what *is* sexy now?
I'm spiraling... but in a sexy way?
I have spent a lot of time, money and energy in pursuit of ‘sexy’.
I have chopped layers into my hair. I’ve chosen a lipstick based on the colour of my nipples. I have done squats and pilates and exercises that involve lying down and lifting and lowering my legs painfully slowly.
Back in my teens my friends and I agreed that girls fit into three categories: sexy, pretty, and cute. Sexy meant boys wanted to rip the girl’s clothes off, that they were erect at the mere sight of her. Pretty, like beautiful, meant she could be a model or an actress – but her appeal was mostly to other girls. Cute meant girlfriend material. You can’t be all three, we declared. You must choose one.
I discussed this with boys in the park, hoping, of course, that they would immediately volunteer that I was firmly in the sexy category. Or pretty if absolutely necessary. Never cute. Ugh. The boys did not deliver their part of the script, instead debating whether one of my friends was sexy or beautiful (they decided beautiful, but her boobs were sexy).
I wore a lot of short skirts. I suspected that when I wanted to turn the sexy on, the route was cleavage and legs. I never felt sexy in my teens, most likely because I was a virgin while my friends were not (mostly thanks to much older men, which I only realised was concerning, not cool, many years later), but also because I was a witness to my own effort, and I knew that sexy meant not putting in any effort at all. I remember, once, painstakingly curling my hair, putting on a push-up bra, buttoning up my denim jumpsuit, and slipping on basket wedge heels… for a trip with my mum and brother to B&Q. No one in the paint aisles swooned. No mouths fell agape. Nary an ‘awooga’.
I eventually had sex but I was not sober and it was with a man who I didn’t like. That was not a recipe for feeling sexy. He told me I looked good with my hair up, so I cut in a bob while he was on holiday. Unfortunately for him, he was gone long enough for me to sober up, remember I didn’t like this man, and discover I could in fact be alone without collapsing in on myself. I ended things. I regretted the bob, which I had hoped would be cool and French but instead made me feel like someone’s mum.
I successfully snared men for drunken kisses every time I went out. To go out drinking and not return with stubble rash along my jaw was a failure, a waste. I hoped that each makeout session with a man 10 years older than me, pressed up against a brick wall, head spinning, tongue fuzzy with rum and coke, would make me feel that I had definitive proof of my sex appeal. It never quite landed.
I grew up. I travelled the entire length of the Piccadilly line to hook up with a guy who then ghosted me and thus made me convinced I would never be sexy and was in fact somehow freakish in my body, so repulsive when naked that he’d had to run and hide. I obsessively checked his Facebook until one night when I accidentally wrote his full name into the ‘status update’ box and let it be published for a good few hours. I got into relationships. I read magazines and consumed any media that would instruct me on the art of sexiness.
Back then, sexiness was obviously identified. Big boobs were sexy. Long, volumised hair. Sexy was Scarlett Johannson, Sofia Vergara, Megan Fox. To be sexy, I just had to align myself closer to women like them.
You can see this very clearly in an article I wrote for Metro in 2016, titled (note the old-school SEO skills): ‘How to be sexy: I tried to become sexier for one week – here’s what happened’. Back then, the advice was simple: a blowdry, wearing red, buying fancy lingerie. I realised, nine years later, that if I were to try to recreate this article, I would truly have no idea where to start.
That’s because sexiness has become murky. I can no longer pinpoint what it means to have sex appeal. The trends have shifted. The sexy arrow forward has blurred. I can get a read on a lot of things, but not what will turn anyone on.
My sexistential crisis was in large part prompted by the wedding pictures of Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos. I took in the fitted shape of her dress, her exaggerated hourglass silhouette, her artfully undone hair, and thought yes, this is what written down would be categorised sexy… but is it sexy? It must be, surely, for such a wealthy man to choose this woman to be his wife. But something wasn’t connecting. It all felt off.
The spiral continues with Kylie Jenner sharing the details of her boob job. Is Kylie Jenner sexy? She has big boobs and full lips and long hair. But does knowing these characteristics have been created with the effort of surgery and fillers and extensions dent their sex appeal? Perhaps the metrics of sexiness changed when I wasn’t looking. Maybe effort is now rewarded with men’s attention?
