It’s almost summertime. For me, the sunny, sweltering hot season signals my wedding in Italy is fast approaching (holy smokes!), Aperol spritzes on the beach while I read my favorite book and try not to get sunburnt, rooftop hangouts and grill-outs, and, of course, swimwear season. Personally, I’m currently in the midst of a bathing suit refresh; it’s out with the old and worn, and in with the new, stylish, and flattering—and luckily for me, I came across a recent Sofía Vergara Instagram that inspired my swimsuit searching sagas.
Vergara is no stranger to a #fire photo; the actress regularly posts her looks, funny life moments, and more on the ‘gram, which make her oh-so-relatable (not to mention, fun to follow). But she recently served up some major swimwear inspo when she took to her Instagram Stories. In it, Vergara was wearing a bright-green one-piece, and before you say, “Hey Eva, one-pieces are too modest for me,” I say give hers a second look. In fact, it features one very easy detail that makes the full coverage swimwear totally sexy—in a subtle way, too.
7 Flattering Underwire One-Pieces for Summer
The actress’s green one-piece swimsuit, from none other than her namesake label, Sofia, by Sofía Vergara, features thin straps, a scoop neck with a split detailing, and last but certainly not least, a bustier-style, underwire bust that’s so sexy. So sexy, in fact, it takes the otherwise simple one-piece to entirely new levels of jaw-dropping.
Madewell Ribbed Underwire Open-Back One-Piece
Madewell
TA3 Swim Lifty One-Piece
TA3
J.Crew Balconette Underwire One-Piece
J.Crew
Underwire tops have been trending for years—and I, for one, am a huge fan of the style. The outlined busts adds a subtly sexy detail to your shirts (pro tip: Reformation makes a bunch of cute styles to shop from), but the addition of the bustier on one-piece swimsuits instantly transforms the otherwise modest-leaning beachwear into one worthy of a Sports Illustrated spread. It’s so eye-catching, adds dimension to the bodice, and there’s also a functional purpose.
The bustier bust doesn’t only look good, but it also makes wearing a one-piece all the better in terms of support. In many suits, you’ll find removable cups that don’t really do anything but move around and get all wonky-looking; with a sewn-in underwire, you can rest assured that everything will be properly supported, eliminating one very ugh-inducing factor about wearing one-pieces.
Ready to take your one-piece to another level? Check out more underwire swimsuits that are oh-so-sexy.
It’s almost summertime. For me, the sunny, sweltering hot season signals my wedding in Italy is fast approaching (holy smokes!), Aperol spritzes on the beach while I read my favorite book and try not to get sunburnt, rooftop hangouts and grill-outs, and, of course, swimwear season. Personally, I’m currently in the midst of a bathing suit refresh; it’s out with the old and worn, and in with the new, stylish, and flattering—and luckily for me, I came across a recent Sofía Vergara Instagram that inspired my swimsuit searching sagas.
Vergara is no stranger to a #fire photo; the actress regularly posts her looks, funny life moments, and more on the ‘gram, which make her oh-so-relatable (not to mention, fun to follow). But she recently served up some major swimwear inspo when she took to her Instagram Stories. In it, Vergara was wearing a bright-green one-piece, and before you say, “Hey Eva, one-pieces are too modest for me,” I say give hers a second look. In fact, it features one very easy detail that makes the full coverage swimwear totally sexy—in a subtle way, too.
7 Flattering Underwire One-Pieces for Summer
The actress’s green one-piece swimsuit, from none other than her namesake label, Sofia, by Sofía Vergara, features thin straps, a scoop neck with a split detailing, and last but certainly not least, a bustier-style, underwire bust that’s so sexy. So sexy, in fact, it takes the otherwise simple one-piece to entirely new levels of jaw-dropping.
Madewell Ribbed Underwire Open-Back One-Piece
Madewell
TA3 Swim Lifty One-Piece
TA3
J.Crew Balconette Underwire One-Piece
J.Crew
Underwire tops have been trending for years—and I, for one, am a huge fan of the style. The outlined busts adds a subtly sexy detail to your shirts (pro tip: Reformation makes a bunch of cute styles to shop from), but the addition of the bustier on one-piece swimsuits instantly transforms the otherwise modest-leaning beachwear into one worthy of a Sports Illustrated spread. It’s so eye-catching, adds dimension to the bodice, and there’s also a functional purpose.
