This is a public service announcement from the experts who consistently bring you some of the horniest content on the internet, day in, day out: please, in times such as these, be extremely careful with your own personal horniness and how you deploy it. Take heed.
I was moved to write this, in consultation with the Cut’s horniness braintrust, by the news that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is the subject of a petition to make him People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. The organizer of the petition, Sandra Martin, says that “his comforting and intelligent demeanor has helped to lessen our national anxiety. He speaks truth to power, a strength few have at this time. His kind face and manner of speaking bring calm during the storm.” These qualities all meet, she says, her definition of sexiness.
That all may be true. And while Sandra has a constitutional right (I think?) to, yes, define what she thinks is sexy, it is simply dangerous to allow the bounds of one’s utterly unbridled and madly horny energy in isolation to be applied with such recklessness. It’s not a matter of bad or bizarre taste — we are no strangers to the destabilizing effects of this kind of rampant, disturbing attraction, to people who tattoo their own faces, men who write raps for their dad’s birthdays, failed presidential candidates, exotic birds.
But during a pandemic, cooped up indoors, with sexual frustration at an all time high for many Americans, it is irresponsible to target a figure as seriously engaged in combatting that pandemic as Dr. Fauci is with unregulated horn. Is Dr. Fauci, as he discusses a possible coronavirus vaccine calmly and thoughtfully during a press briefing, being sexy? Or is he just doing his job? Or if it is both, as is your prerogative to feel, perhaps horniness has a time and a place for discussion, and it is not now, nor is it here? Consider saying, “Good job, Dr. Fauci,” out loud, and wait two minutes to see if you feel satisfied.
A similarly troubling phenomenon has arisen surrounding Andrew Cuomo, the New York governor who has become the subject of wanton salivation for taking charge during the coronavirus crisis. Again, this seems like a case of intense misplaced horniness, so starved are we for leadership that we have lost all regard for appropriate ways to feed the beast of our own desires while social distancing. This is not to sound moralizing, or against all horniness writ large: by all means, watch the Normal People trailer on a loop in the bathtub. Send Jake Gyllenhall doing yoga to group chat with 40 squirt emojis. Ask your HSP (household sex partner) to sing the Portrait of a Lady chanting bonfire song to you while you do stuff. There are many outlets through which you can meet these needs without invoking the guy who won’t cancel our rent.
Again, all I’m asking is that you ask yourself a few simple questions before you decide to be publicly horny. Is this person an elected official? Is this person on MSNBC right now? Do I really need to tweet at them that they are my “quar dick daddy?” And be honest.