"Naughty"

I am once again asking you to think about sex

Welcome back to Thinking Is Cool, the podcast and newsletter here to make your next conversation better than your last. I’m your host Kinsey Grant. If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here.

Good morning, everyone! I’m really happy you’re here. Let’s have fun today.

What I’m thinking about this week

It’s been 70 days since the first time I sent you a Thinking Is Cool blog—I wrote about my plans for the very first episode of this podcast. That and sex.

Fitting, then, that I’m closing out season one of Thinking Is Cool writing yet again about p*rn (devoted Thinking Is Cool readers will remember that I’m only using that asterisk to get around your prudish, archaic spam filter for the word p-o-r-n).

Here’s why I’ve got p*rn on the mind yet again: P*rnhub just unveiled its “Classic Nudes” initiative. I’m going to give you 20 seconds to guess what P*rnhub’s “Classic Nudes” initiative is.

…20 seconds later (hope you read that in the Spongebob narrator voice).

Unfortunately, it’s not a collection of adult films shot in the backseat of a ’69 Chevy Camaro ZL1. It’s a P*rnhub-guided tour of what the site calls “naughty” works of art in some of the world’s most famous museums like The Louvre, The Met, The Prado, The National Gallery, and more. The motivation behind the initiative appears to be two-fold: 1) to showcase p*rn as art and 2) to encourage interest in some of the world’s most revered pieces and museums.

To me, this “Classic Nudes” initiative is deserving of more than just an AdAge writeup and some tweets, and that’s in large part because of this specific callout from P*rnhub’s description of the program.

“Join us as we tour the most respected institutions in western art, guiding you past all the prude paintings and going to directly to the good stuff: representations of the naked body in all its artistic glory.”

After spending a great deal of time both researching the p*rn industry for the first episode of this show and speaking to a lot of you about your p*rn consumption and habits...I’ve got some questions for you and for P*rnhub.

For P*rnhub:

  • Are you suggesting that the only good art is art featuring naked bodies? I mean, that might be accurate, but I’m just curious.

  • Are you equating nakedness to p*rnography, and if so...why? That feels like a direct shortcut to hypersexualization based not on sex but on anatomy. Red flag.

For you:

  • Tell me truthfully—have you ever seen Botticelli’s Venus and thought, “I need to go somewhere more private for a moment with myself?”

  • How many “stroke” double entendres do you think you’re capable of making?

  • Can we go back to the beauty standards of the classics? Feel like they’re much more attainable, no?

  • Kiss, marry, kill: Mona Lisa, Addison Rae, The Brunette Odalisque

I’m just a girl, standing in front of a couple of thousand newsletter readers, asking them to think about the intersection of classical art and p*rnography. I’m curious to hear what you think (this story pairs well with Episode 1 of Thinking Is Cool).

Send this to the group chat and engineer a little chaotic Friday morning conversation. Ask your friends if they’re into the highbrow/lowbrow vibes of this P*rnhub effort. Talk about the ways modern society (and, let’s be honest, capitalism) have interpreted the importance of classical works. Take it anywhere.

What I’m reading this week

Now that I’m finished recording for the first season of Thinking Is Cool, I’m devoting more of my time to reading really good long-form content (you can’t become a good writer without first becoming a good reader). Here’s my list of open tabs for this weekend:

Looking ahead: A lot of the content I consume is content I find in other newsletters. Aside from walking down the streets hoping I run into a story worth telling, newsletters are pretty much my primary source for ideas, insight, and inspiration. I’m thinking of sharing a Definitive List of the Best Newsletters™. Thoughts? Contributions? Send, please.

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What I’m working on this week

Tbh, not a whole lot. I’m wrapping up production on the season finale of Thinking Is Cool (out Monday) and carving out the time to reflect on how much the last 10 weeks have changed my life. Working toward things is important, but so is taking the time to retrace your steps and enjoy how far you’ve come. That’s pretty much it for this week’s agenda.

But also…I’m working on emotionally coming to terms with how profoundly impacted I was by teenage superstar Olivia Rodrigo’s recent visit to the White House to speak with the Biden administration about increasing vaccination rates among young people.

I can’t describe why, exactly, this precise moment in cultural history has sunk its teeth into my soul so deeply, but it really has. Maybe it’s the historically chic outfit? The unlikely coupling of Joe & Olivia? The combination of two of my favorite things (the sheer, unbridled power of Olivia Rodrigo and a president famous for loving ice cream).

Or maybe...just maybe...it was the response on Twitter. Here are three of my favorite Tweets from this legendary meeting of the minds.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I’ll be live on Instagram tomorrow at 12pm ET (follow me here) to talk about this week’s episode of Thinking Is Cool. Join me, won’t you? See you then.

’Til next time,

Kinsey