The bustier bust doesn’t only look good, but it also makes wearing a one-piece all the better in terms of support. In many suits, you’ll find removable cups that don’t really do anything but move around and get all wonky-looking; with a sewn-in underwire, you can rest assured that everything will be properly supported, eliminating one very ugh-inducing factor about wearing one-pieces.
Ready to take your one-piece to another level? Check out more underwire swimsuits that are oh-so-sexy.
Actress Mouni Roy, who will be soon seen in the upcoming movie ‘The Virgin Tree’, has shared pictures from her dreamy vacation on her social media.
On Sunday, the actress took to her Instagram and shared two posts on her account both from the same location. In the pictures, she could be seen enjoying the serene beauty of a beach in Bali.
She captioned the picture, “Flamenco Sketches off of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.”
In the picture, she can be seen hiding her face and showing her palm to the camera as she sizzles in a blue coloured bikini. She wore a light blue coloured printed t-shirt over the bikini.
The actress’s BFF Disha Patani took to the comments section of her post and wrote, “So cuteeee”.
In the other pictures, Mouni wore a stunning red strapless dress with backless detail. She was also seen enjoying some calm moments in an extended sitting area with her girl gang.
On the work front, the actress was recently seen in the streaming series ‘Showtime’. The series took a deep dive into the world of Bollywood and the production houses.
It explored the power struggles and off-camera fights occurring in the backstage areas of the Hindi film industry.
If anyone is going to find a way to make a full racing suit look sexy, it's Emily Ratajkowski.
On Sunday, the model was riding in style at the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix while putting her personal stamp on Formula One fashion. Arriving at the Circuit de Monaco, EmRata looked ready to race as she walked the pitlane wearing an oversized black-and-white leather motorcycle jacket and a matching pair of baggy trousers with red stitching. With her coat unzipped, the My Body author bared her midriff and revealed a tiny bikini top underneath, as well as stringy bottoms hiked up on each side of her waistband. She accessorized with pointy-toe white heels, black shield sunglasses, and a neon yellow VIP pass draped around her neck.
Her dark brunette hair was styled sleek and straight with a middle part and curtain fringe, while the rest of her glam was kept simple and included a nude lip and sun-kissed skin.
EmRata wasn't the only famous face in the pits. Joe Jonas, Alexandra Daddario, Michael Douglas, Ashley Graham, and more made appearances, while Heidi Klum and her 20-year-old daughter, Leni, took the event as an opportunity to show off their mother-daughter style. For the occasion, both ladies wore white denim, with Heidi opting for a plunging sleeveless jacket paired with matching cropped jeans and sneakers, and, Leni, sporting a long-sleeved jumpsuit that was unbuttoned past her bust.
The world may appreciate Scarlett Johansson’s distinctive voice, but she doesn’t appreciate any perceived commodification of it outside of her own control. This week the actor accused the artificial intelligence company OpenAI of creating a virtual assistant voice that sounded “eerily similar” to her own. However, the Washington Post reported, another actress was hired to create the “Sky” voice, months before OpenAI CEO Sam Altman allegedly contacted Johansson to license her voice—a request she refused.
Johansson’s warm, approachable huskiness is her voice’s USP, a state most of us can only achieve through the otherwise miserable ravages of a cold, hangover, or allergies. Even then the sexiness is temporary—and you’re usually feeling too lousy to revel in it, no matter if loved ones or friends make admiring noises about your new, sexy voice.
“When you get a swelling of vocal cords, the mass of the vocal cords increases, which slows done the vibration of the cords,” Hayley Born, MD, MS, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Columbia University, told The Daily Beast.
Male vocal cords have a larger mass than female vocal cords; it’s part of the reason why men’s vocal pitch is generally lower, said Dr. Born. That pitch gets even lower when the vocal cords become swollen.
Evan Kennedy, an Associate in Clinical Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center, told The Daily Beast: “We think of our voices as identity-related things that hop out of bodies as a result of physical vibration. Huskiness happens if we get sick, or have a long night out, and end up with dehydrated, overused voices. The vocal folds in the throat get thicker and heavier, causing them to vibrate at a deeper pitch with less regularity leading to a breathier, huskier sound.”
