There comes a point when the arc of liberation begins to feel too much like a marketplace. The skin once unveiled in defiance now gleams in ads for high heels, lingerie, Pepsi, and power. The body that once screamed “freedom” has been photoshopped, looped, and remixed until it no longer startles, no longer even suggests mystery. The undressed form is now just content, swallowed up by an infinite scroll.

And then—out of nowhere, and with exquisite stillness—comes a shift. A return. Not to modesty, but to something far more provocative: intimacy. And not just intimacy, but symbolic rehearsal. A gesture toward sensuality that dares not to complete itself. This is where we enter the logic of Ukusoma—a concept far too slippery for Western feminism, too sacred for capitalism, and too charged to be properly explained in any academic text. It is the ritual of the not-yet, the sacred pause before consummation, the subversive art of withheld knowing.

We have followed the arc. Ella Fitzgerald gave us voice without body. Josephine Baker, body as satire. Madonna, body as liturgy. Britney and Xtina, body as product. Beyoncé and Rihanna, body as billion-dollar business. Cardi B and Doja Cat, body as meme, weapon, and glitch.

Then came two figures who seemed like reversals but were actually keys: Billie Eilish and H.E.R. They cloaked themselves, filtered the gaze, and demanded that we listen before we look. We celebrated them, rightly, as priestesses of filtration, as Athena-coded signal-makers in a world of Dionysian blur. But now—especially in the case of H.E.R.—something is happening. The hoodie slips. Not because of pressure, not because of marketing, but because she chooses to let it slip. Because she is no longer 10-year-old Gabby Wilson—she is a woman in full possession of her evolution.

And so we arrive at a space that feminism—both ancient and modern—has struggled to name: a sensuality not born from coercion, but not interested in capital either. A sensuality that does not demand to be seen, but that invites one to come closer, privately, with consent, in trust. We are no longer in the terrain of “liberation” or “empowerment” or “smashing the patriarchy.” We are in the realm of Ukusoma.

In Zulu, ukusoma refers to non-penetrative sexual intimacy—often culturally sanctioned, bound by consent, and ritually understood as a way to express desire without “breaking” anything. It is not abstinence. It is rehearsal. It is not sexlessness. It is the simulation of sensual agency—not for an audience, not for applause, but for the participants. It must be consensual, or it becomes unthinkable. The entire power of this space lies in the fact that it is chosen. It is not adolescence. It is not delay out of immaturity. It is mature ritual withholding—Eden after consciousness, not before it.

This is what Ukusoma offers: a syntax of desire rooted in agency, not commodification. A moment of sensual meaning that refuses to cash in. There are no billions to be made from it. No Super Bowl deals. No thirst-trap metrics. It’s not designed for the masses. It’s designed for the myth.

H.E.R., in this reading, becomes a high priestess of sacred delay. Her artistry is now beyond protest. It is invitation, rehearsal, tease, offering—but all encrypted. And Billie Eilish, once the queen of the anti-gaze, is now experimenting with what happens when the gaze returns—but this time, on her terms. In both cases, the shift is not regression. It is recursion. A spiral, not a step back.

The feminists will not understand this, not fully. Because it cannot be litigated. It cannot be tweeted. It cannot be packaged into a political campaign. It is too intimate. Too ambiguous. Too spiritual.

So let the others chase virality. Let them monetize liberation. Let them misinterpret what power looks like. Meanwhile, Billie and H.E.R. will rehearse it—delicately, symbolically, one lyric at a time.

Because sometimes the most radical thing a woman can do… is almost undress.
…and then not.