🫦✨The Nexialist #0139

pretty baby | the perpetual infantilisation of millennial women | ella tiene | callipygian | erotic electronic | slut techno | (masturbation) data is beautiful

Sep 21, 2023

welcome to another week of human-curated bits of internet, the nexialist

hey! i hope this e-mail finds you ~~well~~ like the gif above. this week, my parents are visiting and it has been super gezellig to have them over. we’ve been enjoying the beautiful city, the cheese, the season change and moments together. we even got to see caetano veloso’s concert at one of the most beautiful theatres in amsterdam, carré. also, we went to a nearby village where we could visit some windmills, zaanse schans (it’s already on my amsterdam list of things to do). i guess having my mother’s (and sister’s) presence so close these days made my radar this week turn a bit more into womanhood. also, the nexialist this week is again a bit short, but not any less brainsparking, i hope. enjoy 🫀✨

—Rodrigo Turra

2 years ago » 🎁✨The Nexialist #0038 : The Perfectionism Trap | Normosis: The Pathology of Normality | Social Cooling | Solar Power | Artist Imperfection

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👧pretty baby

this documentary is on my watchlist, but one snippet reached me while taking a ~~stroll~~ scroll down reddit ~~hole~~. it’s worth watching the 2 minute part (since i can’t embed it here). it sums up very well a shift that i had never realised happened, even having studied communication: how/when the sexualization of women in media shifted to young girls, or that “archetype.”

as late as mid 60s, Hollywood was still working of a sexual idea based on Marilyn Monroe —a bombshell, an exaggerated sexuality. But that was still an adult sexuality. Women who epitomized ideal sexuality were grown women. They were at least in their 20s and they had voluptuous women’s bodies. Marilyn Monroe, I think she was a size 14 or something like that? Sophia Loren, Ava Gardner. They were grown women and they were not children when they were presented as sexual ideals.
…
We see Roe v. Wade, we see sexual harassment laws come into being. We see second wave feminism… One of the responses of the dominant culture to the rise of feminism was the sexualization of little girls. It’s almost as if we’re told: “ok, you’re not gonna be “traditionally feminine” (which traditionally meant powerless, submissive, dependent.) We’ll replace you with little girls.”

of course, it makes me think how, in general, this shift is very much alive and perpetuated now that we’ve all become creators, including young people looking to go viral. young girls dancing on tiktok still get all kinds of disgusting comments from grown-up men, for instance. it’s vile.

brainsparks: the beach party genre (tn#98), content capital (tn#96), boys alone (tn#38), channel drift (tn#60)

👯‍♀️the perpetual infantilisation of millennial women

while trying to find the previous video, the algorithm and my keywords pushed me this recent rowan ellis video about the perpetual infantilization of millennial women. i love her video essay format and the way she ties everything together: from the emergence of the teenage demographic by marketers and a deep dive into the #adulting trend, to all weekly tiktok girly trends like hot girl summer and girl dinner. even i found myself relating to some topics as a gay man: even calling myself a man feels weird sometimes, when i’m 34 years old. it’s a longer video which you can listen to as a podcast, and i highly recommend.

…the overuse of girl suggests an inherent fear of womanhood because it's associated with ageing and, therefore death struck a chord for a lot of people.
…
I think the use of “girl” isn't necessarily about the sparishment of womanhood, but potentially the feeling of not being worthy of it. Women are adults with their shit together. They’re mature powerful and a lot of young women, particularly Millennial women, don't feel like they can claim that title as their own;

brainsparks: millennial suffering (#135)

👁️ella tiene

yes, if nathy peluso releases anything, it will make its way into the nexialist. on the same universe as her “ateo” hit, bachata makes my latin brain/body want to move. also, i just love her interpretation, her dance moves, and using the word from before, her voluptuousness.

brainsparks: intense salsa (tn#9), artist imperfection (tn#38), atheist (tn#41), salvaje (#130), trusting your destiny (tn#46),

🍑callipygian

callipygian (adjective): having shapely buttocks

i thought i had shared this word here before, but i had not. super important word to add to your vocabulary. the first time i heard it was in john grant’s song black belt.

You know how to get what you want, don't you?
Would you not say that you agree, baby?
You really think that you can school me in semantics
I can't recommend that, baby, I see through your antics
You think you're mysterious, you cannot be serious
You got lots of time to think up new ways to deceive yourself
You are callipygian, but look at the state you're in
You got really nice clothes, bet you didn't pay for those

brainsparks: anasyrma (tn#79), anitta’s butt tattoo (tn#75), why do we have butts? (tn#27)

🎚️erotic electronic

slayyyter has been releasing some new tracks and i’m here for it. get ready for public nudity à la make the girl dance.

🫦slut techno

a couple months ago my friend pierre introduced me to miss bashful and i’ve been addicted to her music: i love the beats and the sassy lyrics. in this interview she is called a slut techno pioneer: she released the SLUT BOPZ VOL. I and VOL. II and tracks like sad slut and slut commandments. if you enjoy miss kittin and myss keta, you’ll enjoy this.

it got me thinking about how this slutty archetype is evergreen in pop discourse (remembered the recent kim petras’ slut pop era), but i feel it is having a more unapologetic and literal moment (?). i also know this fine line between empowerment and objectification is quite a controversial topic.

brainsparks: male objectification through the ages (tn#127), lesbian gaze (tn#12) ,ADORO (tn#29)

💦(masturbation) data is beautiful

in the era of big data and the “quantified self” trend (or the fun side of surveillance), i loved this infographic about a month of masturbation of a woman. they say masturbation makes you understand things you like and your body, and this seems like a great way to evaluate it.

brainsparks: the porn conversation, how tech is reshaping male masturbation (tn#95), pleasure activism (tn#123)

see you next week, sluts 🫦✨

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