For some the huskiness is welcome. Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Marilyn Monroe set an early, iconic template of husky-toned women. Harvey Fierstein, Bob Hoskins, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Willis, and Tom Waits are among many famous male raspers. In Family Guy, Peter desperately did all he could—all mostly hilariously disgusting—to get his “ill” voice back after he had recovered from illness. (Kennedy said that if your voice doesn’t return to its version of normal within two to three weeks, then seek medical counsel.)
“A husky voice is less direct as compared to clear and crisp communication. It feeds into what our culture holds to be ‘sexy.’”
— Evan Kennedy
What makes a husky voice sexy? “At the end of the day a husky voice comes with decreased volume, and a breathy quality that might betray feelings of intimacy,” Kennedy said. “A husky voice is less direct as compared to clear and crisp communication. It feeds into what our culture holds to be ‘sexy.’”
Dr. Born and her colleagues see performers from Broadway musicals desperate to escape the ravages of colds, which mean they can’t reach the high notes, or whose range has decreased because of the swelling of the vocal cords. Other performers, male and female, embrace and healthily train voices to sound raspier and huskier—indeed, they may be well known for it.
One toddler said they liked their dad’s new husky voice “because he sounded like Batman, and that was really cool,” said Dr. Born, adding that Alex Brightman, star of Beetlejuice on Broadway, worked with a speech language pathologist to craft a healthy way to rasp his way through the part. Smokers, Dr. Born said, achieve their own huskiness through a condition called Reinke edema, their tobacco habit leading to a permanent change in how their vocal cords work.
“Our voices are part of our identities, and people who create their identity around their looks or their voice may play up certain aspects of their voice.”
— Dr. Hayley Born
Kennedy, also a Speech-Language Pathologist and Voice Specialist at the Voice and Swallowing Center at Columbia, said that the inhaling of hot smoke from cigarettes caused tissue within the throat to become mildly enflamed. “‘Smoker’s voice’ happens over a long period of time, the tissue becomes larger and heavier, and the vocal cords not able vibrate with as much clarity as before,” Kennedy said.
“For many people huskiness is not the result of the physical nature of the vocal folds, but how we organize our throats and mouths to create sounds,” Kennedy told The Daily Beast. “My work is about helping people to achieve their desired sounds more efficiently in ways that do not tire them out. I work quite a bit with transgender individuals adjusting their voices to be congruent with their gender.”
Is a husky voice always the result of a cold, a physical quirk, a sign of another condition, or something we can all do with practice? “Our voices are part of our identities, and people who create their identity around their looks or their voice may play up certain aspects of their voice,” said Dr. Born. “Some people may have a large or small voice box, or a scar or cyst or polyp on their vocal cords.”
Some people may also practice “vocal fry,” where you speak at your lowest vocal register, achieved by “using less airflow, resulting in the vocal cords vibrating less efficiently, producing a deeper sound,” said Dr. Born.
“Our voices are consequences of habit”
People have “a great deal of malleability” in how they express their voices, Kennedy told The Daily Beast. “Our voices are consequences of habit, and you can certainly build a habit over a period of time. But achieving a husky voice may not be the most efficient use of your voice. It is all individual: how a voice sounds, rough or clear, husky or sexy, is defined by the person. Singers may want a husky voice, without sustaining injury. I might hear dysfunction in a voice, but the person whose voice it is may say it works perfectly for them. One old wives’ tale is that gargling or drinking hot tea have effects on our voices. They don’t. Our voice boxes are closed off to liquids.”
Kennedy said specialists try to determine what is causing the huskiness, and whether that underlying cause needs medical intervention. After this, surgery and/or training the voice can follow.
“People who speak in a lower register may feel more affirmed and powerful,” said Kennedy. “Women who come to us wanting that are dealing with the social pressures of patriarchy and hyper-masculine workplaces. Women now have a more expansive set of possibilities of what a ‘normal’ voice can sound like. That opens up more vocal real estate for gender-diverse and trans women too. The horizons are far broader than the ‘Disney princess’ tones of old.”
“The number one thing patients come to us for is how to keep their voices healthy when those voices are being used such a lot all the time in the world we live in.”
