Opinion
Everyone collectively threw in the towel and became unabashedly thirsty this year. Donald Trump is president, global warming is going to kill us, Amazon owns our economy, and Elon Musk is dating Grimes. Fuck it. From “after dark” Twitter accounts to thirst traps, it’s time to take a stand and be horny on the internet.
One of the most memorable examples of someone acting horny on main in 2018 was the so-called “Beto Sex Tweet,” where one Twitter user compared potential 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke to “the guy who is all sweet and nerdy but holds you down and makes you cum until your calves cramp.” That tweet has since been hailed the horniest political tweet of 2018. But is it inaccurate? No, not really.
“I’ve BEEN saying this!” Chapo Trap House’s Will Menaker tweeted, while Will and Grace’s Debra Messing stressed “This. Is. Everything.”
https://twitter.com/willmenaker/status/1062079702129631232
The Beto Sex Tweet’s sheer explicit language made it a viral sensation. Merely uttering the tweet’s name brought out strange reactions, from disgust to desire to utter indifference.
He read the beto sex tweet https://t.co/8LyhJ3J7iw
— The One True Poster (@OneTruePoster) November 27, 2018
In 2001 Al Gore grew a beard to recover from the trauma of the Florida recount.
— Carlton Abner (@CarltonAbner) November 27, 2018
In 2018 Ted Cruz grew a beard to recover from the trauma of the Beto sex tweet.
https://twitter.com/bergrackobama/status/1065399647575920640
The wife put a Beto sign on our third floor apartment balcony. We have seen the sex tweet.
— Shira (@Shira_TX) November 21, 2018
I think a lot of men hated the Beto sex tweet not because of the Beto part, but because of the previous part where she said alpha bros are awful in bed.
— Enhanced Interrogated Poet (@agraybee) November 26, 2018
https://twitter.com/comradesanchez/status/1065062590139777025
ok so I know this happened eons ago in internet time but I still can’t figure out why the beto sex tweet was such a big deal
— ek (@greyemk) November 29, 2018
https://twitter.com/magencubed/status/1062500482378358785
HuffPost’s Ashley Feinberg, meanwhile, carried out a much more pressing journalistic investigation: Had Beto himself seen the tweet? She tweeted at O’Rourke twice to confirm whether or not he saw it. As of yet, no one knows.
@BetoORourke lmk when you see it
— Ashley Feinberg (ashleyfeinberg.bsky.social) (@ashleyfeinberg) November 12, 2018
The Beto Sex Tweet may be a lot to process if you’ve never had a sexual fantasy about Beto O’Rourke cramping your calves before. But the fact that Twitter is talking about the tweet isn’t all that shocking.
Women have shaken the online editorial world by announcing yes, they fuck. Whether that’s trans women, queer women, sex workers, dommes, or just women owning up to the fact that they experience orgasms, writers have introduced readers to new ways of thinking about their bodies. This isn’t a new experience: for years, female sexuality writers have dominated online writing. But a generation that grew up on this kind of media is finally coming of age, and it’s thinking about sex in a way that centers queer and femme gazes.
If the editorial world encouraged readers to express themselves sexually, then social media gave the internet the opportunity to do so publicly. In a world where sexual gratification is as easy as hopping on Instagram and posting a slightly suggestive selfie, being horny on main is more fun than ever before.
Twitter has developed a language around horniness that makes thirst less objectifying, too. Suggestive photos are just “thirst traps.” Obsessing over your gym crush’s cute bod is just “thirst posting.” And creating a private Twitter account for talking about sex is just sharing an “AD,” or “after dark.” Putting online horniness into a coded language makes it feel like a shared experience, making it less taboo to express one’s sexuality on the internet.
For the record, I can prove that Twitter is getting hornier. I set up a poll in late November asking users if they were hornier on main in 2018. Between 214 votes, 43 percent responded that they became “more horny,” while 29 percent were “equally horny.” That means from 2017 to 2018, over 70 percent of respondents reported equal or increased levels of horniness on main.
Hey Twitter, I’m writing about being horny on main and thirsty on the internet. So I have a question for you—compared to 2017, were you hornier on main in 2018?
— Ana Valens (@acvalens) November 28, 2018
See? There’s science involved.
