Sexy and sex.

More on the total independence between sexy and sexual: compare these four websites. (All but the first are fairly NWS.)

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab - Selling nonsex without sex.
Yves Saint Laurent Parfum - Selling nonsex with sex.
Hustler Lingerie - Selling sex with sex.
Blowfish - Selling sex without sex.

It's the last one that's most interesting to me. Blowfish sells sex toys, porn, lube, condoms, and they do it without a single eyelinered model pouting at the camera. They just tell you what they've got and why you might like it; any titillation is going to come from the products, not the advertising.

I don't want to say the Blowfish's marketing is better than Hustler's, somehow more moral; that's Puritan thinking. But it's more comfortable for me that to no one's trying to engage me sexually while I'm just trying to shop. And it avoids the awkwardness of looking at something that's supposed to be sexy but is aimed at different preferences from my own. And the pressure to be sexy in the same way as the models, which would never work for my body and personality.

I think the confusion between sexy and sexual impedes public discourse on sexuality; we get the feeling sometimes that the discourse itself is a sexual act. That teaching, talking, voting about sexual issues might turn people on, and that would make it wrong and creepy even to have the discussion. I'm taking an anatomy class and on Reproductive System Day a room full of grown working adults collapsed into awkward giggles multiple times--not because it's that funny but because talking about private parts in public feels uncomfortably close to airing out your own sexuality in class. With hearts we measured each other's pulse and output; with penises and vaginas we tried very hard to talk as if none of us had anything like that. Admitting I have a vagina is a little too close to showing it to everyone, and that would be icky.

Sexy has its place and it's not just the bedroom. Sexiness livens up entertainment and socialization and dancing and dating and life. And even advertising sometimes. But sexiness doesn't need to follow everywhere sex goes. Being able to separate sexiness from sexuality is crucial to talking about our... tee-hee, you know, thingies... like goddamn grownups.