Opinion | Why do men like sundresses?
Magdalene Taylor writes the Many Such Cases Substack newsletter, where a version of this essay initially appeared.
June marks the official start of summer and the unofficial time at which the cultural libido comes alive. Those first few hot days, the anticipation of vacations and tan lines — the tension is tactile. You’ll feel it best if you go outside, touch grass and pass people on the street. But you can sense it every year online, too, by simply looking at all the posts about sundresses.
Fresh tweets from men celebrating the arrival of “sundress season” inevitably spark a new debate about what exactly a sundress is. Women want to know more specifically what it is they’re referring to so that we can better select them. If ever there were confirmation that many women do, in fact, dress for the male gaze (of course we do!), it’s the sundress.
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I think most women like summer dresses because they are comfortable and simple, in addition to being pretty and put-together. But the fact that many men like the way we look in them should not cause discomfort. As women, we treat the idea of dressing for men as some sort of crime against our gender and selfhood rather than an organic instinct. We shouldn’t assume that a woman does something exclusively to attract a partner, but really, so what if she does?
Vox’s Rebecca Jennings recently asked not just what makes a sundress but also who wears them and why. “Sundress discourse, especially when men are driving it, feels reminiscent of an earlier era, one where women’s magazines regularly touted features about ‘what guys REALLY think of your outfit’ and offered advice on how to dress ‘for your man,’” she wrote. “That doesn’t happen as much anymore.” Instead, the tables have been turned, and “viral ‘horny’ clothing items have usually been ones worn by men to be admired by women and gay men.”
Complicating matters is the fact that women of different races gravitate toward different types of sundresses. Broadly speaking, Jennings explained, White people tend to view sundresses as above-the-knee, flowy, lightweight dresses, while Black people typically think of tightfitting maxi dresses. While the two dress types differ, their appeal is much the same: Both are comfortable, are worn in warm weather and reveal some parts of the body while concealing others. Each suggests it’s easy to throw on and just as easy to remove; an effortlessly sexy outfit in one single item of clothing.
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Naturally, the sundress has become hyper-sexualized online. In searching for sundress discourse on X, about one-quarter of what I found were clips that were not safe for work. There are thousands of sundress-specific posts on r/GoneWild, an adult community on Reddit. An even more sundress-specific NSFW subreddit, r/WtSSTaDaMiT — an acronym for “When the sun shines through a dress and makes it translucent” — has more than 300,000 members.
But what’s so powerful about the sundress is its subtlety. Social media’s tendency is to flatten everything, all the what-ifs and anticipation and secrecy, and go straight for the banality. The sundress allows both viewer and wearer to create their own desires.
In this sense, the endless debate over defining a sundress is a good thing: It’s a familiar clothing item, but it’s mysterious enough that we can’t quite identify what it is. We’ve come to expect sexuality to be something clearly categorized and obvious, yet sexiness, it turns out, often isn’t that at all. The enigma of sundresses is a sign of a healthier sexual culture. We’re not fully there, but I’m going to embrace it where I can.
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