Essay: Starfire and 'Born Sexy Yesterday'

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So what is born sexy yesterday?  This trope was introduced to the internet by essayist Pop Culture Detective as a lens through which to analyze adult women in science fiction media who are typically extremely attractive but are oblivious to both their sex appeal and to the ways of the world. This naivete is either intrinsic to their personality or a result of these characters literally being born yesterday (an example of this would be the Fifth Element's Leeloo). To keep it short, born sexy yesterday means a character with specialized intelligence but with the experience, mind, and personality of a child in the body of (most often) a grown woman who is usually highly sexualized and objectified. It's a trope that crops up in science fiction with an alarming frequency. Almost always, there is a man (typically ordinary in every way except for the fact that our Born Sexy Yesterday character falls for him) that guides the Born Sexy Yesterday through the ways of a world that are completely new to her. Seeming to possess an abundance of knowledge and intelligence, the Born Sexy Yesterday finds him irresistable and falls in love with him. 

At a glance, Starfire's character seems to fulfil some of the basic characteristics of this trope. As a literal alien to Earth, Koriand'r meets a handful of these requirements: 

Innocent of the ways of our world?

Innocent of the ways of our world?

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yes.

A scene where she's innocently naked in front of others and requires an explanation of why western culture finds nudity wrong and/or inappropriate?

A scene where she's innocently naked in front of others and requires an explanation of why western culture finds nudity wrong and/or inappropriate?

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That's there, too.

However, for all this innocence surrounding Earth culture, Koriand'r is rarely seen acting like with the innocence of a child and displays deep knowledge of a variety of subjects that are both intellectual and physical.  Her innocence and naivete in social situations on Earth comes not from having the mind of a child but from a cultural dissonance. Despite suffering for years in enslavement and having no formal education (or what we as an audience would define as a formal education) she intuitively understands how to operate a starship and makes a flawless escape from her captors in a ship we as an audience may assume she has never flown before as she was a mere child when she was enslaved: 

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