It's 2019 and Women Are Horny as Heck

From ELLE

You're in your bed. Your calves are cramping, your hair is disheveled, your arms are restrained, you're breathing heavily. The pleasure is sublime. The man providing you with it is…. one-time Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke?

The now infamous tweet sent by political commentator Leah McElrath was the sort of thirsty message that you mind find in the comments section under literally any picture of a woman. But it loudly announced an emerging theme for 2019: women being extremely horny online.

Over the past year and a half, women have taken the 50 Shades of Grey copies out from their bedrooms and presented themselves as fully horny individuals.

The examples are wide-ranging. Ariana Grande released the super sexual song Sweetener, with lyrics like "I love the way you eat the bowl" and "then you get it, get it, get it, get it" while also simultaneously running around town mentioning Pete Davidson's genetic gifts. The film Blockers carried the torch for the younger horn dog generation, telling the story of three young women who made a pact to lose their virginity on prom. And every time To All the Boys I’ve Ever Loved Noah Centineo posted a picture of himself, women filed into the comments section to write out in filthy detail what they’d like done to their bodies.

Centineo's not the only one. Women have so publicly declared their affections for Penn Badgley’s character in You that he’s responding to tweets reminding us all to never find a stalker so attractive. Even in spite of the retrograde behavior Badgley’s character Joe Goldberg shows on screen, we're seemingly unable or unwilling to tamp down our horniness.

Women, in all our beautiful nuance, did not limit ourselves to thirsting over just the human form. When a mandarin duck with radiant feathers appeared in Central Park, it was promptly dubbed "the Hot Duck." This rare species was so gorgeous it inspired artistic renderings, a profile in the New York Times, a capsule collection, and flocks of fans that traveled to Central Park just to get a glimpse of his brilliant feathers.

In the Netflix series Big Mouth, a show that dedicates a majority of its time to boys going through puberty and the corresponding unrelenting horniness they feel, there’s an episode titled: “Girls Are Horny Too.” The title feels political-it’s an announcement of such a simple concept-yet in the episode, the mere declaration makes several cartoon heads explode.

But of course, even in this record-breaking run of horniness, the announcements are often tinged with political implications. Days after McElrath pushed send on her viral tweet, she stated it was created to both ”highlight the toxic masculinity of certain candidates and their respective campaign philosophies,” and remind those who continually forget that indeed, “women have sex and even still cum.”

There are several potential explanations for the great horniness outbreak of 2019. One is that as we creep closer to the reality of having to live out the phrase “Not if you were the last person on earth,” we are selecting definitively who can, and cannot, get it. Or maybe, not coincidentally, women’s PDH (public displays of horniness) are ramping up as a response to the #MeToo era. After more than a year of being unable to avoid headlines about how disgusting powerful men can be, maybe we're finally starting to remember what being horny feels like. In the year 2019, we have the power to out toxic men for their criminal behavior, and the power to tweet about how horny Manny Jacinto's Instagram makes us. Maybe women really can have it all.

Nah, just kidding.

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