Sexual empowerment on our own terms

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Recently, actress Emily Ratajkowski wrote an essay about female sexuality for Lenny Letter that I resonated with me. She detailed the ways we tell women that sexuality is something to be hidden, contained, dangerous, whether it’s a teenager whose bra strap is showing or too much lip gloss. As she put it:

The implication is that to be sexual is to be trashy because being sexy means playing into men’s desires. To me, “sexy” is a kind of beauty, a kind of self-expression,...