The first rule of eusexua is that you never stop talking about eusexua. For months, in anticipation of her third proper album named after this newly coined word, FKA twigs has defined eusexua by example. “Eusexua is for the girls who find their true selves under a hard metal silver stiletto on the damp rave floor,” read part of the text over a blurry TikTok video of her eyes darting around a room. It’s the feeling of, “I’m that bitch,” according to makeup artist Joe Brooks in a promo video uploaded to YouTube. “Eusexua is a practice. Eusexua is a state of being. Eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience,” reads the title card at the end of the video for the album’s title track. But what does any of that mean?
In an interview on Vogue’s The Run-Through podcast, twigs described eusexua as a kind of flow state in which one can lose track of time. She also revealed a tangible definition: “For me, it’s also the moment before I get a really good idea of pure clarity. Like, when everything moves out the way, everything in your mind is completely blank and your mind is elevated.” In The Standard, she called eusexua “that moment of nothingness just before a big surge of inspiration or creativity or passion. I describe it as a moment before an orgasm.”
Ah, clarity. There wasn’t really a word for that referenced special moment of blankness, which carries such a thrill because 1) you know whatever is about to happen is about to happen, but 2) you have no idea how it’ll go. That oncoming orgasm could be the best orgasm of your life. Eusexua is why May is the best month of summer and why ordering and retrieving your coke is sometimes more fun than doing it. The sureness of achievement plus hope for its totality is a hell of a drug. If nothing else, “eusexua” is more useful than most made-up words in pop music—from “Californication” to “Fergilicious” to “sussudio” to “zig-a-zig-ah.”
For further justification, look no further than “Eusexua” the song, where atop a track-length four-on-the-floor club crescendo, twigs relates: “Words cannot describe, baby/This feeling deep inside.” Here she explicitly reaffirms her alignment with art’s imperative of expressing what previously went unexpressed. At the same time, the track’s form is familiar: On a fundamental level, the bangers on EUSEXUA bang like once and future bangers. As she flits from techno to house to garage to drum and bass, the behavior of the almighty bass remains recognizable. She’s balancing saying something new with knowing what has always worked, a Goldilocks approach to making pop. And while it would be a stretch to call twigs a pop star at this point in time (she’s never had a pop chart hit in any territory besides New Zealand), that isn’t stopping her from running circles around virtually everyone else with a legitimate claim for the title. The concept, the sound, and the look—particularly the apocalypse-in-the-front, party-in-the-back hairstyle she’s been rocking lately, inspired by ancient Egypt—all make EUSEXUA an era for the ages.