— Evan Kennedy
Meanwhile, Kennedy said, queer-identified men “may be dealing with an internal struggle around a voice that might betray them as more feminine than they would desire. Queer and trans individuals are balancing finding a voice which is congruent with them, while also facilitating self-reflection around how queer-sounding communication could be a powerful and enjoyable thing to incorporate into their identities.” (A fascinating documentary, Do I Sound Gay?, illuminates the topic further.)
Kennedy said huskiness was experienced by many people who aren’t ill, and who are just using their voices a lot. “The number one thing patients come to us for is how to keep their voices healthy when those voices are being used such a lot all the time in the world we live in. When it comes to communication, we’re marathon runners compared to how we began as communicators. It’s exhausting work—these tiny muscles in our necks are so impressive.”
So, how to stay healthy-voiced? “Our advice is to get rest, sleep, stay hydrated, regulate the things that can affect your voice, like allergies, and see a speech therapist if you’re finding your voice can’t cut it throughout the day,” Kennedy said.
For Dr. Born, “the deep dark secret of laryngologists” is hearing a voice with a gravelly texture, like Johansson’s or the singer Adele’s, and “seeing what the vocal cords are like—to understand what it is about the vibration of their cords that gives them their vocal textures. Is it pathology or behavior, or is it just the way they use their voices?” As with AI itself, our voices—husky, high, low, and clear—remain a many-toned mystery.
The internet is brimming with movie lists and best-ofs, templates that aim to impose some sense of order on a sprawling, more-than-100-year-old popular art form. These lists, even when they’re compiled by more than one person, are subjective, and that’s a good thing. There are enough values in this world determined by algorithm; let’s preserve discriminate human thought for as long as we can.
When it comes to lists of the sexiest movies ever made, subjectivity takes on yet another shade of meaning. What’s sexy for you may not be sexy for me, and vice versa. What’s more, these lists often tilt heavily—with good reason—toward erotic thrillersfrom the 1980s and ’90s. Body Heat, Body Double, Basic Instinct, Bound: these are terrific movies, and great placemarkers for their era: some of us can date them precisely just by noting the size of the shoulder pads on the jackets.
But if those movies are always the first that spring to mind, they’re hardly the whole story. In looking at some of these “sexiest movies” lists, I realized there were titles I loved that never, or rarely, showed up, pictures I saw in the 1980s as a young moviegoer, or later as a more grown-up one, whose memory still offers a frisson of pleasure. Some of these movies aren’t exactly loaded with sex scenes: we’re opting for quality over quantity here. Some are more evocative than racy—they whisper rather than shout. Nor are they all unequivocal turn-ons. In fact, one of the most explicit pictures on the list is also the most melancholic, an acknowledgement that sex is about connection as much as it is about pleasure, and therefore comes with inherent emotional risks.
Still, most of these movies are joyous or celebratory or just plain steamy. And while some of them aren’t exactly obscure, they still seem to have somehow drifted away from us. Time to reclaim them, preferably in a room lit by candlelight, or nothing but the naked screen.
It’s true that this Dracula, adapted from the 1924 stage play drawn from Bram Stoker’s novel, is a bit cheesy and stiff. But its star, Frank Langella—reprising the role that made him a star in the show’s 1970s Broadway revival—has enough erotic magnetism to keep its heart thumping. When Langella's broodingly intense Count Dracula decides that Kate Nelligan’s Lucy Seward will be his bride for all time, there’s no arguing with him. “You shall cross land and sea to do my bidding,” he tells her, his eyes seemingly X-raying right through her skin and straight to her core. Long before (the great) Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Spike and Angel persuaded us that vampires are people too, Langella reinvented this particular legendary bloodsucker as a somber romantic hero, stuck in a cycle of everlasting life and worthy of our sympathy. Who wouldn’t want to faint into his arms?
