ILLUSTRATION FERNANDO SAFONT
Cute? Sure. If you say so. Handsome? Well, maybe, if the moon is in Aquarius, the light is low and you squint a little. Hot? Come on, now you’re being silly. Sexy? No way. Never, ever. I’ve made something of an artform of self-deprecation, granted, but my aversion to being described as sexy, or feeling such, is more than that. It’s so abstract as to be alien, and a world I feel so far removed from that it may as well be.
I’ve spent my whole life surrounded by images of what sexy is and those images look absolutely nothing like me. From that iconic “Hello Boys” Wonderbra billboard of the 90s, to music videos dripping with sweat and innuendo, sexy is feminine. It’s skinny. It’s draped in chiffon, satin and silk. It’s words like “knickers” and “panties” that fill me with revulsion. It’s legs for days in stockings and suspenders, and writhing around in undergarments that I don’t even know the name of. These messages, deeply coded into everything, have reinforced the idea that women like me are other.