Magdalene Taylor writes the Many Such Cases Substack newsletter, and a version of this essay first appeared there.
June marks the official start of summer and the unofficial rise of our cultural libido. The tension is tactile: those first few hot days, the anticipation of vacation, the tan lines. You feel it best when you step outside and touch the grass, pass people on the street. But you can also feel it online every year, simply by looking at posts about summer dresses.
The latest tweet from a man celebrating the arrival of “sundress season” inevitably sparks a new debate about what exactly a sundress is. Women want to know more specifics about what a sundress is, so they can make better choices. If there's any proof that many women do in fact dress for the male gaze (and of course they do!), it's the sundress.
I think many women like summer dresses because they are not only pretty and neat, but also comfortable and simple to wear. But there is no need to be offended by the fact that many men like the way we look in summer dresses. As women, we treat the idea of ​​wearing men's clothes as some kind of crime against our gender and self-esteem, rather than a natural instinct. We shouldn't assume that women do things just to attract a partner, but really, what if they did?
Vox's Rebecca Jennings recently questioned not just what's special about the sundress, but also who wears it and why. “Debates about sundresses, especially those led by men, harken back to an earlier time when women's magazines regularly advertised features on 'What Men Really Think About How You Dress,' offering advice on how to dress 'for men,'” Jennings wrote. “That's rarely the case anymore.” Instead, the tables have turned, and “the hot 'sexy' garments are now mostly worn by men to be admired by women and gay men.”
Complicating the issue is the fact that women of different races prefer different types of sundresses. Jennings explains that white people generally think of sundresses as loose, lightweight dresses that go above the knee, while black people think of form-fitting maxi dresses. Although the two dress types are different, they have roughly the same appeal: both are comfortable, can be worn in warm weather, and allow you to expose parts of your body while hiding others. Both are easy to put on and take off, making them an easy, sexy outfit to wear in one.
Not surprisingly, sundresses have become overly sexualized online: A search on X for sundress discussions found roughly a quarter of videos that aren't suitable for the workplace. Reddit's adult community, r/GoneWild, has thousands of posts dedicated to sundresses; and an NSFW subreddit dedicated to sundresses, r/WtSSTaDaMiT (which stands for “When the sun shines on a dress and makes it invisible”), has more than 300,000 members.
But the beauty of the sundress is its subtlety. Social media tends to flatten everything—the what-ifs, the hopes, the secrets—and hurtle straight into banality. The sundress allows the viewer and the wearer to give form to their own desires.
In this sense, the endless debate over the definition of a sundress is a good thing. The sundress is a familiar garment, yet mysterious enough that it's hard to pin down what it is. We've come to expect sexuality to be clearly labeled and obvious, but sexiness often isn't. The mystery of the sundress is a sign of a healthier sexual culture. We're not quite there yet, but I'm willing to embrace it as much as I can.
