6/26/10

NOTES ON "SESSY" (From 2007)



NOTES ON SESSY

"Sessy" is a state of being. It is epitomized by the choice to employ mass media symbols of sexiness in a time of need, like clubbing, instead of cultivating one's own ideas RE: sexiness.

It is ersatz sexy.

Sessy is buying the Ikea put-it-together-yourself sexiness kit.

Sessy is the spectacle of the mediated image overpowering the individual mind.

The unaltered human body cannot be sessy - it takes some one's mistaken idea of what other people think is sexy to create sessy. It is the game theory of attraction.

Sessy must be a serious attempt to accomplish a goal (be physically attractive) that is so excessive as to strike the uninterested observer as humorous.

It's a concept that is a catch-all for everything that is ostensibly sexy, everything that we are told by advertising firms to be sexy, which clearly isn't.

Sessy is the verse chorus verse of fucking, the fast food of fetishes.

Sessy is a semiotic system perpetrated by the American capitalist enterprise to denote sexuality, which when put into use by those living non-celebrity lives, falls flat on its head (except in times of overexposure to alcohol, which is why sessy usually happens in close proximity to a bar).

Originally the term came into use as a conflation, a portmanteau of "sexy" and "sassy." It has come to be used as a sarcastic pejorative for someone who is overtly signaling negotiated signs of sexuality. It is easy to see how this combination of words has devolved into its current meaning - you could not regard someone you do not know - someone just walking by - as being sassy about their sexiness unless their manner of adornment used the language not of a "target audience" of people, but of "the mainstream"or the imagined "all people"- as if there was anything that all people agreed upon. This "all people" fallacy is one produced by thinking that what the mass media shows is all of life or is even "what life is like."

Sessy trafficks not in the individual-to-individual but in the individual-to-everyone. It is, essentially, capitalist-sexy. It casts its net for the lowest common denominator. Since standards of attractiveness are highly subjective this is clearly an indefensible/illogical/whatever position.

Currently "Sessy" (2007)

Tramp stamps
Thongs
Collagen injections
Any "clubbing" outfit
Tongue rings
Belly button chains
Six Packs
Nip Slips
High Heels
Tans/Tanning
Unnaturally blond hair
Muscle

2 comments:

Marina Goldshteyn said...

real totally real

Cassandra Troyan said...

When will "The Collected James Payne," be published and available for purchase?