Monday Musings: It’s not about sex, it’s strictly vanity
I was watching an interview with Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith about their new movie Tron: Ares the other day. She shared that, at 40, she finally has abs for the first time in her life - a major achievement! The catch? She can’t even show them off in the film because both she and Jodie had to wear full-body suits. Greta joked that she pitched a scene where they could dramatically rip off their costumes just to reveal those hard-earned abs - Taylor Swift who was also a guest asks “Can you show three of the abs?” - but the director didn’t go for it. Then Jodie chimed in with a line that’s been echoing in my head ever since: “This was not about sex, this is strictly vanity.”
I’ve been chewing on that line for a few days now, especially with the recent revival of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. After being cancelled in 2019 amid backlash over lack of representation and the objectification of women for the male gaze, the show is back. You know what, I think it’s working. The new lineup expands what it means to be a “VS Angel”. This time the show included a trans woman, a pregnant woman, an athlete, and plus-size models (among others) all confidently owning the runway. Sure, there’s still a lot of skimpy lingerie, but somehow it doesn’t feel like they’re doing it just to sell sex anymore (although I know that’s still in there). It feels more like the show is FOR women, instead of having women show up as convenient blow-up dolls.
It seems like such a no-brainer, doesn’t it? To create a show for the people who actually buy the lingerie. And yet, it’s only in the last five years that I’ve really started to notice brands putting the female gaze front and center. For the longest time, so much of the messaging around lingerie was less about how it made us feel, and more about how we’d be perceived by our sexual partners. It was all about being desirable, sexy, and “for someone else.”
But that’s slowly changing. It’s no longer about being looked at, it’s about how we see ourselves. You can see this happening across the broader beauty and fashion industry. Of course, we don’t observe ourselves in a vacuum. We’re still very much influenced by the actions and expectations of the people around us.But I think we’re firmly in an era where it’s normal to believe that we should choose things for ourselves, and not just because it’s what other people expect us to do. Actually, I’ll take that a step further: we now have the power to choose, and those choices are finally seen as valid. Maybe a little questionable at times, sure. But still valid.
What a time to be alive. The gender wars are still raging against the dying of the light but I think women are slowly removing ourselves from the narrative that we have to be sexually desirable to be valuable. Because, truly, it doesn’t need to be about sex. It could just be strictly vanity.
