Summary of Chapter 6: "The Social Self of Sexy"

The screech of the car's tires announced their arrival in the petrol station parking lot. Their purple sports car bore a Playboy bunny sticker and pumped out bass lines. They both disembarked from the vehicle as if they were arriving at an awards show. They were in their midtwenties and wore the classic contemporary uniform: miniskirts, tight-fitting tank tops, dyed blonde hair, perfect tans, and expensive make-up. Their physiques gave away the fact that these girls spent a lot of time toning up at the gym. As they filled their gas tank, they tried to act casual, but it was obvious that they were anxious to know if they had an audience. Unfortunately, I was the only one in the parking lot, and as they walked inside to pay, they both glanced at me with their best seductive looks. Wow.

As the young women drove away, I realised they were acting out a learned script. Beneath the make-up and grooming, beneath the diligently learned visual cues of seduction, it was obvious that these two girls were actually deeply insecure. They were not at all interested in me; I was simply playing a key function in their performance. I was their audience. They wanted to be noticed. They wanted me - a man - to affirm that their carefully orchestrated act of 'sexiness' made them people of worth. They wanted to know that the public 'self' they had crated had been a success. It probably wound't have mattered if I were female; I'm sure they would have been just as happy to be recipients of female envy as opposed to male appreciation. Both would have confirmed their social currency - the sense that they were worthwhile human beings. Both would have aided them in their misguided attempts to find their true selves.

We are a culture obsessed with sexy. It is one of the most dominant disposable identities we encounter. The word sexy is now a cultural phenomenon. To label something sexy is to say that it is desirable and connected to pleasure and power. Today, in the age of the horizontal self, in which delayed gratification is downplayed and temporary pleasure is valued, the media mask of 'pleasure (and power) provider' carries enormous cultural currency. What is important is not what is going in someone's real life but the show she or he is putting on for the audience of her/his peers.

Source: Mark Sayers (2010), The Vertical Self, p.57-64