Sexy Vs Sexual

When I thirteen years old or so, I used to go to slumber parties to which we were obliged to bring, not only our own pillow, but some sort of "sexy" bit of reading material, mainly for the purpose of grossing each other out. Unfortunately for me, at my house, the closest things to "sexy" reading matter were my father's Journals of American Medicine wherein maybe, if I was lucky, I could find a photo of some poor guy's sad sack penis with a bad case of the blues. (Which meant, at least in those magazines, that the thing was actually blue.) These were met not with titillation but with wonder, and would change the party dynamics such that, instead of talking about sex, we'd be discussing seriously tangential topics like, "What would you do if you didn't have any eyebrows?"

Times have changed, media has changed, and although thirteen year old girls' slumber parties march on, these days you can bet they're not having a hard time finding reading matter. These days you can't read a magazine in public without worrying if someone reading over your shoulder isn't wondering why you're interested in something called quadra-sexuality, or hygiene for pierced genitalia, as you innocently turn the pages on the way to analysis of the past President's blow-jobs. And these are the news magazines.

Sex is so ubiquitous in today's media that, instead of being the first thing anyone reads in the dailies, which is the way it used to be when I first started reading the papers, the sex stuff is what you turn to after the stock quotes. It's lost its appeal. You get the feeling that there are two kinds of humans in the news: Sexy models and actors who really don't need to have sex because they already have personal trainers; and slightly overweight, average-looking Joes (and Jills) who turn into raving sex fiends if someone puts a hand on their leg.

This saturation of the media by sexually related articles has achieved for intimate human relations the same results as salting a great steak. We know it's basically good, but the flavor is wrecked. You'd never think that American-style overkill could empty the world's oceans of fish, but it can; and you'd never think reading about sex could make sex boring, but it has.

This style and the topic of sex and sexual indiscretions are what book and magazine editors call "sexy". "Sexy" in this case means full of the details and hot-button phrases that denote sex but which have nothing to do with lovemaking. In fact, their purpose seems to be to remind us of what we're missing if we're not "sexy" by the standards of gaunt, twenty-eight year old fashion editors.

Sex has of course always sold, but it first became a general media darling when advertisers on Madison Avenue began to distill the most obvious elements from the phenomena of attraction. Stylists found that virtually any object, animate or inanimate, would be more likely to be purchased if it was "sexy". This meant: cool, mysterious, detached; without age, obligation, employment or underwear. One button left open on a model's top allowed a glimpse of a lacy bra, turning an unremarkable white blouse into an erotic garment of forbidden allure. Soon, in the American tradition of more is better, one button became two buttons, and then no buttons, until we now see advertisements in which women, nude from the waist up, gaze longingly at a shirt draped over the back of a chair halfway across the room.

Men are depicted the way Madison Avenue thinks men should look, so sweating men are considered "sexy". Sweat implies strength, action, membership to an expensive health club or more likely, ownership of a misting bottle. If you believe the ads you see, there exists no product for men that won't cause them to break out into uncontrollable perspiration, whether that product is French Roast coffee or their Toyota 4-Runner.

So what is this doing to us? These are the images that consumers observe and imitate. What we see in newspapers and magazines and in films and television are the major influences for style and, more importantly, behavior. What we're heading toward (some would argue, where we are already), is a culture of preening, posing, very good-looking, totally unapproachable people. People for whom having sex is no big deal, but for whom being intimate with someone is a total mystery.

What media really needs, in, if not one of its darkest hours, then at least its slimiest, are manners. Journalistic manners. Like we used to have at the dinner table: chew with your mouth shut and let's try to keep the conversation somewhat intelligent -- only for reading matter. Book authors are free to write what they know and certainly what sells these days; who can blame them. But editors of magazines and other periodicals might want to consider a stylistic change. Like: Leave a bit more to the imagination. Keep one's sensationalistic voice down a bit. And for God's sake, put some clothes on!