I want to express that with this article I am in no way speculating on anyone’s sexuality or gender identity, but rather speaking on the theming of the music video and how it can change how we would interpret the song. I do not know Park Seonghwa personally and my view of his work does not reflect on him as a person.
When Park Seonghwa’s “Skin” came out as a part of ATEEZ’s In your Fantasy version of their mini album Golden Hour: Part 3, I, as well as most of their listeners, mostly shrugged it off as your pretty typical heterosexual pop song. This isn’t to say the song wasn’t good — it’s probably my favorite in the group’s solo songs — but it’s still pretty explicit in its messaging. However, I will be bringing in a different interpretation to the song, proposing that the song follows more so the temptation of femininity rather than it referring to a single woman, and how the “she” in the song might be referring to Seonghwa himself (or rather, a part of him he struggles to express under public scrutiny).
On Seonghwa
To preface this, I want to talk about Seonghwa himself. Seonghwa has always been marketed as somewhat feminine; he’s been referred to as the “mother” of the group, and he’s been lovingly referred to as “Captain’s (Hongjoong’s) wife” by both the fandom and the members. He’s feminine in the context of his group members while still being socially acceptable for hypervisible K-pop idols and appealing to their majority female audience and Korean sensibilities. It wasn’t until recently that he’s been taking that feminine perception into his own hands.
Seonghwa is, amongst other things, a lover of fashion. In 2024, Seonghwa was invited to the show for Isabel Marant’s Spring/Summer 2025 womenswear collection. He was dressed by the brand but, when given the choice, he deliberately decided to wear from the women’s section of the brand, picking out a stunning leather dress. His explanation more or less being that “everyone wears from the men’s section to shows, I feel like it would make sense to wear from the women’s section in this case”. In the same video he also states his love of high heels.
Skin ’s Lyrics
Now, onto the song itself. If you’re one of his more attentive fans, you’ll notice the song is very distinctly Seonghwa. It wears its inspirations on its sleeve, clearly taking from artists Seonghwa very vocally admires, specifically DPR IAN and Taemin. With its sultry melody and its suggestive lyrics, the song speaks about the temptation of a woman. It’s full of very vivid imagery, describing the sensations of, well, sex, through the lens of a snake shedding its skin — the freedom to explore desire.
The sharp touch of temptation
A multitude of interwined sensations
Shedding the hidden flaws
Even though the song seems to be about the desire to have sex with a woman or the concept of having sex, that much is obvious, some different interpretations of the song arose early on. It raised the idea that maybe the song could possibly be about the struggle of gender expression as well. This seemed plausible to me due to specific lines that could have double meanings, but I wasn’t really convinced it was on purpose, or at the very least it wasn’t meant to be the point of the song.
Until the music video came out.
MV Breakdown
As the last music video for the solo songs to come out on January 2nd, 2026, “Skin”has gained over a million views in the month since it’s been out. I watched it as soon as I could, wondering what they’d do with the song. Considering the official choreography as well as all of the live performances, I knew they wouldn’t disappoint.
The video starts in a dark, empty room. Seonghwa has his back to the camera. Black veins crawl up his spine. The scene ends before you can really even process it and, frankly, the whole video feels like that — at least for me. The first time I watched it, it felt like something I’d have to watch twice to actually understand (and I did, far more than just twice). But something stood out to me immediately: the women in the video weren’t being desired, but rather, he was trying to blend into them.
The video follows a few sequences with specific elements, all seemingly connected: Seonghwa waking up and exploring acavernous room that resembles a fleshy womb. Seonghwa dancing with a group of women, all of them in the same clothing, including the singer himself. The women standing in a row in front of Seonghwa, divided by a line. Seonghwa sitting at a table with two women. In the following sections I’ll be discussing those sequences and breaking down how I believe they tie into the theming around Seonghwa’s experience with femininity.
The Womb
The scenes in the room I will call the womb are some of my favorites in terms of visuals. The effect of flesh is done using sheets of different colors and textures, creating a space that seems almost alive. Seonghwa wakes up in this room, which makes for a straightforward reading of it being a sort of rebirth. He is in white, baggy clothes, and his makeup and hair are made to look intentionally damp.
As he is looking around, he feels his neck and rips something out. It appears to be a fleshy, gory thing — a tiny tumor. The video moves on without explanation. Then, two women appear in front of Seonghwa. We don’t see their faces, only their identical backs, and they stand on each side of the man, neither of them moving.
