\n<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, after the fall-winter 2026 collections in Paris, I wrote about sex. More specifically, about how luxury brands were offering it up on the runway, in some ways hearkening back to the licentious fashion of the late 1990s and aughts, and in some others recontextualizing it for the post-#MeToo, post-COVID-pandemic era of the 21st century. Haider Ackermann considered the art of street cruising at Tom Ford, which Anthony Vaccarello had explored a season prior at Saint Laurent. At Jean Paul Gaultier, Duran Lantink cut his skirts in such a way as to make it appear that their wearers were pitching a tent, if you catch my drift, and at Gucci, Demna outfitted Kate Moss with a thong and armed his very buff models with very tight shirts. It was a season in which so much of what we saw felt sexualized, yet it was not always sexy.<\/p>\n
This contradiction is representative of the way sex operates within culture at large. All over Instagram and TikTok are male \u201ccreators,\u201d a nebulous evolution of the influencer denomination, flashing their bulges, somehow bypassing censors. Never mind \u201cthirst traps,\u201d which are now part of our vernacular and our daily online diet. In the third season of Euphoria,<\/em> which premieres this Sunday, Sydney Sweeney\u2019s character seems to be selling erotic content too, at least as suggested by the trailers for the show.<\/p>\n