The more I read online and social media, the more I see the word sexy. Not just used in ads by media but also in conversations to describe dancers, costumes, places. What I also see is conversations about the definition and meaning of the word.What does the word sexy mean to you? Negative, positive? This is what I will be exploring in this week’s blog post.
Most of the time when I hear the word sexy, it’s in reference to a dancer or her costume. For example: “This costume is too sexy, too revealing, I was distracted.”
When did being sexy become a bad thing? When did that word change?
I thought sexy was something that women owned and dominated and gave us inner power. When I was growing up, it was a bad thing. It usually meant that I was wearing something too short or see through. But as I grew older, it was something more like a powerful essence that you carried inside. Of course even then, there was still a line that divided the inner sexy from the outer sexy.
My mom has a rule that you can show one thing or the other, not both. For instance, if you are showing your legs with a short skirt, don’t wear a halter top. And vice versa. This is what I usually go by for outer sexy.
Of course all of this is in the eye of the beholder. It can be about nothing physical and more about the essence or the inner sexy. Sexy can be something that someone just “has”. I can be just as sexy in a full sweatsuit just as much as in the barest of bellydance costumes. Sometimes it is just something about that person and it may not even be something that every sees or perceives.
In order to delve into this further, I went to my followers on social media and asked the question: What comes to your mind when you see the word sexy. I got the following responses:
“Weirdly enough, I feel like the word “sexy” has been so pop-culturized, I don’t actually associate it with sex. It makes me think of magazine fashion advice, and I might associate it with words like “fun” and “playful.” It’s not a word I’d use for something family-oriented, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel particularly taboo or private, either- if I wanted to talk about actual attraction between adults, I’d probably use different words, because “sexy” seems almost meaningless or watered down when it comes to what it was maybe originally intended to describe..”
“I see a woman who is confident in the way she looks, regardless of size or shape.”
They both seem to be in line with my own thoughts. What are your thoughts? I’d love for this to turn into a great discussion and perhaps deepen our understanding of the word.
I agree with everything you said. I remember what Erin Brockovich said about dressing Sexy when she was asked the question some years ago and she commented that what’s important is that you feel comfortable in what you are wearing even if some people say what you are wearing seems “too” Sexy to them. I believe the interpretation has changed somewhat over the years or people are pushing their own opinion onto everybody even if what the person is wearing is all right.