Cardinal Sins by SHEI Magazine

Creative Director JANAE DYAS

Design Editors

MARGARET LAAKSO YUNA HWANG

Video Editors

TAKARA WILSON JOHANNES PARDI

Digital Beauty Editor SIDNEY VUE

Finance Coordinator TAYLOR JONES

Standford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

DANA GRAY Editor-in-Chief ANGELA LI Publisher

Marketing Director GRACE DONNELLY

Print Fashion Editors ELENA SHAHEEN BOBBY CURRIE

Digital Fashion Editor TAYLOR STEVENS

Digital Content Editor HANIYA FAROOQ

Social Media Coordinator REAGAN HAKALA

Operations Director ERIN CASEY

Print Features Editor MELISSA WERKEMA

Digital Features Editor MARXIE COLLIVER

Digital Photo Editor KAELIN PARK

Events Coordinator ERIN SEGUI

Beauty Team

Miles Hionis, Sidney Vue, Ana Cano, Krystal Salgado, Ella Graeb, Marguerite Smith, Margaret Mckinney, Gretchen Brookes, Jonas Annear

Design Team

Margaret Laasko, Yuna Hwang, Isabella Schneider, Lara Ringey, Avery White, Story Triplett, Katie Kell, Milcah Kresnadi, Erin Hobbs

Fashion Team

Bobby Currie, Elena Shaheen, Taylor Stevens, Micah Webster-Bass, Ceridwen Roberts, Sally Jang, Porter Selfridge, Jared Ruffing, Anika Lopes, Amelia Kocis, Ella Graeb, Gloria Yu, Hana Farooq, Kaavya Chavan, Christine Kim, Reagan Hakala, Janna Jacobson, Paige Tushman, Mary-Katharine Acho-Tartoni, Jessica Kroetsch, Juliana Ramirez, Subin Yang, Riley Neville, Sophia Strasburg

Photography Team

Sory Keita, Anisha Chopra, Kaelin Park, Sureet Sarau, Maggie Kirkman, Vivian Leech, Emmanuelle Cubba, Mary Katharine Acho-Tartoni, Patrick Li, Niah Sei, Ava Muntner, Kamryn Washington, Chloe Kiriluk, Isabella Possin, Lane Liu, Zhixian (Zoe) Xiong, Margaret (Maggie) Whitten

Features Team

Melissa Werkema, Marxie Colliver, Jared Ruffing, Avery White, Isidora Purrier, Lane Liu, Addison Hinesman, Ben Supera, Avalon Ring, Wren Wilson, Makayla Whitsell, Mya Fromwiller, Emerson McKay, Emma Edmondson, Enia McLaughlin

Print Photo Editors SORY KEITA ANISHA CHOPRA

Print Beauty Editor MILES HIONIS

Managing Photo Editor TARA WASIK

Human Resources Coordinators CYNTHIA QIAN ALIA GAMEZ

Public Relations Coordinators OLIVIA WIMPARI SUBIN PYO

Digital Content Team

Haniya Farooq, Felicia Wang, Aalleyah Fysudeen, Ashley Xu, Jessica Yang, Sydney Emuakhagbon, Kiana Pandit, Irem Hatipoglu

Video Team

Takara Wilson, Johannes Pardi, Sydney Seifert, Olga Brazhnikova, Chloe Kiriluk, Juana Mancera, Kaelin Park

Human Resources Team

Alia Gamez, Cynthia Qian, Michelle Wu, Sathvika Ravichandran, Iliana Morgan Chevres, Hien Ha

Public Relations Team

Olivia Wimpari, Subin Pyo, Tyler Beck, Audrey Brower, Ana Cano, Mackenzie Radle, Mackenzie Jackson, Lily Fishman

Events Team

Erin Segui, Mythily Lokam, Samantha Tandy, Natalie Mark, Lizzie Foley

Social Media Team

Reagan Hakala, Teagan Hollman, Carolyn Lira, Christian Hernandez, Mackenzie Jackson, Genevieve Jones, Mackenzie Radle, Lily Rose, Brianna Pirini

