Here’s What Happens When You Call a Woman “Hot”

It’s not a compliment.

Carlyn Beccia
Sexography

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Here’s What Happens When You Call a Woman “Hot”
Pexels | Photo by Steven Arenas

I am lying in his bed, sprawled Marilynesque across the sheets. I want to stay in this moment. A naked moment.

But then he says the words that blur my nakedness into invisibility.

“You are so hot.”

Hot. The one word that makes my skin turn cold.

I take a deep breath, and my heart furls up like a scroll. I remember we have only been dating for four months. Of course, he only sees the casing and not the meat inside.

“Hot is not a compliment,” I tease. “Nothing in life stays hot. Even fire eventually turns into cold, lifeless ashes.”

He silences me with the look he always gives me when I am acting too philosophical. But the philosophers knew how to ignite passion.

Plutarch called the mind “a fire to be kindled.”

I want to burn brighter than hot.

It’s a Saturday night, and we are dancing at our favorite salsa club. He tells me again I look “hot.” I bristle and deflect with humor.

“Beautiful,” I can work with. But “hot” is beauty’s whorish sister.

Later in the evening, I am at the bar taking a break. A well-dressed man approaches me.

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Carlyn Beccia
Sexography

Author & illustrator. My latest books — 10 AT 10, MONSTROUS: THE LORE, GORE, & SCIENCE, and THEY LOST THEIR HEADS. Contact: CarlynBeccia.com