In Defense Of Being Hot For The Internet (& Not For Him)

On a recent Tuesday, when temperatures soared across the U.S., 22-year-old college student Sophie did what one does in the sweltering Los Angeles heat: She put on a bikini. She lathered her body in oil (the SPF kind), checked herself and the UV index out, and snapped a photo.

As she uploaded it to her Instagram story, she couldn’t help but feel proud of how she looked. But instantly, the thought vanished, replaced by a sinking feeling and the memory of her ex-boyfriend from college. She knew he was a loyal story viewer, and if he didn’t see it first, his group of friends would. She could hear them now, saying the photo was for him. A revenge thirst trap to make him jealous, or, you know, devastatingly haunted by the fact he wasn’t with her anymore.

But that isn’t the case, says Sophie. She can admit there was a time when it was: when she’d throw on a skimpy outfit or post with a random guy from the bar. She used to carefully curate everything, from what looked like soft launches to smoldering looks, with heavily mascaraed eyes that screamed, “Look at me! I’m having fun!” (when she was most certainly not having fun).

She gets where the stereotype comes from, that a girl must be posting thirst traps on her story for a man. Scroll through any influencer’s feed and you’ll see it: If a woman posts something vaguely sexual, you can count on someone in the comments to argue that she must be doing it “for someone,” or that “if this were my girlfriend posting thirst traps, she wouldn’t be my girlfriend for long.” It’s just as annoying if you’re single or in a relationship — and if you ask the everyday girls who are posting, they’ll often tell you that’s not the case at all.

Don’t date a hot girl if you can’t handle one.

Alana, 26, a bartender from Philly, is in a loving, three-year relationship with her boyfriend, and she loves to thirst trap on main. Whether she’s on the beach or out for the night, she’ll take photos of herself, for herself. She’s not looking for external validation, though in this cultural moment, she feels like that’s something you have to clarify out loud. “I want to tell these guys who get all twisted up about it, ‘Don’t date a hot girl if you can’t handle one!’”

Her boyfriend has never tried to stop her — after all, he knew what he was getting into from the start. “We met at a music festival when I was in a lace bra and pasties and a skirt with cheeks out in broad daylight,” Alana says. And if he started to police what she wore, whether IRL or online? “That’s his problem. Not mine.”

The reasoning behind a thirst trap is simply “not that deep,” she says. “If you’ve got it, why not flaunt it?” Alana most definitely does. She has some sage wisdom for girls whose boyfriends aren’t on board: “I’d be like, ‘Get a new man! There’s like 4 billion of them in the world.’”

It’s for me, 100%. And maybe my friends, we love to hype each other up.

Jessey, 25, who lives in New Jersey and works in fashion, doesn’t have the same hard-and-fast rules for her boyfriend. He reliably likes her thirst traps, and if he’s curious about her motive, he’ll ask — she just wants him to keep it respectful. When she recently snapped a photo of her body chain, paired with gingham pants and a headless silhouette, she was posting it for the fashion girls. “But yeah, I was like, ‘I look good!’” she says.

He tapped the heart as usual and even mentioned how good her body looked. Still, the next day, he brought it up — not in a jealous way, Jessey clarifies, but more like a temperature check. “He was like, ‘Hey, just checking — this was a post you made for yourself, right?’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God! Of course!’”

The way he approached it felt gentle, not possessive, and nothing close to the way Jessey has seen other guys act. She remembers friends’ boyfriends who would get mad over something as minor as “a halter top that maybe showed more cleavage than a turtleneck.” But her BF wasn’t overly jealous, and he didn’t tell her to stop. “And maybe if he did, if that’s his boundary, I would either have to respect it or decide not to be with him.”

As for Sophie, she pushed past her nerves about what her ex would think and proudly posted that bikini pic anyway. “I’ve decided to continue to post without thinking of him,” she says. “It’s for me, 100%. And maybe my friends, we love to hype each other up.”

Alana agrees. Her thirst traps aren’t about revenge or putting on a show. “Honestly, like sex itself, it’s just something people like to do,” she says. Take it from Martha Stewart — sometimes it's just fun to look hot by the pool.