There’s also memes. Being horny on main changed the way we post on the internet. Take Bowsette, the gaming community’s feminized take on Bowser. When Nintendo introduced the Super Crown’s ability to turn Toadette into Peach, artists brought the crown to its logical conclusion—turning iconic video game characters into cute girls.
The very nature of the meme—a powerful, masculine villain becoming a buff, domineering woman—fascinated users with transformation and feminization fetishes. Others, especially queer women, fell in love with Bowsette for her non-normative appearance. It took weeks for the meme to die down in popularity.
https://twitter.com/Evomanaphy/status/1064590735389921280
https://twitter.com/evantickles/status/1044657132480585729
https://twitter.com/TheJettyJetShow/status/1048172829613518850
https://twitter.com/NotQuitePeach/status/1066587395003342849
https://twitter.com/kitty_puddin/status/1067479269260099584
https://twitter.com/ZalariaCosplay/status/1057820410207592448
Just because you can be horny on main doesn’t mean you can be creepy on main. There are still boundaries involved.
Case in point, just look at Wall Street Journal’s Elliot Kaufman, who wrote a bizarrely thirsty tweet negging a young woman on the subway who didn’t know about Winston Churchill. Kaufman quickly went viral for calling her an “attractive 22-year-old girl” and tweeting that he has “been waiting for this moment my entire life” to talk to someone like her. Months later, Kaufman is the poster child for thirst posting recklessly on the internet.
https://twitter.com/Ad0rnosPorno69/status/1044092415190159361
https://twitter.com/Ad0rnosPorno69/status/1044095665914220544
https://twitter.com/itsyahboyhere/status/1044610118816423936
https://twitter.com/poopjeans/status/1044083175398486016
https://twitter.com/yung_kropotkin/status/1044765203701932032
Of course, being horny on main is an art form, and the best practitioners are subtle. Just look at the esports world’s response to Zach “Sneaky” Scuderi, the professional League of Legends player who crossplays as women from famous anime series and video games. His cosplay is incredibly high quality, largely thanks to his girlfriend, cosplayer Esther Lynn.
Sneaky’s modeling has earned quite a sizable following from both men and women, but the two genders’ responses are vastly different. More often than not, men thirst post over Sneaky abrasively. They post memes involving boners, question their sexuality, or joke that they’re feeling turned on.
— Dioud (@Dioudlol) October 31, 2018
https://twitter.com/RenzohGG/status/1057682006895665153
— whatever (@whatevertv_) October 31, 2018
— Eduardo o Lara (@Eduardoblara) October 31, 2018
While some women post similar memes, most respond in a much more polite and affirming way. These range from cute response GIFs celebrating his crossplay to tweets honoring the hard work that Sneaky and Lynn put into his modeling. Women are more likely to call Sneaky “cute” or “beautiful,” too.
In fact, it can be hard to tell whether women are thirsty for Sneaky or just praising him. That’s exactly the point. The ambiguity means women that are thirst posting for Sneaky blend right in with everyone else, and they’re less likely to be seen as creepy or aggressive. They skirt the line between “thirsty” and “playful” extremely well.
https://twitter.com/Lestblack_Fr/status/1057679017489457159
https://twitter.com/bunnybattleaxe/status/1057710189862780928
How does Sneaky manage to be a cuter girl than I am? 😥
— 🌱 Doctor Isa (@HextechThinker) October 31, 2018
Tips appreciated!
Oh my wow!!! 👀👀👀
— Joanne (@joanneofarc_) November 28, 2018
SNEAKY STOP OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG pic.twitter.com/ndlRu3zsmx
— Riyuuka 🌻 (@riyuuka) November 27, 2018
— nugget azul (@mondelimon) October 31, 2018
In 2018, it’s okay to be thirsty on the internet. We’ve learned to embrace it. But thirst posting is an art form. You can’t just tweet about the “attractive 22-year-old girl” on the subway. Nor can you jump into an esports player’s Twitter mentions and tell him that he’s giving you a boner. That’s just creepy and weird. You have to consider who’s reading your feed, how it could impact you, and whether you’re grossing out the person on the other side.
With great horniness comes great responsibilities, as the late Stan Lee would say. Women and queer folks seem to have it down. Straight men, on the other hand, could use some time to refine their skills before 2019.
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