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Jessie Lewthwaite has notes for those trying to attract the female gaze (gays).

As is common for most busy professional millennials, I end most of my days laying in bed, disassociating by staring at my phone. Currently, my favourite online brain-numbing void is Instagram Reels, because I feel too old for Tiktok, but the short videos are almost short enough to hold my diminishing attention span.

However, a trend has popped up on ‘Lesbian Insta’ that makes me cringe and want to throw my phone like no other. Thirst traps! Nothing breaks my comfortably numb doom scroll sesh like a woman suddenly on my screen biting her lip at me, chipped eyebrow raised. Marsha P. Johnson did not throw the first brick at Stonewall for this.

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Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these anti-sexwork-type lesbians. Any SWERFs reading this, I am not an ally. Stop bullying Onlyfans models and go google what the words “freedom to choose” mean. No, this isn’t a prudish or moral objection to thirst traps – simply a question on quality.

What makes a thirst trap good – versus cringe – is a matter of subjective taste, for sure. But as NZ’s leading expert on always being correct, I will take it upon myself to offer some pointers to content creators who are looking to appeal to the female gaze.

Production Quality: I’m talking about lighting, camera quality and maybe a dynamic transition. I’m not claiming to be a video editing expert. In fact, when it comes to tech, I still unironically use Hotmail, but some effort would be nice. If you lip-sync a boring song looking like the Drag Race Season One filter is applied, you are getting skipped for sure.

Don’t Be Boring: If I’ve seen one girl lipsyncing to “Unholy,” I’ve seen a million. Do something interesting. Maybe I’m just a nerd who never learned how to be cool, but if a girl in a Rey cosplay pops up who can sword-fight with a lightsaber, she has my full attention. Another great example is that Canadian lady who chops wood – you all know who I mean. Also, any ladies who can play the drums or a bass guitar while looking effortless. If you can make something incredibly difficult look easy, that will make a lot of sapphics think that you can handle the anxiety and existential dread we all have, and what’s hotter than that?

The most adorable genre of thirst trap has to be the girlfriend who is filming and fangirling over her lady. This genre rated very highly in my survey of femmes, which contained exactly one participant – that being my girlfriend. Just candidly filming your girlfriend while she does normal, cute, dorky things makes the person more real, relatable and sexy. For those that follow me, don’t worry, this is not going to be a genre my girlfriend starts contributing to. No one needs to see me hunched over my computer keyboard 12 hours a day. That’s more likely to get me a free sponsorship with a physiotherapy clinic than to work as a thirst trap.

So go forth, content creators. The world needs as much beauty as possible right now, and I need content to consume that will make me forget about everything currently happening in the world.

Use your gay audacity to learn how to chop wood.

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