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PURITY IS IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER Is purity the key to being defined as a sex symbol? Words by Megan Adams Art by Lilly Chidlaw-Mayen
Sex symbols! Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re huge pieces of culture and — even better — they’re (usually) super hot. But what makes a sex symbol a sex symbol? What makes one celebrity frumpy and another a godlike sex icon? Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the patriarchy. Let’s talk purity. Purity has been socially “desirable,” one could say, since the beginning of history. In the past, brides wore white to represent themselves still being virgins and saving themselves
for marriage, and men could essentially sell their daughters into marriage if they could “verify” their virginity (the vile history of which is worthy of a whole separate article). But there is something to be said about how a pure virginal front can advance or impede status as a sex symbol (think Britney Spears’s “Baby One More Time”). Innocence has become a commodity, especially among celebrities. Maybe it’s because maintaining innocence is difficult and rare in Hollywood with all of the horrible shit that goes down there, but