Sound and sociology: Hip Hop feminism and sexual promiscuity – Part II

It’s not uncommon to listen to a rap song where a man constantly talks about how big his dick is and how many women he’s slept with. As a society, we have become desensitized to male sexuality. The discussion surrounding men’s sexual promiscuity is often brushed off as a natural occurrence, absolving them of a lot of the same accountability that’s placed on women. 

Rap has no shortage of this double standard. In the wake of numerous women breaking into rap’s mainstream, there’s been an influx in sentiment about the topic of women’s sexuality and just how open we should be about it in our art. 

The catalyst for many of the modern debates about the topic happened in the summer 2020, when Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion released one of my favorite songs of the year, “WAP.”

Immediately, the vulgarity and explicit nature of the lyrics became the subject of much controversy, with many claiming that Cardi and Megan went too far with how they talked about sex in their music.  

Ben Shapiro and Snoop Dogg’s critiques of the song are some of the most memorable to me — with Ben Shapiro's  video about the song boiling down to be a rather poor attempt at satirical analysis, and Snoop Dogg’s interview with "Central Ave" featured him saying that women should be more protective of their sexuality. But their criticisms were just a few of many that had to do with drawing a line on where to stop when it came to provocative lyricism. Almost all of the criticisms echoed the same sentiment: Female rap was getting out of hand. 

Along with many people within the community claiming that female rap has a quality problem, the added layer of having our sexualities constantly scrutinized stacks all the odds against us. It has highlighted a much bigger issue that underlies society, and that problem boils down to autonomy. 

This goes back to the theory I presented in the last article, that deals with society’s inclination towards patriarchy and subsequent mistreatment of feminine-aligned things and people. From rap to abortion rights to sex work and more, society hates when women express autonomy. 

This is why someone like Snoop Dogg — who is literally featured on a song called “Bitches Ain’t Shit” — has such a problem when women beat men to the finish line by objectifying themselves rather than letting men do it for them. Lots of Hip Hop heads and rap bros have no problem reciting the rather demeaning lyrics of groups like N.W.A. and Three 6 Mafia while simultaneously cringing at the mention of “wet-ass pussy” the moment it comes out of a woman’s mouth. 

This is in no small part due to the much larger censorship issue surrounding women’s bodies. 

There’s an unspoken rule that causes us to treat women’s bodies as something taboo and I’m not exactly sure why this is. My theory is that because Christianity has always been such a prominent religion in American history — with around 68% of modern Americans identifying with some form of Christianity — the very puritanical culture embedded within the religion is so heavily ingrained in our society that we perpetuate it without even realizing it. And that includes its perception on the sanctity of women’s bodies. 

Regardless of the reasoning behind the issue, one thing is certain: Society is afraid of women’s bodies, and the real world implications are actually frightening. 

Peggy Orenstein’s Ted Talk titled “What young women believe about their own sexual pleasure” highlights a lot of the complications that lie beneath the surface of the issue. 

In her speech, she discusses a study conducted by psychologist Sara McClelland at the University of Michigan that raised some concerning revelations. Women reported feelings of shame, humiliation and pain during their first sexual experiences at a higher rate than their male counterparts. On top of that, many young women often measured their own sexual satisfaction based on that of their partners, while most young men measured their satisfaction by their own orgasms. 

The research showed a rather interesting disparity in the relationships that men and women have with sex. Orenstein relates this back to the discussion — or lack thereof — surrounding the censorship of women’s bodies. 

She mentions how health classes often go into detail about the male anatomy while leaving out vital aspects of the female anatomy, and how society is inclined to write off the existence of the word “vagina” when teaching young girls how to refer to their own genitals. Orenstein discusses how this refusal to acknowledge what’s between our legs is what often leads to many of the unsatisfactory sexual experiences. 

We, as a society, are so afraid of what we don’t know, and this has led to many women being afraid to reclaim their bodies and our sexuality. 

Now, I know that was a lot, but I promise this relates back to rap. 

Going back to the discussion of autonomy, living in society that constantly polices women’s bodies only further reinforces this notion that our genitalia is something to be feared rather than embraced. Now that so many female rappers are leaping out of their comfort zones and diving into embracing their sexualities, a lot of men don’t know how to handle it, and can’t conceptualize the fact that we can enjoy sex just as much as they can. 

In this newer era of raunchy, ratchet, sexually provocative music, women like Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion  have opened the door for a much broader and more nuanced discussion about sexuality, autonomy, and the liberation of women’s bodies. The step toward destigmatization lies in normalizing the topics we’re so afraid of addressing, and with rap having emerged as the new sound of pop in recent years, it’s been damn near impossible to ignore the sexual lyrics that many female rappers have put at the forefront of the public eye.

It lays forth the groundwork for letting women have a choice in how the rest of society views our bodies and how we view ourselves. While it’s become somewhat of a joke in recent years to ironically refer to ratchet rap as “empowering” and “uplifting,” I think the validity of those claims lies far deeper than what most people are willing to acknowledge. 

We’re seeing the birth of a new era in which women will be able to redefine ourselves in any way that we please. Hip Hop has always been a medium for rebellion and going against the status quo, and with female rap pioneering another branch of feminism that’s centered around sex positivity, I’m excited to see where this new path will take us.