Finance Team

Taylor Jones, Elena Reyes, Elise Hsaio, Emily Farhat, Teagan Hollman, Ana Liu, Megan Dobie

Socks with sandals, overly branded clothing, chasing fleeting micro trends, indulging in the wastefulness of fast fashion, carelessly tossing 100% wool into the washer, wearing jackets that fit tightly around the shoulders, forgetting to cut the tacking stitch on a jacket’s back vent, pairing brown shoes with a black belt–these are a handful of fashion sins that I personally, and also this publication tends to avoid committing. These sartorial slip-ups, while often unsightly and cringe-worthy, are far from catastrophic. After all, fashion sins are no mortal offenses.

This month, however, SHEI boldly chooses to embrace the forbidden and confess to our most stylish interpretations of the cardinal sins, or deadly sins. We invite you to revel in our unapologetic celebration of impulse and indulgence. Lust after our sensual and queer reinterpretation of Persephone and Aphrodite. Feast your eyes on decadent, gluttonous plates of glamour that promise to leave you utterly stuffed. Lose yourself in the decadent layers of our dragon damsel’s den, rich with the opulence of greed. Quench your thirst for vengeance with wrathful splashes of red, a color that remains perpetually in style. Drift into a dream of artistry and pink as we explore the alluring softness of sloth. Allow yourself to feel the immense pride that courses through this all incredible collection of six photoshoots—crafted by a team of fiercely talented and creative individuals who bring every stylish sinful vision to life.

Some may say that these “sins” are nothing more than natural human desires that society has deemed excessive, pushing us to feel shame and guilt when we lean too far into them. In a culture so obsessed with control, restraint, and conformity, what happens when we finally loosen the reins and let the fear of judgment melt away? What lies on the other side of surrendering to our most unrestrained impulses and desires?

Flip the page and discover for yourself.

Dana Gray Editor-In-Chief

The seven sins…deadly only in their ability to control. Since their establishment in the Church, the cultural power surrounding sin has permeated far beyond its original religious context. In her article “Sexual Salvation or Repression?” Isidora Purrier discusses how the concept of lust has become a patriarchal tool for repression that the modern woman still can’t escape, despite spirited efforts. Sin has become an excuse for repression, and repression is the agent of control. So, what happens when we spiral out of control? If we give in to our shadow selves, instead of giving them up, we regain control of the uncontrollable: our own agency. When we loosen the reins on our desires, they run like wild horses toward selfexploration and liberation. Desire is inevitable, as Avalon Ring illustrates in “Eating People”. There is an innateness in our most clandestine desires, our guiltiest pleasures; if we stuff them down, they’ll only come out sideways. To have vices is to be human; to indulge them is a reclamation of autonomy. Take pride in that.

Marxie Colliver

Digital Features Editor

SHOOT DIRECTOR

JULIANA RAMIREZ

PHOTOGRAPHERS

PAIGE TUSHMAN

ISABELLA POSSIN

STYLISTS

ELLA GRAEB

PAIGE TUSHMAN

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

ISABELLA SCHNEIDER

MODEL

EVAN REYNOLDS

Ravenous Avarice

SHOOT DIRECTOR:

