Welcome to the Hump Day Motivation (HDM), a bi-weekly edition of ‘Gangletown’ about thirst and culture to get us through those rough mid-week moments. The HDM is typically released every other Wednesday for full-access subscribers only, but it is for everyone today. If you know someone that might love it, you have my full blessing to forward it their way!
THONGS ARE HAVING A MOMENT
Warning: For my family and friends who read, if you don’t want to think about me in a thong, this is your opportunity to skip to the next section.
Okay, so thongs are having a whole moment. Really, they’ve been having a moment for the better part of two years, but it seems like this year they’ve really stepped up. And me? I celebrate the thong! I am also terrified of the thong!
The photo above is from a gay-popular brand called “Charlie”. The products are pretty expensive - the thong bathing suit above is $105.00 - and the models in the pictures are… “aspirational.” Which like. Okay. The brand can do whatever they want and use the bodies they want.
I have to be honest; when I see marketing like this, I am often caught in the trap. The thing is…most of us don’t look like the models in the pictures of these things. Our bodies are bigger, smaller, different shapes, different colors, hairier, barer, and so on and so forth. And society is society. So, we believe that our bodies need to be perfect to wear the expensive, tiny fabric. If not, the idea of baring our cheeks with such brazenness is mostly terrifying. It shouldn’t be - because we’re all hot, and our bodies are stunning regardless of what they look like - but it is.
I’ll speak for myself. My relationship with my body is very up and down. Some days, I’ll catch myself in a mirror and feel like a super hot badass ninja giant hot guy. The next day, though, I will feel like a scrawny disgusting skeleton nightmare eel. But my body is my body, and over the last few years, I have been working to celebrate it as it is. I’m never going to have the kind of body that I personally find to be the most attractive on other people (which is not the adonis/adonia thing), so I’ve got just to embrace what I’ve got! I have even started getting a couple of tattoos that help me practice loving it. I have a giraffe and a flamingo, which are both animals that I feel carry the same body energy as I do. They’re tall, skinny, and awkward. They’re also beautiful, special, and silly.
BACK TO THONGS.
I’m trying not to let the idea of the perfect body stop me from feeling the fantasy. So I just bought a thong bathing suit (a sensible $40, not $105) that I’m going to give a test run in Ptown when I go on vacation in a couple of weeks. It may be that I just wear it in the backyard of our house, or maybe I’ll get enough courage to wear it at boy beach…I don’t know. I just know that I feel very dangerous even considering it as an option. And that I'm worried about my butt getting sunburned.
I’ll let you know how it goes…
[Before leaving this section, I just want to say - and I truly mean this - that literally, every body is sexy. The idea of “perfection” is something I speak of with a strong sense of disdain. If any of my words imply judgment of others that do not have the “perfect” body, please let me know; that is not my intention. I want all Gangles to celebrate their bodies as they are and allow society’s ideals to get fucked.]
LOL BOOKS
Remember books? Last December, I consumed like twelve books in one month. Then, in January, I consumed half of one…and stopped. And since then? I haven’t read any. I’ve read a ton of crap online, like emails, newsletters, and articles, but not a single book.
I AM EMBARASSED.
To be honest, I don’t know that I have ever gone this long without reading a book…I’ve had dry spells before, but this is fucking bonkers. I miss my friends (books)! So, this is a public accountability note to say that I will get my ass back into some summer reading. I can feel my brain turning into gelatinous white scum, and that just is not the gig.
Superlatively Hot: Teyana Taylor
Teyana Taylor is at the top of Maxim’s Hot 100, allowing her the title of current reigning “sexiest woman alive,” according to the magazine. I am reticent to say that this is 100% true because there are so many Hots out there, it seems impossible that the raw data they’re basing this determination on is comprehensive. Still, I am also just drooling all over my keyboard as I write this…so, what I’m saying is…though ranking hotness is weird and kind of gross, I’m also thirsty and thrilled.
It’s funny. I didn’t even know that Maxim Magazine still existed before I saw Taylor posting about this on Twitter. My stepdad used to subscribe to Maxim when I was a youth, so there was definitely a certain amount of exposure to the late-nineties/early-2000’s version of the magazine (such a specific era, now that we’ve gotten some distance), but these days my media consumption is definitely a bit more typically aimed at a queer audience. Maxim is, I think (?), a pretty “straight” audience?
Regardless, Teyana Taylor is without a doubt giving extreeeeeeemely hot dzaddy vibes at all times, and her shoot for the magazine is no different. Every pic is oozing with bonafide hottery.
My fellow geriatric millennials will remember Taylor going all the way back to her episode of MTV’s Super Sweet Sixteen, but those who have kept up with her career over time will know that she is a true jane of all trades, and it seems like she is about to have a more mainstream pop. She’s in music, dance, directing, hotness, and more. All that talent mixed into one person? Unreasonably hot.
Perhaps more hot than anything, though, is her overall vibe. Sure, her physical hotness is undeniable, but it’s the energy for me. Taylor gives off an extraordinarily grounded, intelligent, and confident mojo that I would pay good money for it if it were bottled and sold. To be reductive, she embodies a mixture of the hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine simultaneously, and often when I see her, I see a version of the person I wish I could be all the time.
Teyana Taylor is 3,000% the right choice for a woman to top a “hot 100” list this year, and, as per the tradition, we have no choice but to support this decision by also making her the DILFoftheWeek. Teyana Taylor is Dzaddy.
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Go for the thong magic!! Your Grandpa was the Thong Master!!