Thursday 6 June 2013

Why is Sexy/Hot a term of approbation?

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Sexy/Hot means that a person is deliberately and by contrivance (it cannot occur by accident) projecting or radiating a sexual signal - a signal implicitly of availability and desire; which is why it is so difficult to ignore this signal, and why it is so powerful a means of getting attention and manipulating others.

But why is being Sexy/Hot regarded - as it all-but-universally is in mainstream modern culture - as a Good Thing?

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In all traditional societies, probably all societies until about 60 years ago, Sexy/Hot was recognized for what it is - extremely dangerous and invariably disruptive and potentially absolutely destructive: in short, something to be squashed ruthlessly.

I date the change to the 1950s and the key figures of Marylin Monroe and Elvis Presley - probably the first major mass media stars celebrated for being Sexy/Hot.

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So why the change?

Godlessness, obviously.

Without God there is only this world, and in this world only pleasurable distraction, and among pleasures (short term, selfish pleasures - which are obviously the easiest pleasures to sell) sex is about the most powerful (at least, in a world where people have enough to drink and eat, and are warm and dry).

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So this is what we find; and people have ceased to notice that in celebrating and promoting and adopting as a universal lifestyle the ideal of being Sexy/Hot, we are purposefully and with zeal contriving to destroy... well... everything, pretty much.

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8 comments:

JP said...

How would you respond to:

"Why the change?
The Pill, obviously."

The Pill certainly dramatically lowered the costs and consequences of Godless pleasure-seeking...

Bruce Charlton said...

@JP - Too late, attitudes had already changed; the pill was more like a consequence rather than a cause...

The Crow said...

If there was "only this world", it would still be what it is: paradise.
Are we speaking of "the world" as The World, or in a merely social sense?

All the world's troubles originate from people seeing themselves as the world, rather than the world as them.



Bruce Charlton said...

C. has left a new comment on your post "Why is Sexy/Hot a term of approbation?":

What gives you the idea that "sexiness" must be deliberate? In that case unwanted sexual attention would be impossible - and believe me, it is possible to attract sexual attention while dressed modestly...

Bruce Charlton said...

@C - Clearly the word has a wide and imprecise usage - the thing I am talking about IS deliberate, contrived, strategic.

The Crow said...

Where I live, there is such a dire shortage of anything remotely describable as a 'hot chick', that the most astonishingly un-hot examples get to be described as 'hot'.
i.e.: Anything under 90, having at least 1% of their mass not green/grey in colour, not legally dead, and possibly female in origin.
This is what happens to language when you remove any baseline to provide context.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Crow - I think you may be missing the point...

The Crow said...

Funny you should say that, Bruce.
The main thing I've noticed about internet communications is that there really isn't any point.
Would that it were otherwise.