The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci, 2003)
The legendary Italian filmmaker’s explicit and exquisite romance, about three young people exploring the far reaches of desire in Paris during the spring of 1968, almost didn’t make it into American theaters in the version the filmmaker intended. The studio that released the picture, Fox Searchlight, opted to accept the MPAA ratings board’s NC-17 designation, rather than forcing Bertolucci to make the cuts that would have been required to earn the movie a more box-office-friendly R. Their benevolence was our gain then, as it is now. In this story adapted from a novel by Gilbert Adair (itself a reworking of Jean Cocteau’s Les Enfants Terribles), Louis Garrel and Eva Green play aristocratic twins Theo and Isabelle, who meet a young American student, Michael Pitt’s Matthew, at the temple of motion pictures known as the Cinémathèque Française. They take him home to their sprawling apartment, where they re-enact scenes from movies they adore (the first Scarface, Blonde Venus) before moving on to more games with much higher stakes: for starters, Theo dares Matthew and Isabelle to make love in front of him. The Dreamers is filled with nudity, with tenderness, and most of all, with wistfulness for the ecstatic adventurousness of youth.
The Big Easy (Jim McBride, 1986)
For some reason, this 1980s gem rarely shows up on lists of sexy thrillers or, for that matter, romantic comedies—maybe because it’s a little of both and thus not easy to classify. Dennis Quaid’s crooked New Orleans cop romances a sexually timid district attorney, played by Ellen Barkin, even as she’s trying to investigate corruption within the department. What could go wrong? Quaid and Barkin, just baby movie stars at the time, have a playful, teasing chemistry, and though their big sex scene is curtailed by pager interruptus (this was the '80s), it’s still exactly what the VCR rewind button was made for.
Henry & June (Philip Kaufman, 1990)
Who doesn’t love a good love triangle, especially one involving writers known for smashing taboos? Maria de Madeiros, diminutive and sultry, plays diarist Anaïs Nin, living in Paris with her stable, supportive husband, Hugo (Richard E. Grant). There she meets provocateur Henry Miller (Fred Ward)—whose explicit autobiographical novel Tropic of Cancer is yet to be written—and his charismatic wife June (Uma Thurman), becoming both witness to and player in their stormy relationship. Kaufman’s movie—the first to receive the MPAA’s NC-17 rating, the replacement for the board’s old adults-only X rating—is sexy in a way that’s both earthy and elegant, a story about artists brazenly charting their course in a thrilling new world, while also reaching out for one another.
Secretary (Steven Shainberg, 2002)
Before there was Fifty Shades of Grey, there was Secretary.Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a withdrawn young woman who’s just done a stint in a mental hospital. She has serious problems, manifested in her compulsion to cut herself. Then she goes to work for a demanding boss, played by James Spader. (His name, coincidentally, is Mr. Grey.) And under his guiding hand she discovers, to her great joy, that she loves to be spanked. To summarize Secretary that way makes it sound like a male wish-fulfillment fantasy: Man Cures Woman’s Serious Problems by Dominating Her. But it’s really much more delicate and powerful—and more fun—than that. What Shainberg and his actors capture is a peculiar and precious kind of understanding that can connect two people. Loosely adapted from a short story by Mary Gaitskill, this is a tender, perceptive fairy tale about erotic love, with some very good spanking scenes. There’s nothing embarrassed, or embarrassing, about it.
Friday Night (Claire Denis, 2002)
It’s Paris, on the last night of the workweek. Valérie Lemercier’s Laure has packed her last remaining possessions into her car, ready to start a new chapter as she moves in with her boyfriend. But transit workers are on strike, and the city’s traffic is at a standstill. Pedestrians amble between the cars, looking for a lift. Laure, sensibly, rolls up her window and locks her door. But something about the face of one stranger—his name is Jean, and he’s played by the soulful actor Vincent Lindon—speaks to her. She agrees to give him a lift, if things ever get moving. And somehow, later, they end up together in a hotel bed, in a one-night union whose strength lies in its temporality—it shifts something in both of them, before they head out to their respective futures. Friday Night, made by one of our great filmmakers, is erotic in the quietest, gentlest way, and its afterglow lasts.
9 Songs (Michael Winterbottom, 2004)
One of only two movies on this list that feature unsimulated sex, 9 Songs was an oddity when it came out, and it still is today. Winterbottom had grown weary of the fakeness of most movie sex scenes. So he created a project in which two actors—Margo Stilley and Kieran O’Brien, playing an American student and an English glaciologist who begin a relationship after meeting one night in a club—would have actual sex on-camera. 9 Songs (its title comes from the music played by bands featured in the film, including Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Franz Ferdinand) traces the arc of this relationship largely as it plays out in bed. The effect, ultimately, is more mournful than pornographic. At one point O’Brien’s character describes the Antarctic as a place where one can feel “claustrophobia and agoraphobia in one place—like two people in bed.” The fun and pleasure of sex are relatively easy to capture on film, but Winterbottom gets at something more subtle: the wistfulness of its aftermath.
