

He was sure to shoot any other notion down real quick. In a Guardian story from last November, Dornan was asked by writer Nigel Farndale about the extent of the film's nudity. Here was their back-and-forth:

When asked how graphic the film is, he pauses, weighs his answer. "You want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible without grossing them out. You don't want to make something gratuitous, and ugly, and graphic."

So no sex then? "Sam is a very bright woman, so there might be some suggestive elements to it, but I haven't seen it at this stage, so it is hard for me to say. I'm aware of what we shot, and it wasn't as if we shot a film without any action."

Was he completely in the nude? "There were contracts in place that said that viewers wouldn't be seeing my, um…"

Todger? He laughs. "Yeah, my todger."

Dornan, who snared the starring role last minute after original pick Charlie Hunnam dropped out unexpectedly, was able to negotiate (or perhaps accepted) contract stipulations that expressly stated that we would not be shown his dick—the dick that drives the movie, the dick that is, arguably, the story's central protagonist. ( There is a split-second shot of Christian Grey's pubes and shaft in the film, but given what Dornan said about his contract he probably had a crotch double, just like Johnson had a butt double.)

Dornan telling the Guardian that he wouldn't be doing any frontal was its own mini-news cycle in the days after the interview ran, with Buzzfeed running a post titled "19 Times Jamie Dornan Should Just Show His Penis in 'Fifty Shades of Grey'" and MTV.com running an open letter imploring Dornan to whip it out for reasons of gender equality. E! found the news so stunning that it ran a story headlined "Jamie Dornan's Penis Won't Be Shown in Fifty Shades of Grey!," while NYMag.com signed off its post with "Thanks for raining all over our sex parade." The people wanted to see the man's dick.

It turns out he had gotten that out of the way back when he was a smalltime actor and professional pretty face who had appeared in campaigns for Calvin Klein and Dior. In 2007, a fashion and art magazine called Visionaire put out an issue titled PRIVATE—still on sale for just $1,800!—which featured "intimate moments with celebrities and supermodels" such as Lindsay Lohan, Naomi Campbell, Chloë Sevigny, and one Jamie Dornan.

Dornan's spread, done by the photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott (who also handled his recent Interview shoot), was, hmm, extremely intimate. Maybe Dornan was just feeling the moment, but at that point he didn't appear to be so concerned about revealing his dick, which appears in the magazine snoozing like a baby on his inner thigh.

It turns out his dick looks like a dick.

Here is a straight-on shot of a young Dornan from the same shoot.

Despite that Dornan is now protecting the sanctity of his dick like it has secret scripture written on it, Visionaire hasn't been shy about pimping out his nudes. Last year, the magazine "celebrated" Dornan's birthday by re-upping the naked shoot to its blog, where the photos still live.

They also still appear at VFiles, where Visionaire—or someone using the magazine's name—uploaded scans of the entire PRIVATE issue. Here is what Dornan's D looked like in print:

The scans on VFiles also happen to be extremely hi-res—if you would really, really like to examine Dornan's penis as closely as possible please expand the following photo.

To scale, Jamie Dornan's flaccid dick appears to be slightly longer than one staple.

Anyway, here's to hoping that putting this out there—or at least beyond fan blogs and the website of an elitist fashion magazine—will help Dornan feel less uptight about his perfectly fine dong.

Of course, there's still two Fifty Shades sequels left to be shot. Let that dick breathe.

[photos via Visionaire]