SOPHIA STRASBURG

PHOTOGRAPHER

ZHIXIAN XIONG

STYLISTS

MAGS MCKINNEY

SOPHIA STRASBURG

BEAUTY

MAGS MCKINNEY

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

MILCAH KRESNADI

MODEL

GABRIELA SIERRA

SHOOT DIRECTOR

CERIDWEN ROBERTS

PHOTOGRAPHERS

AVA MUNTER

KAMRYN WASHINGTON

STYLIST

SALLY JANG

BEAUTY

SIDNEY VUE

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

AVERY WHITE

MODELS

ANISHA CHOPRA

CERIDWEN ROBERTS

Can lust ever be a truly female experience? The so-called “male gaze”—a feminist theory that explains the way women are portrayed in the media in order to please men—has infiltrated our society from all sides. Pornography is widespread; the perfect angle, perfect facial expression, perfect sounds, perfect arch, are all orchestrated to satisfy the male viewer. But where did this malecentric idea of lust come from? It certainly hasn’t always been there. Sappho, an ancient Greek poet, embraced the idea of lust and love from a female lens centuries ago. But, with the rise of the Church, lust became a sin, something that was dirty and wrong. Women who were forthright with their sexuality were berated, but the men that lusted after them did not receive as harsh a punishment. In more modern times, sex has become more prevalent and accepted in our society, but the values of the church still persist. The sinning of sex set the precedent for men profiting off of the sexual liberation of women while the free themselves from patriarchal restraints the best they can, they are ultimately trapped in a closed system. Any act of sexual liberation still directly benefits men.

In the modern day there are a multitude of ways men can access their desired woman. The popularity of OnlyFans, a porn website where viewers can pay for specialized content, has surged in the past years. Girls can’t wait for their 18th birthday when they’re old enough to earn money for posting semi-nude to fully nude photos and videos that their subscribers have requested. Often these women feel as if they are in control, manipulating men to pay for access to their bodies, but really

they are just an instrument of male fantasy. Men can pay for a sexy maid, a dominatrix, or even just a companion; sexual fantasies that only boost the esteem of the man. At the snap of their fingers men can access hundreds of women at their beck and call. There’s an illusion that these women are something special, partially because of the paywall, but really they could be anyone. Hundreds of anonymous women ready to please men—but not without a couple bucks

The Victoria’s Secret runway show returned this year after addressing their past lack of diversity. This year’s show featured more body types: including trans, plus-sized, and older bodies. The production was supposed to revolve around female empowerment and women “holding the reins” but all it delivered was equal opportunity for objectification. No matter the age, size, or type of outfit, scantily-clad women stomping down the runway has always been about the male fantasy. This display of lingerie portrays women as a literal gift on a platter for a man—ready to unwrap!

However, some other recent restorations of feminine lust have worked. Addison Rae released the music video for her breakout song “Diet Pepsi” on August 9 of this year, joining the famed entourage of Charli xcx and Troye Sivan. Although Rae dons skimpy ensembles, she eats an ice cream sundae with her toes, and dances like a girl would dance alone in her bedroom: sometimes provocative but fun. The avant-garde nature of the video has garnered some criticism due to her nonconformity from the usual music video starlet. Although the video could be seen

as sexual, it is not meant in that way; it’s just a girl having fun looking to connect with other girls. Her audience is mostly queer and female due to her famous friends’ influence on her career, and she caters the video to them instead of straight men. In addition, in recent years female rappers have been embracing sexuality as much as their male counterparts have been celebrated for doing for decades. In 2020, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion released the hit song “WAP” that soon became an internet sensation. With opening lyrics like, “certified freak, seven days a week,” the song is obviously a sexual anthem akin to the brash lyrics in male rappers’ songs. Some praised while others criticized the pair’s overtly sexual lyrics and innuendos. The song emphasized that women can like sex without the suggestion that it is just to please men.

In the world we live in today, even restorations of female sexuality that mean well sometimes do not work in the way they intended. In our heteronormative patriarchal society it is hard

revolve around men and sin? In the society we currently exist in, I believe it is impossible to truly be perceived through a female gaze. But, it sounds like a world I would like to live in, and we may be headed towards this world with the recent developments we’ve seen. A world where women do not always have to think about how they are being perceived. A world where women can be sexual without feeling dirty and taken advantage of by men. A world for women where lust can just be fun.

