Gen Z isn't puritanical because of the current state of global culture - sort of, I think.
We know the tradwife in her milk maid dress, or the conservative female politician in that atrocious, shiny polyester with platinum hair. Sure fire, loudly shrieking dog whistles on our current political climate - and yet... The rat boi skirt is a must have item with the fashion girlies, its gingham hem skimming the ground. Boatneck dresses are all the rage. Anecdotally, most women I know are no longer opting for heavy make up in their day-to-days. The outcome may look similar, but the causes could not be more different.
For a long time, women were told to be, “sexy” as a way of reclaiming their own “sexiness”. For a while, it seemed to work. We shouted, “get your bag, queen!”, “No, girl you look so good!”. We applauded the risque outfits and “self-care” beauty rituals as women flocked to online sex work and strip clubs. This is not to say this isn’t a valid way of reclaiming what is rightfully yours… but the fumes billowing off reek of the same gold paint the road to good intentions was paved with.
The applause is beginning to quiet, not out of hate or malice, but because some people, myself included, are finally starting to decode what it really means to reclaim yourself for yourself.
Once you peel back the layers of sexuality reclamation being discussed circa 2018 to 2021, it is not hard to see it was still always centered around the male gaze.
I am so sexy you will pay to see me.
I can be sexy without you, even.
I can be beautiful without you.
I can mean something without you.
Without you.
Who?
Him.
His gaze is still the indirect object of every sentence in your internal monologue.What happens when you remove him all together? Who are you being sexy for, then? Attractive for? Why are you trying so hard?
Just the first of a myriad of questions that pop up when women (have some nuance here, please) really decenter men and actually start doing it on their own terms.
I have been sexualized since I was far too young. Woe is me, born pretty! I know. This is different. The difference in the attention I got from boys my age on the playground and the predatory gaze of a man in a store is palpable. I know I am not the only one who has felt the difference. When you present as a woman and you are young, to be beautiful is to be in danger.
Sexy, in all its mystique, had gotten old by the time I was 18, still too young to have grown into my adult face. So when I was told to reclaim myself through sexuality it backfired wildly. I still centered my desire for male attention. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself I was above it, over it, I wasn’t looking for someone’s eyes brimming with desire to meet my own - or my ass in too-tight shorts at least, I was always wrong. It took years. Years of scraping my knees and breaking my nose on the same piece of emotional concrete to understand this futile effort was getting me nowhere and was actually hurting me. Sexiness was part of how I was getting consumed, and frankly, I am tired of being meat.
I know I am not alone in this - the famous example of Billie Elish comes to mind first. She knew what would happen if she wore a tank top in public before she was 18, and she was right. When you are less focused on the palate of those eating you, the type of dressing you apply changes, preferably toward your own taste.
I do not care about being or feeling sexy through traditional means anymore, because I am not available for easy consumption.
I exist solely for myself. A self that I love. Others are figuring that out for themselves too.
Young women are opting for less skin because they don’t want to be eaten and no longer resonate with that method of self definition. The jig that a man will make you happy when become the apple of his eye is up. It was a lie. We figured it out.
This is not to say you shouldn’t want to feel or be sexy, or the simple act of showing your knees is in a divine feminine ouroboros way of, “asking for it”. Everyone deserves to feel good about themselves, everyone deserves to feel beautiful and desired in their own skin, but the one-size fits all system backed by patriarchal values again fails. It doesn’t fit all, it barely fits most.
My argument is also coming out of my mouth. A mouth which happens to be in a happy relationship with a man. Deconstructing the idea that your life purpose is to shrink-to-fit yourself into someone else’s is not meant to conjure up hatred for half of the global population. It's about examining the direct or indirect influences being pushed upon people from the moment they are old enough to understand what it means to live and present as a woman. It is about finding freedom from the outdated paradigm that has so often left women to the wayside. The logical argument of if you are sexy, you will be wanted, and in being wanted, you will be fulfilled, is not true. Beyond it not being true for women, it's not true for anyone!
So, if you have been told to lean into a type sex appeal your whole life, which has frankly put you in harm's way at times and you didn’t have a choice in to begin with, the leaning in starts to feel like throwing your body weight into the tilt of a sinking ship. Counterintuitive to say the least.
While my generation has its obvious challenges and humanity has a way of letting the cultural pendulum swing so hard we almost always knock a tooth out, I am fairly confident this is a good thing. Young women are finally breaking free from the alluring spell of patriarchal sexiness and femininity. I could do without the extreme conservative ideology and the Gileadification of the U.S.A. and all, though.
That said, Gen Z being weird about clubbing, dancing, and generally often being wet blankets? Different essay topic entirely.