When this work of voyeuristic genius opened, in 2002, many who wrongly considered themselves arbiters of taste hooted at what they saw as its absurdity. And maybe Femme Fatale is over the top—but it’s gloriously so. Rebecca Romijn plays Laure, an American jewel thief in Paris who, while on the run from the crooks she’s double-crossed, serendipitously meets her doppelganger Lily (also played by Romijn). When Lily commits suicide, Laure assumes her identity to achieve her own magnificently selfish aims. Antonio Banderas is the paparazzo who becomes obsessed with Laure/Lily, tracking her every move, and how can you blame him? She’s a diabolical enchantress in Parisian black lace. The movie’s opener, involving the switcheroo of an erotically serpentlike piece of diamond-studded body jewelry (in a ladies’ bathroom at the Cannes Film Festival, no less), is by itself an elegant, witty masterstroke. And the movie’s central symphonic theme, a mystically seductive riff on Boléro by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, will forever live in your brain alongside Ravel’s original.
Weekend (Andrew Haigh, 2011)
Tom Cullen and Chris New play Russell and Glen, who spend the night together after meeting in a gay bar. The next morning could be the end of it, but the two meet again after the workday ends, learning more about one another—and one another’s bodies—in a union that has no future beyond the weekend. They squabble over theoretical ideas of what it means to be a gay man; they laugh at each other’s silly jokes; they try to guard their feelings, to no avail. The sex scenes in Haigh’s film are ardently carnal and tender; sometimes a person who crosses your path only briefly can stay with you for a lifetime.
10,000 Km (Carlos Marques-Marcet, 2014)
Circumstances demand that a committed couple spend a year apart: Alex (Natalia Tena) moves to Los Angeles for a photography fellowship, while Sergi (David Verdaguer) stays behind in Barcelona. Modern people find ways to keep their love alive long-distance; how hard could it be? But Alex and Sergi struggle with it: they’re rattled by the alienating quality of sex via computer screen, the way longing for another person’s touch can become a kind of torture. This is a gorgeous, mournful movie about the intimacy of longtime commitment, as well as the sadness of realizing that the body of a familiar person has suddenly, inexplicably, become that of a stranger.
The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996)
Cheryl Dunye’s micro-microbudget film, part of the new queer-cinema explosion of the 1990s, is mostly about an aspiring young filmmaker, Cheryl (played by Dunye herself), who’s struggling to make a documentary about a lost Black character actress from the 1930s, one generally relegated to playing housemaids and “mammy” roles. But it’s also a romance, one that kicks off in the aisles of the video store where Cheryl works. Diana (Guinevere Turner, also the co-writer and star of 1994's Go Fish) is the hot spoiled-white-girl customer who stops by to borrow a few tapes; it’s not long before she and Cheryl end up in bed, tentatively figuring out where their relationship might be going, if it’s going anywhere at all. Their big sex scene feels relaxed and lived-in, an exploration of mutual pleasure that’s only heightened by the flickers of annoyance that pass between them.
Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell, 2006)
To be fair, Shortbus—the creation of John Cameron Mitchell, the playful genius behind Hedwig and the Angry Inch—isn’t exactly sexy in the steamy sense. But it’s such a charming, funny, open-hearted work that it belongs on this list. Set in post-9/11 New York City, this relaxed, semi-improvised movie—one of the two films on this list that features unsimulated sex—follows one of the cutest couples you could possibly imagine, played by Paul Dawson and P.J. DeBoy, as they decide to open up their relationship, which means navigating some emotionally rocky shoals. During a therapy session, their couples counselor, played by Sook-Yin Lee, confesses to them that she’s never had an orgasm. Inappropriate, I know! But Shortbus is so effervescent and teasing that you’ve just got to go with the fantasy. They invite her to an underground sex salon (it’s run by singer and bon vivant Justin Vivian Bond), where all three explore their options, in all manner of combinations. Shortbus is about having fun, and about getting to know yourself, in all ways. But it’s also about how dislocating it can be to seek connection, and sometimes even to find it.