WRITER

ISIDORA PURRIER

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

YUNA HWANG

LUTTONYGLUTTONY

SHOOT DIRECTOR

MICAH WEBSTER-BASS PHOTOGRAPHERS

LANE LIU

MAGGIE KIRKMAN STYLISTS

MICAH WEBSTER-BASS

ANIKA LOPES

KAAYVA CHAVAN

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

ERIN JANE HOBBS

MODEL

ANIKA ANGI

Beneath the podium of disgust we have flung greed onto, there is a thing that drips—that seeps into a rag and gets wrung into all of our mouths, and without fail we lap it up with eager tongues. Whether we would like to admit it, there is a need within our fleshthings to consume. There’s a gluttony that lives inside the body, and it writhes and lunges as if by an electric impulse. While the greedy collects physical tokens of his sin, the glutton consumes until he himself is the token of his own sin. In this way the glutton must be united with his wants; he must wear the evidence of his desire as one would a scarlet letter. An infamous glutton, Tarrare, seemingly ate everything in his path—small animals and toddlers alike. When inspected in an autopsy his insides were left ravaged by his insatiable appetite—pus and ulcers branded into him like a rococo black mark of syphilis.

What is worse than our need to consume is our consumption’s greatest object of desire: each other To consume what was never meant to be consumed; the only act of consumption that is wired to leave the brain in a state of agonized disgust. As suggested by St. Gregory, it was never the food that was the sin but the desire And nowadays, we are more desperate than ever to consume each other. Media that fetishizes cannibalism

attempts to origami fold it into beautiful metaphor that represents true romance—the pinnacle of sanitized desire; to be loved is to be known, and if I’m consumed by you I can be sure that you knew every piece of me. What the movies and the books and the shows and the audience seem to not consider is that the latent content is equally as disgusting as the manifest.

Is it truly pure, unadulterated love to want someone to the point of consumption? Aristophanes claimed we were rent in twain; that we are beasts afflicted with the phantom limb of another body, but in our attempts to once again become whole we forget that we are doomed to never truly be perfectly enmeshed in each other. As we are, we can only become a host forcing ourselves onto a parasite—or worse, a pair of parasites both convinced that they are the host. We consume each other and we digest until we are inextricable from one another—until we are left to wonder which parts are even our own anymore. Of all the ways to be a glutton, St. Gregory thought the worst to be consuming with too much eagerness as it showed an attachment to pleasure. Our desire to consume each other is driven by pleasure, and when engrossed in this impetus we tend to expedite the process of consumption. Food

that didn’t receive the proper amount of chewing goes down the throat rough, as if to say, “I wanted to take it slow—didn’t you?” When you are running on desire and it’s stronger than even the signs of your own hunger, that’s when the body no longer speaks; when even your fullness is not enough to satiate your longing to consume. It’s then that you are a boiling mass revolving about another—when you are sinew in sinew and you have breathed them to a completion, and you are left having to question, “Am I inside, or are you?”

And as if you were breathing, it’s never just the inhalation; there must be a release. When it feels time to separate we purge each other. In his book of aphorisms, The Trouble with Being Born, Emil Cioran contemplates the matter, “Sometimes I wish I were a cannibal—less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him.” A purge can make room for more consumption, but a purge is also a display—the proof that there was any consumption to begin with; it’s a moment between the glutton and the parts of another that have been broken up by his insides. A purge is a memory, the evidence there were ever two. A final act of love erected by the body: the purge is to remember the meal. When the

WRITER

AVALON RING GRAPHIC DESIGNER

LARA RINGEY

glutton’s desire has become too great, he must feel it all again as it leaves him. He’s forced to see the amount he has consumed and he must stare at it in a lumpy pile near his feet. Even when he returns to his consumption the past desires burn his throat as a reminder; the acid eats away at his teeth and he knows deep down that one day he’ll be rotting from the inside out.

Our desire to consume each other is perfectly grotesque—and we spend our time attempting to make it out to not be that way. It’s a reminder that we are filthy. That we are rotten, disgusting things; eager for phagocytosis, eager to fuck; we want to tear each other to pieces to add to ourselves and we claim it to be a symptom of love. We’ll call it sin, but is this something to be ashamed of? We are craving to press on the boundaries of our own humanity, to give into the animal impulse. We want to see how far the flesh will stretch; if I can pull it a mile farther than I thought, I might vomit and try to pull it a mile more. But perhaps the departure from our humanity that gluttony brings out in us might be exactly what is so human about it; our fascination with consuming each other is just testament that we cannot quiet our most innate desires.

