Falling in Lust: Sexiness, Feminism, and Pornography

In a recent paper, Sheila Lintott and Sherri Irvin present a feminist critique of sexiness and point to two problems in particular. The first is that women are considered sexy in accordance with an externally dictated conception of sexiness. The second problem is that women are considered sexy in accordance with an unduly narrow conception of sexiness, one that focuses predominantly on the body and thus equates sexiness with objecthood. Giving up on sexiness altogether is not an option, however. According to L&I, that would mean giving up on a basic element of selfhood. So, instead of thinking that a woman is sexy if men experience her as sexually attractive, it should be the other way around: If a woman is sexy, then men should try to experience her as sexually attractive. A distinction that is largely ignored by L&I is that between appearing sexy to someone and being generally considered sexy.