Great article in the Times...
Sexy? Frankly, you might as well look tuna-y
Caitlin Moran
I always like a new book about feminism. In a world where the vital stats on women are, in brief: 52 per cent of the population, 70 per cent of the wage, 10 per cent of the government, 100 per cent of the cystitis*, it’s good to see a new handbook on why these unhappy figures might be, and how it could change. The latest book on the subject is Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy, in which the author argues, in a nutshell, that pole-dancing, thong-wearing, breast-enlarging modern women are unlikely to be engaging in honest sexual self-expression and are, in fact, being female chauvinist pigs - “women who make sex objects of other women, and of ourselves”.
It was a thought that had partially occurred to me the week before, as I was tootling down Oxford Street. Looking up from shoe-shop windows for the first time since 1996, I was astonished to notice how many of today’s ladies are dressed like Hot Gossip. Tiny skirts, titty tops, teasy-weasy hair, thongs and, despite the heat, sweaty high-heels. Indeed, given the additional presence of a terrible mime-artist outside Debenhams, it wasn’t unlike being on the set of The Kenny Everett Video Show circa 1982.
I braced myself for a wave of shame and revulsion for having dressed, rather dowdily, as Anne from The Famous Five in flip-flops - but none came. Instead I was struck by how, by and large, incredibly useless looking sexy is. It was 11am on a Tuesday, outside John Lewis. A street-cleaner was rinsing oomska out of the gutters with a hose. It’s just not somewhere that a woman needs to look ready to ride a man like a wild rodeo horse.
Really, wanting to “look sexy” - being someone who looks as if they are thinking about, or would like to have, sex - is a bizarre sartorial default for a society to have. If one knew nothing of cultural shifts in the past 30 years, the almost wilful randomness of it would be more obvious. We might just as well want to “look carpenterish” - like someone who is thinking about, or would like to make, shelves. Or “look tuna-y” - someone who is thinking about, or would like to eat some, tuna. Statistically, given the time that sex actually takes up in our lives, it would make more sense to dress in a way that is mindful of going to the toilet, rather than a way that is mindful of having sex. Although quite how one would do that, I don’t know. The Japanese are probably working on it. Nine times out of ten, when women think they want to look sexy, what they actually want to look is both capable and appropriately dressed. And a stone lighter, obviously.
Practically speaking, the only time that a woman need really concern herself with looking sexy is about 20 minutes before she has sex. For the rest of the time, looking sexy is a task that’s vexatious, bordering on non-viable. For starters, it’s almost impossible to spend a whole day looking sexy in an outfit. No hot rig looks as good on the bus, or in the canteen, as it did in the mirror when you were holding in your stomach and doing that thing Liz Hurley does with her legs.
On top of that, being sexy is often counterproductive. As soon as a woman makes herself sexy, she instantly makes all the men in the room more stupid and all the women more tetchy. That sounds like the kind of curse a bad fairy bestows on birth, rather than a task that makes upper-leg waxing worthwhile.
Of course, there are some women who are almost permanently fruity, the kind of lithe-limbed, big-hipped, sultry-eyed foxines who move in their shift dress like it’s having sex with them, and who can make standing in a queue for customer service at John Lewis look like the kitchen-table scene in The Postman Always Rings Twice. That’s great. They can carry on. I’m sure they will. Girls like that don’t stop for anyone, from what I’ ve heard. But for the rest of us, who are stomping around like amiable but slightly pressurised stegosauruses, there are certain things we should finally put our feet down about and say “No! This is STUPID! Trying to look sexy at 2.32pm in Dixons is THE GAME OF A FOOL!” Come on - let’s admit it all now, in a cleansing rush. Short skirts make you nervous, and you keep having to pull them down every three minutes. Low-cut tops preclude running, lest Right Said Fred pop out.
Really tight jeans cut you in half if you sit down. Long nails render you semi-paraplegic. Lipgloss sticks your hair right across your mouth and eyes, and is an exercise little more refined than rubbing a lollipop on your lips, anyway. False eyelashes fall off and make you freak out because you think a spider has just run into your bra. Hair extensions are an unwitting marker of who will be first up against the wall come the revolution. And high-heeled shoes - the thing women are supposed to fetishise above all else - just don’t work. They might look fantastic on the shelf, or in a photograph, but you can’t walk in them or dance in them, and they make you wince so much that you have to get your whole head Botoxed lest anyone mistake you for Zelda from the Terrahawks. And they don’t, contrary to all received wisdom, make your legs look thinner. There is a precedent for a big fat leg ending with a spindly point - and it’s on a pig. Wear flip-flops! That way you won’t be walking around like Tina Turner negotiating a cobbled hill. If you ask any woman when she really feels sexy, it’s invariably when she’s either a) wearing a well-fitting outfit that covers anywhere she is uncomfortable about, in a colour that makes her eyes look nice, or b) having sex. Thongs never come into it.
Imagine if the situation were reversed and men came to dress in a way that women found titillating. The streets would be filled with men dressed up like Mr Darcy, Han Solo and naughty pirates. The bloke in front of you at the deli counter would be rigged out as Richard Beckinsale in Rising Damp. Your postman would be in the knack, save for a Les Paul Epiphone and a Bob Dylan wig. The men would be insecure and uncomfortable. And as for the women - well, maybe we could give it a trial run of 30 years or so.
*It’s all caused by the E.coli virus, apparently, and you must learn to wipe correctly.
