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By Will Symons
Troye Sivan is anything but apologetic about his sex life.
Open and frank, the 28-year-old singer-songwriter oozes sexuality, which he reflects eagerly in both his music and public persona.
Unlike many-a mainstream artist, the Australian makes no bones about discussing his relationship with sex. Mulling over the subject on several podcasts and media appearances alongside in his music.
In a sense, this is nothing new. Persecuted repeatedly, Queer artists have often relied on sex as a stick to beat back the naysayers. Think George Michael, hot off his 1998 arrest for public indecency, engaging with a police officer in the scandalous video for ‘Outside’.
Yet, Troye’s is a rather unique take. Rather than expressing sex from a solely sensual perspective - Sivan celebrates casual sex as an expression of love, if only for a short time.
In a podcast appearance with American model Emily Ratajkowski, he describes sex with a stranger, in the bathroom of a party as “passionate, amazing, and beautiful”, before exalting casual sex as a “really nice exchange, without the shame, and the baggage”.
Now, this is rather different. Whilst risqué sexual encounters are a common topic in pop music, they’re rarely recounted with such warmth. Artists are far more likely to characterise sex as a conquest, or revel in its various dangers. Troye’s take, then, is a startling departure from the way in which hook-up culture is typically characterised - emphasising the connection two souls can conjure with casual sex, regardless of its brevity.
His non-monogamous pride is evident on his newest album - ‘Something to Give Each Other’. Released in October, the ten-track project is dripping in the honest, sweat-soaked sex positivity Sivan has made his calling card.
Songs like ‘Rush’ and ‘Got Me Started’ are overt in their celebration of the physical - mixing lustful vocals with high tempo tracks, destined for the dancefloors of New York and Melbourne.
As put so poignantly by Slant Magazine’s Sal Sinquemani, Something to Give Each Other, “finds Sivan older, bolder, and, for a large part of its running time, unrepentantly horny”, its criticisms drowned out “by the joy with which it embraces queer pleasure”.
As in his music, Troye’s ‘unrepentant’ horniness is abundant in media surrounding the album. This is no clearer than in the ‘Rush’ music video, which caused quite the stir on its pre-album release. In a sweaty display of homoerotic cinema, Sivan and an army of chiselled compatriots kiss, dance, and dry hump with all the ‘queer pleasure’ Sinquemani mentions.
“It had to be completely genuine”, Troye told Ratajkowski. “We really were just partying and filming it…I wanted it to feel hot, and sweaty, and summer, and just sexy.”
Whilst widely praised, the video received its fair share of backlash for a lack of body diversity - criticism that’s certainly fair. For four minutes and forty-three seconds, Sivan is surrounded by the epitome of male beauty, each dancer more sculpted than the last. Nobody present even comes close to having what would be considered an ‘average’ male body.
“I definitely hear the critique”, Troye told billboard. “We obviously weren't saying ‘we want to have one specific type of person in the video. We just made the video, and there wasn't a ton of thought put behind that”.
It’s sloppy. An artist of Troye’s calibre - successful the world over, should know better. Yet, the reaction and criticism the video prompted is also deserving of a second look - a reaction and criticism that may be a little less hostile to heteronormative media.
Speaking again with Ratajkowski, he said “I do think queer artists are held to a higher standard. That makes sense, if you’ve been the marginalised community, you’d expect to have more empathy and respect for other marginalised communities.”
He has a point. One would go mad counting every inaccurate representation of female bodies in contemporary music videos, which, for the most part, receive very little criticism. As a queer artist, his mistake, common as it may be, is amplified - loudly condemned by a community eager not to repeat the same bigotries it continues to battle.
Alongside Rush, Something To Give Each Other is overflowing with ‘queer pleasure’. Tracks like ‘In My Room’ and ‘What’s The Time Where You Are?’ continue the celebratory mood, whilst ‘Still Got It’ and ‘One Of Your Girls’ touch on more intimate aspects of the queer experience - the latter exploring the hardships of seeing someone in the closet.
Genre-wise, Sivan strays from dance music to a more sombre tone more than once. Although all remain focussed on the honest, often overlooked reality of queer sexuality.
It’s very Troye Sivan. A man unashamedly honest about his relationship with sex and love, who’s openness and celebration of such topics isn't just refreshing, it’s important.
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