A List Of All The Ways 2019 Was The Horniest Year Ever
Flume ate ass.
The old adage ‘sex sells’ sure got a flogging this year, with content creators of all stripes testing the waters with new and exciting ways of keeping their audiences hooked. While there were, of course, scenes that were regrettably burned into our memories, a constant undercurrent of horny content continued to flow through and keep our thirst at bay.
As we’ve all come to learn this year, keeping up with the latest show/meme/drama has become an Olympic sport and time has stretched in the process.
So, in case you missed something, here’s a quick recap of how 2019 became the hottest year to date — and I’m not talking about the preventable climate-related destruction inflicted on our ecosystem.
I’m talking about horny.
1. Flume Ate Ass
There were occasions when it straight-up wasn’t even well-crafted.
Just two months ago at Burning Man, Aussie sweetheart Flume deemed it necessary to respond to a crowd member’s question “Does Flume even eat ass?” with a full-on demonstration. Definitely not the sexual liberation we wanted, needed or knew was coming our way.
Was it an attempt to relate to the #youth or just an adrenaline-filled crowdpleaser? This is an emerging field of research and we await further evidence to reveal itself.
2. Hot Priests
British actress, screenwriter and all around legend Phoebe Waller-Bridge made every single viewer of Fleabag season two catch their breath at the utterance of one word: “Kneel.” But Fleabag’s Hot Priest was just one of many sexy clergymen who graced our screens this year.
Jude Law strutted his stuff in nothing but a pair of underwear in the trailer for HBO’s The New Pope, and Father Peter continues to be proof of God’s existence in Derry Girls.
The sexy religious figure trope has always existed in pop culture or in the form of last-minute Halloween costumes, but as we’ve come to discover, 2019 was when the hot priest peaked. Do we want what we simply can’t have? Perhaps we became drunk on the possibility these men can be seduced if we are just the right blend of badass and emotionally scarred.
3. TikTok Teens Are Choking Themselves
TikTok may have had the boomers fuming this year, but it also spawned new opportunities to make bold content we might second guess five years down the track.
The platform offered a space for e-boy and e-girl subcultures to come together and make questionably flirtatious expressions to a camera. Characteristics of an e-boy include painted fingernails, chains, piercings and other traits similar to that of a scene Timothée Chalamet.
A recent article in Pitchfork reported how ‘pumpkins scream in the dead of the night’, a track from rapper Savage Ga$p was frequently used by e-boys and e-girls and featured them pretending to choke themselves. It got to the point where the rapper hopped on the platform themselves and asked them to cut it out.
And yet, there was an audience for this, with one video racking up 180,000 likes.
4. Curvy Wife Guys Sing Now
Speaking of raising eyebrows on social media, you may recall US influencer Robbie Tripp, colloquially known as Curvy Wife Guy, who professed his love for curvy women, pulling one of the weirdest ‘I’m not like other men’ moves in recent history.
While that fateful Instagram post that was two years ago now, 2019 was the year Tripp decided to launch his rap career with ‘Chunky Sexy’.
The short half-life of Curvy Wife Guy in the meme timeline begs the question of why Tripp felt it necessary to resurrect his short-lived legacy in such a horny — yet extremely on-brand — way. Was this a gap in the free market that really needed to be carved out? All signs point to no.
5. Horny Reality
In other less-explicit content, Australian reality television producers continue to recycle old programs (welcome back Big Brother and The Farmer Wants A Wife) or throw loosely-connected ideas at a wall to see what can be easily churned into something palatable.
For instance, Seven recently unveiled a brand new show coming in 2020, The All New Monty: Guys and Gals, which is exactly what it sounds like. Meanwhile over at Ten, contestants from Survivor fulfilled the dreams of repressed mums everywhere by getting their kit off for the Golden Towel Challenge.
I guess when the revolving door is getting rusty, you have to think outside the box.
6. Sexy Chernobyl
Getting sexy in the name of television was equally exploited by influencers.
This year’s thirst-trap faux pas was inspired by HBO’s critically acclaimed series Chernobyl. Fresh in the viewers minds, influencers rushed to the still-radioactive site to capitalise on the opportunity and rack up that clout.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as a brand takes hold of the latest meme, it’s dead on arrival.
Which is why digital sexiness reached a new weird once KFC released its dating simulator app where the player has a chance of winning the attention of young (yet silver fox-like) Colonel Sanders.
While sex in gaming isn’t a new concept by any means, this marketing ploy took advantage of a pre-existing curiosity with handsomely drawn cartoon characters inherent within a fifth of the general population. The same kind of curiosity stirred by viewing Disney’s Robin Hood or those tigers from Zootopia.
You know who you are.
When considering the deluge of risqué content, one might ask what the final straw is. Ultimately, it is up to us to decide, but no one wishes to be the pearl-clutching wet blanket who draws the line in the sand. Between that and media makers capitalising on this growing desire for horny content, we’ve entered a vortex where only something inexcusably thirst-provoking will make us stop and reflect on our sins.
There’s no reason not to expect producers to up the randy ante 2020.
After all, if we can thrust (pun absolutely intended) a gay porn scene of two men doing it in front of a woman eating salad into the collective zeitgeist, we couldn’t possibly have anything else to lose.
Caleb Triscari is an arts and culture writer based in Melbourne. He tweets at @calebjtriscari.