Men like Sydney Sweeney. Sydney Sweeney has big boobs and blonde hair and wears fitted dresses with low necklines. Sabrina Carpenter is also blonde and wears corsets and does sex positions on stage… but do men find her sexy? Comments on TikTok say she’s ‘for the girls’ and she’s ‘camp'. Kylie is ‘for the girls’ too because she shared the exact details of her boob job. But was the boob job done ‘for the girls’? Or in pursuit of a type of sexiness defined by men?
When everything is so hypersexualised, what chance does anyone have of cutting through? Men can see close-up POV videos of men’s penises entering a woman’s anus in a matter of phone taps. A hint of cleavage in a low-cut dress can’t compete with that, surely. It used to be considered super sexy for a woman to eat an ice lolly in a seductive way. That loses its power when you can generate a convincingly real deepfake of another woman sucking an actual penis, with not a sign of a gag reflex.
When everything is fake, how can something real be sexy? But also… is everything fake inherently un-sexy due to its artifice? You see a sexy mouth, realise it’s probably artful filler, and its sexiness declines. But you see a natural mouth and the lips aren’t full enough. Someone online has perfect skin and a high, lifted butt. She’s AI, so no sex there. Someone in real life has a great butt and you question it… is it real, and thus permitted as sexy? Sexiness has a filter smudging its immediacy. We pause, try to fact-check, and sexiness slips through our fingers. It’s fine though because we can keep scrolling on to the next thing. No need to pause, no need to wait for something sexy to come along, the next sexy thing is served up on an algorithmic platter. It doesn’t need to be real because there’s simply so much of it. In 2025 we are filled up on junk food sexiness, consumed in a flash then forgotten. Sexiness from Shein; you can get it cheap but it won’t last or stand up to much scrutiny.
Is being thin sexy? How thin until you cross over into not sexy, but approved by other women? Mounjaro isn’t sexy. But if you lose enough weight from your stomach, is that sexy? Youth is sexy. Is a really great facelift sexy? If it’s not… then why are we getting them? Are we still even pursuing sexy? Does pursuing sexy automatically de-sexy you?
I hope I’m not the only one lost. It would be quite embarrassing to find out that everyone else has a confident handle on what sexiness is these days and I am oblivious. I wrote a feature for Stylist at the tail end of 2024 that listed 50 unexpected things that turn women on. I recommend reading it, and I would also very much like a similar list from straight men. Except maybe not even the ‘unexpected’ bit. Just tell me what you want. I know I shouldn’t care, but I do. I at least want to know, even if I do nothing with that intel.
At least I have a good grasp on what I, personally, find deeply sexy. I’ve put a list of some of these below. Some apply to women, some to men, some to both.
When someone is very talented or skilled at something
Unfortunately, when someone rolls a cigarette
Also unfortunately, smoking a cigarette1
The moment when someone lights a cigarette and they hold the cigarette a bit tighter in their mouth
When a woman wears a loose T-shirt or tank top with large arm holes so they show off their bra or the fact that they’re not wearing a bra
This video:
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Nipples through a T-shirt
Matty Healy, for my sins
Certain laughs
Really good eye contact
The sound of some people’s voices
When a woman wears a loose shirt and it’s kind of haphazardly buttoned or generally feels ‘thrown on’
Good tattoos on men
Men with beards but only very specific beards and they can’t be annoying about it
A bum that is a perfect C shape
Men confidently driving a car
Men being good at their job
When a woman wears a dress that’s slightly transparent
Men with sturdy shoulders
An oversized leather jacket
A T-shirt with holes in it
Strong hands
Men being a bit grubby
Perky boobs
When women have long hair and specifically when they don’t have a set parting so they will just kind of ruffle it about and push it to one side, if you get what I mean
Micro-braids on women2
When someone reaches up to grab something and their T-shirt rides up to show a tiny flash of their tum
Freckles
A suit but at the end of the party, when the tie’s been taken off and they’re a bit worse for wear
A full lip being bitten
A hand on my face when being kissed
I have never smoked a cigarette and likely never will. It’s a shame because I often think I would look so hot if I were smoking. Bummer.
On Black women, to be clear. A white woman with microbraids or dreads: not sexy