Morocco (Josef von Sternberg, 1930)
You could sum up Morocco’s sultry allure with five words—Marlene Dietrich in a tux—but I’ll add a few more. As a free-thinking cabaret singer who knows her own mind and still decides (spoiler alert!) to follow her man into the desert, Dietrich, making her American film debut, is seductive to the millionth power. The man she falls for, a Legionnaire played by the very young Gary Cooper, is nearly her equal in beauty and charm, maybe because he’s not the only one wearing the pants. All of the collaborations between Dietrich and von Sternberg, the director who best understood her appeal and her potential, are great, but Morocco’s wistful romantic aroma—with hints of cigarettes, cloves, and oranges, mixed, perhaps with the sweetest sweat—lingers the longest.
The Last Mistress (Catherine Breillat, 2007)
French provocateur filmmaker Catherine Breillat made some of the most daring and unnervingly exciting films of the early 20th century—if you’ve seen her 2004 Anatomy of Hell, the words tampon teabag will mean something to you. The Last Mistress is among Breillat's subtler films, but it still simmers with raw romantic hunger. Asia Argento plays a sexually insatiable 19th century courtesan who’s about to be abandoned by her young aristocratic lover (Fu’ad Aït Aattou), and she’s not having any of it. She’ll do whatever it takes to hold him, and to secure her own pleasure: when he’s wounded by a bullet, she licks the bloody hole with a kind of feral tenderness. The movie is based on a 19th century novel by Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, controversial in its day; Breillat had always wanted to adapt it. The Last Mistress, she has said, “is the film where I plunge to the core of romanticism.” Not to mention that the movie’s languorous, muted-velvet color palette is a plushy pleasure unto itself.
Gloria (Sebastián Lelio, 2013)
“Older” people having sex: who wants to think about that? Nobody—until you get there. In Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio’s exuberant Gloria, a late-fifty-something office worker, divorced for 13 years—played by the wondrous Paulina García—decides she would simply like to meet a new guy. She heads out to a dance club where she sees plenty of others around her age, hoping for a similar outcome. And she does meet a guy (Sergio Hernández), who offers, at least for a time, the promise of romantic bliss and sexual joy. Lelio remade his own film in America, the 2018 Gloria Bell, starring Julianne Moore and John Turturro. It’s a good picture, but somehow it doesn’t have the same bittersweet radiance of the original, a testament to the idea that you’re never too old to want sexual intimacy—although, as always in dealing with other humans, keeping a sense of humor is key.
Depending on who you’re talking to, sex is either the most natural thing on earth or a shameful sin that must be endured without pleasure to ensure the future of the human race.
Whether it’s being celebrated or censored, discussed openly or surreptitiously, done for procreation or recreation, you can be sure of one thing – if you mention it, you get people’s attention. (Hey, that’s just biology. Or chemistry. Or some sort of science thing.)
When the Billboard Hot 100 launched on Aug. 4, 1958, America wasn’t exactly in its most socially progressive era. You could sing about crushes, hand holding and even kissing on the radio, but you dare not mention the dirty. But since humans are wired to think about it regardless of social mores, songs that subtly tipped to the nasty penetrated popular music anyway.
Musicians spoke about it in coded slang terms, alluded to it in song lyrics (both poetic and crass) or implied it by singing the most innocent words in a suggestive tone. Heck, rock n’ roll – the youth culture music of the Boomer Era – is named after it (as far back as the 1910s, African American communities were using the phrase “rock and roll” as a euphemism for sex).
During the sexual revolution of the ‘60s, the U.S. began to loosen up, and by the ‘70s, it was only the old fogies wagging their fingers and clucking their tongues when the words “sex” and “sexy” began to appear in the titles of hit songs on the Billboard charts.
And that’s what this list is about – the most popular songs in Hot 100 history to have the words “sex” or “sexy” in the title. Some of these Hot 100 hits are, well, hot; others are hokey; a couple have aged poorly.
Without beating around the bush any further, here are the 15 biggest songs with “sex” or “sexy” in the title in Hot 100 history.
This ranking is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. To ensure equitable representation of the biggest hits from each era, certain time frames were weighted to account for the difference between turnover rates from those years.
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