When I turn on the radio, I am usually expecting to hear one of two things: an excessively loud advertisement for liposuction or a repetitive song about sexual success.  We live in an era in which a clichéd pop song isn’t some sappy romance, but a sex anthem in which the singer describes in detail his or her sexual prowess.  For the most part, these sex anthem singers are men, but every once in a while a woman tries her hand at it.

But when a woman sings this type of song, she does not receive the same honors as her male counterparts. In fact she is judged for showing off her body or describing her sex life by reviewers who believe that “some things are best kept private.”  We say that they are demeaning themselves and contributing to the problem of female objectification.

But this ignores an important aspect of the situation. The female artist may be sexualized in her songs, but she is sexualizing herself.  With songs like “Partition” by Beyoncé, or “M.I.L.F. $” by Fergie, the artist is controlling her own narrative.  Certainly, the lyrics and music videos are suggestive, but there is a distinction between these and those by male artists. These women are not performing as props for someone else. They’re exerting their right to be as sexual as they want to be.  

This is complicated by songs like “Anaconda,” by Nicki Minaj.  The song is attributed to a female musician who is in control of her own sexuality, but the most demeaning lyrics are still sung by a man and from a male perspective.  Minaj made the conscious decision to take samples from Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” a song objectively about objectifying women’s butts, with a chorus that echoes with “my anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun.”  This song focuses on how sexually desirable Minaj is to a man based entirely on her physical appearance.  I wonder whether it matters that it was a woman that chose for these lyrics to be in her song if they are still sung by a man.

Still, this song’s gratuitous sexuality may not be entirely negative.  As opposed to the excessive descriptions of male sexuality that the world has been exposed to throughout the Anthropocene period, women have rarely been able to express their own sexuality in anyway.  In the modern era, our societies still fail to give women the same sexual rights as men, so perhaps it is high time that we hear from a sexually confident woman who may help to break the stereotypes that constrain women in regards to sexuality.

Minaj isn’t without fault in terms of objectification.  She is potentially using men as props in her lyrics the same way women are in many male-driven songs.  In her verses, she raps about her “boy toy” and is arguably using men as a pedestal to prop up her own sexuality.  She uses descriptions of gratuitous sex with men to indicate that she is sexually desirable and that she at least somewhat controls their money because of her sexuality.  But the power dynamics of this objectification are completely different. She is defying the overarching belief that women cannot be in control of their sex lives, whereas male artists are continuing to uphold it.

I haven’t quite decided what I think about all this yet.  On the one hand, I believe that women should have the ability to be sexual beings in their music, and I commend female artists who defy sexist reviewers and continue to do so.  On the other hand, I understand the concern that overly sexual lyrics and music videos will encourage viewers to see the artists as sexual objects, rather than people.

Perhaps it matters whether these songs are being written by women to empower other women, or by women in an attempt to gain a male following.  But if we believe that singing for male consumers is bad, then we might be suggesting that it is somehow her fault that men are sexualizing her when they listen to her music.

In the end, however, if we tell women not to sing about sex, we are essentially allowing their sexuality to be controlled by the male audience.  I can only hope that female musicians can strike some sort of happy medium, one in which they are free to explore their sexuality while refraining from encouraging female objectification.