Insatiable Hunger Wrath

SHOOT DIRECTOR

PORTER SELFRIDGE

PHOTOGRAPHERS

CHLOE KIRILUK

NIAH SEI

STYLISTS

CHRISTINE KIM

JESSICA KROETSCH BEAUTY MARGEURITE SMITH

VIDEOGRAPHER

CHLOE KIRILUK

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

KATIE KELL

MODELS

WILL GLASSER

WRITER

MAKAYLA WHITSELL

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

YUNA HWANG

Horace said “To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.” Embracing the ”seven deadly sins” not only is essential in abandoning taught shame, but also leads women’s evolution within the music industry, which has introduced authentic expression allowing listeners to both connect and relate. We have let shame rise above acceptance, music providing a path to empowerment.

Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth are facets of human nature that have been subjected to judgment over the course of centuries in literature, eventually leading to its implementation within religion. Shame has found its way in both the lives of us via societal expectations, as well as the public perception of women within the music industry.

Britney Spears has become arguably one of the most influential pop stars in history, following years of backlash following her 2007 meltdown. Spears had faced a career masked by sexual empowerment and puppeteered by music executives to maintain a “perfect” image. The public shamed her for her presentation of lust and pride primarily, leading to her attempt at reclamation via “If U Seek Amy.” Evidently, the pressure on Spears to deliver idealistic performance amidst public shame led to her personal downfall, and a symbol of what “sin” can drive you towards.

As a decade has passed and truths have emerged, the music industry has seen a pressing shift towards combating sexism that can seemingly aid towards a better understanding of self, not only for female artists and the industry, but also for listeners. Millions of young women have found themselves long-term fans of prominent artists like Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, and Charli XCX, who have seemingly grown up along with their audiences. These women in the industry have found their success in the relatability of their music, encapsulating their own stories that not only allow for audiences to know the artists’ stories, but also reflect on their own. With a major focus on their outward appearance as well as the potential negative “influence,” their music reveals inner struggles with particularly lust, envy, wrath, and gluttony when in the public eye.

Reflecting on these artists, Taylor Swift has garnered millions of young women to resonate with her music that reflects on themes of her love life in the

spotlight, as well as her own self-discovery amidst upholding her public image whilst also maturing and discovering who she is as both as woman and artist. This effect on audiences is represented by the rerecordings of her albums, many young women in their 20s finding new perspectives and relatability among Swift’s reclaiming of her art. Lana’s albums allowed for the emergence of embracing pride, lust, and wrath through her albums such as “Ultraviolence,” “Lust for Life,” and “Norman F*cking Rockwell” by representing her struggles in both self and romance through her poetry. Lastly, Charli XCX’s “brat” album has allowed her fan base to grow exponentially, rewriting what was once a term encompassing greed, pride, and wrath, to represent rebellion, confidence, as well as free expression.

These women have dominated the music industry through relatability; rewriting what young girls grew up being ashamed of feeling. This in turn incites a community in their fan base symbolic of shared experiences. Throughout maturing, these artists offer opportunities for reflection and understanding through putting their struggles into words that others lack.

Peering into adulthood for young women often feels isolating, with music offering the understanding and relatability needed to reflect the sides that we fear to acknowledge. The independent and expressive figures that face sexism and criticism within the spotlight allow for community within their listeners and lyrical poetry to provide comfort in our day-to-day lives.

Women are reclaiming aspects of femininity that they once feared to exhibit due to social pressures. Fear of sin has proven themselves to be “deadly,” yet only to ourselves. Allowing others to find reflection within their own shame and reflection, women in the industry have empowered their listeners via their voices and experiences to be heard and related to.

Music has the ability to allow connection to both others and ourselves through the relatability that lyrical storytelling provides, informing our perspectives on ourselves and the world. Emphasization and the fact of shared experiences and shame that women face manifest into the albums that become soundtracks to the human experience. Once embraced, these seven feared sins become liberating.