The next time we are in the womb, the lights flicker wildly and we get a close up of his face. Flashes of the fleshy tumor keep popping up. After this, Seonghwa appears on the floor of the womb with dozens of hands touching him. Then, he stands at the center of the room, distraught, with people circling him. Seonghwa flashes out of the shot briefly and a woman flashes in his place, before he flashes back in. This theme of a woman seemingly taking his place continues subtly throughout the video.
The womb here seems to be a place of chaos. Seonghwa is fighting an internal battle that started the moment he ripped that tumor out of his neck. To me, when he removed it, he became conscious of something he previously wasn’t and it’s bringing him despair. Obviously, viewing it with my interpretation, he realizes that he craves that femininity in himself, which triggers a crisis of self discovery and questioning of the rigid gender roles and stereotypes that he’s been forced to follow all his life.
The Dissection Room
Seonghwa sits at the center of a table.Two women, presumably the same as the ones from the womb, flank him on each side. The fleshy tumor he ripped out of himself is placed in a container full of water. A scalpel is shown in Seonghwa’s hand, and it is implied to be dissected.
The dissection room is not shown again, but it seems to be in the same building the rest of the video takes place in due to its brutalist appearance. The scene is shocking, and leaves an impression on the viewer; it leaves you wondering why this thing had to be dissected.
If we are following my previous analysis of the womb, here’s where I believe more careful questioning is happening. His gender is being opened and dissected in order to reach an understanding of it and, by extension, of himself.
The women
As I mentioned previously, this is the only MV out of all of the solos to feature women so prominently. As Seonghwa mentioned himself, he chose women specifically for the video (unlike on stage, where the choreography is performed by male dancers) because he wanted the dance to feel a lot more fluid. However, they clearly serve a higher purpose than just aiding in the actual visuals of the dance.
The women aren’t love interests, something that very distinctly stuck out to me when I first watched the video. For a song that is about desiring a woman, none of the women in the video seem to be being desired in any sexual manner. They dance around him, forming more of a mass — this becomes more literal in the scenes where Seonghwa seems to be crashing out in the womb. They don’t seem to represent single characters, but rather a wider concept.
In the scene where they are all lined up in front of Seonghwa, I suddenly feared that he would choose one out of the line up — but he doesn’t. Right after he’s shown observing them from across the boundary, he steps over it, joining them in a line (seemingly referencing his runway debut). He follows the women and is dressed like them for most of the choreography portions (save for the end, which I’ll also be discussing).
My personal speculation for this is that they represent the wider concept of femininity and how Seonghwa is trying to understand where exactly he fits within it. He tries throughout the entire video to blend into the women, dressing like them, walking with them, but ultimately it isn’t fully him, which leads me to the ending sequence of the video.
The Snake
Nearing the end of the video, Seonghwa encounters a shadowy figure in a dark corner. The monster is a thing made of smoke we can’t really fully comprehend but it seems to be shaped like a cross between a snake and a man. The creature sits in place as Seonghwa hesitantly reaches out to it before the smoke begins changing Seonghwa, peeling back the layers of his black suit.
The skin is peeled away, leaving away a snakeskin suit and eclectic makeup (that’s also somewhat reminiscent of DPR IAN’s Mr. Insanity). Seonghwa steps back into the group of women, now visually standing out. The camera work for this last portion is chaotic, with odd staticky bits being spliced in. Seonghwa ends in his infamous final move.
In this ending, we see how he comes to understand himself. I feel like he almost came to the conclusion that he’s allowed to be both feminine and masculine, that he doesn’t need to conform to either presentation. This interpretation really ties in the snake shedding its skin in such an interesting way: he’s fully coming to understand his messy, real self.
Closing Thoughts
At the end of all of this, I feel like I come away from the video feeling like I witnessed a sort of confession, especially after seeing the behind the scenes. As a trans person, the sentiment behind the video feels very relatable; the crisis once you realize that you don’t really fit into the socially acceptable way to express gender and the discomfort and confusion that it brings. I’m not implying that we’re seeing something that could only be read as trans, but rather a reinvention of one’s self after being let down by the expectations of gender that society places upon you — something many of both my cis and trans friends can relate to (especially when you are queer). Between the gore and the bizarre imagery, Seonghwa lays himself bare and lets us take a glimpse. It makes this video feel so much more significant than simply following the main narrative the song implies and gives us nuances that feel very raw to those who decide to look deeper. This MV is truly an interesting piece of art that I’m glad Seonghwa decided to share.