On nudity - Mireille Silcoff in NYT: (Thanks to my friend P)

‘Watching the red carpet at Monday night’s Met Gala, I couldn’t help but recall a prediction I’d heard from Emily Kirkpatrick, who writes the Substack newsletter “I <3 Mess.” She’d told me recently that, before the end of 2024, it’s possible that “someone is going to show up fully nude on a red carpet.”’

(…)

‘Near-nudity is everywhere, at least on celebrities and the celebrity adjacent. Bianca Censori, Kanye West’s 29-year-old partner, wandered around Paris wearing a cropped jacket with sheer pantyhose and seemingly nothing on underneath, her modesty preserved only by the stockings’ single center seam. Julia Fox attended a fashion launch with three silver medallions covering her private parts under a long — and frequently parted — trench coat.’

(…)

‘A 2021 U.C.L.A. study of California residents found that nearly 40 percent of the 18- to 30-year-olds it surveyed reported having no sexual partners in the prior year, up from 22 percent 10 years prior.
There are many theoretical explanations, from the addled overuse of phones and social media and the ubiquity of online porn to the fact that more young people live alone. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that one thing more people aren’t doing is doing it. And it’s probably not because people are masturbating more. Those numbers have remained relatively steady.’

(…)

‘In the arms race for eyeballs, showing skin has been colonized by a desire for clicks, the only real currency in an attention economy. Nudity has finally been denuded of sex.’

(…)

‘Kim Kardashian wore a corset this year so cinched it looked perilous. But she also wore a sweater.
This collection of looks wasn’t exactly a triumph for bringing back the mystery. But at least it was, literally, not nothing.’

Read the article here.

More than nothing is already an accomplishment.

Less sex, same amount of masturbation, just more nudity, in the name of clicks.

The end game of desire.