Caitlin Moran
I always like a new book about feminism. In a world where the vital stats on women are, in brief: 52 per cent of the population, 70 per cent of the wage, 10 per cent of the government, 100 per cent of the cystitis*, it’s good to see a new handbook on why these unhappy figures might be, and how it could change. The latest book on the subject is Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy, in which the author argues, in a nutshell, that pole-dancing, thong-wearing, breast-enlarging modern women are unlikely to be engaging in honest sexual self-expression and are, in fact, being female chauvinist pigs - “women who make sex objects of other women, and of ourselves”.
It was a thought that had partially occurred to me the week before, as I was tootling down Oxford Street. Looking up from shoe-shop windows for the first time since 1996, I was astonished to notice how many of today’s ladies are dressed like Hot Gossip. Tiny skirts, titty tops, teasy-weasy hair, thongs and, despite the heat, sweaty high-heels. Indeed, given the additional presence of a terrible mime-artist outside Debenhams, it wasn’t unlike being on the set of The Kenny Everett Video Show circa 1982.
I braced myself for a wave of shame and revulsion for having dressed, rather dowdily, as Anne from The Famous Five in flip-flops - but none came. Instead I was struck by how, by and large, incredibly useless looking sexy is. It was 11am on a Tuesday, outside John Lewis. A street-cleaner was rinsing oomska out of the gutters with a hose. It’s just not somewhere that a woman needs to look ready to ride a man like a wild rodeo horse.
Really, wanting to “look sexy” - being someone who looks as if they are thinking about, or would like to have, sex - is a bizarre sartorial default for a society to have. If one knew nothing of cultural shifts in the past 30 years, the almost wilful randomness of it would be more obvious. We might just as well want to “look carpenterish” - like someone who is thinking about, or would like to make, shelves. Or “look tuna-y” - someone who is thinking about, or would like to eat some, tuna. Statistically, given the time that sex actually takes up in our lives, it would make more sense to dress in a way that is mindful of going to the toilet, rather than a way that is mindful of having sex. Although quite how one would do that, I don’t know. The Japanese are probably working on it. Nine times out of ten, when women think they want to look sexy, what they actually want to look is both capable and appropriately dressed. And a stone lighter, obviously.
Practically speaking, the only time that a woman need really concern herself with looking sexy is about 20 minutes before she has sex. For the rest of the time, looking sexy is a task that’s vexatious, bordering on non-viable. For starters, it’s almost impossible to spend a whole day looking sexy in an outfit. No hot rig looks as good on the bus, or in the canteen, as it did in the mirror when you were holding in your stomach and doing that thing Liz Hurley does with her legs.
On top of that, being sexy is often counterproductive. As soon as a woman makes herself sexy, she instantly makes all the men in the room more stupid and all the women more tetchy. That sounds like the kind of curse a bad fairy bestows on birth, rather than a task that makes upper-leg waxing worthwhile.
Of course, there are some women who are almost permanently fruity, the kind of lithe-limbed, big-hipped, sultry-eyed foxines who move in their shift dress like it’s having sex with them, and who can make standing in a queue for customer service at John Lewis look like the kitchen-table scene in The Postman Always Rings Twice. That’s great. They can carry on. I’m sure they will. Girls like that don’t stop for anyone, from what I’ ve heard. But for the rest of us, who are stomping around like amiable but slightly pressurised stegosauruses, there are certain things we should finally put our feet down about and say “No! This is STUPID! Trying to look sexy at 2.32pm in Dixons is THE GAME OF A FOOL!” Come on - let’s admit it all now, in a cleansing rush. Short skirts make you nervous, and you keep having to pull them down every three minutes. Low-cut tops preclude running, lest Right Said Fred pop out.
Really tight jeans cut you in half if you sit down. Long nails render you semi-paraplegic. Lipgloss sticks your hair right across your mouth and eyes, and is an exercise little more refined than rubbing a lollipop on your lips, anyway. False eyelashes fall off and make you freak out because you think a spider has just run into your bra. Hair extensions are an unwitting marker of who will be first up against the wall come the revolution. And high-heeled shoes - the thing women are supposed to fetishise above all else - just don’t work. They might look fantastic on the shelf, or in a photograph, but you can’t walk in them or dance in them, and they make you wince so much that you have to get your whole head Botoxed lest anyone mistake you for Zelda from the Terrahawks. And they don’t, contrary to all received wisdom, make your legs look thinner. There is a precedent for a big fat leg ending with a spindly point - and it’s on a pig. Wear flip-flops! That way you won’t be walking around like Tina Turner negotiating a cobbled hill. If you ask any woman when she really feels sexy, it’s invariably when she’s either a) wearing a well-fitting outfit that covers anywhere she is uncomfortable about, in a colour that makes her eyes look nice, or b) having sex. Thongs never come into it.
Imagine if the situation were reversed and men came to dress in a way that women found titillating. The streets would be filled with men dressed up like Mr Darcy, Han Solo and naughty pirates. The bloke in front of you at the deli counter would be rigged out as Richard Beckinsale in Rising Damp. Your postman would be in the knack, save for a Les Paul Epiphone and a Bob Dylan wig. The men would be insecure and uncomfortable. And as for the women - well, maybe we could give it a trial run of 30 years or so.
*It’s all caused by the E.coli virus, apparently, and you must learn to wipe correctly.