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"How Many Licks Does It Take?"

A Discursive Analysis of Cunnilingus in Popular Music

INTRODUCTION

Female sexuality has historically been framed as something that demands containment. By the

nineteenth century many believed that women were less sexually desirous than men, and that

women were by nature more interested in wifely and maternal roles. The Christian churches of the

late eighteenth century saw women as models of passionless restraint, as noble civilizing forces of

society (Groneman 1994: 445-6). Sexual desirous women were pathologized and labelled

nymphomaniacs. Historian Carol Groneman explains how these women were not just seen as

metaphorically dangerous (to family structures, the moral order of society and civilization as a

whole), but also as literal dangers. “Some doctors argued that a nymphomanic would not just seduce

a man but would overpower him and actually force him to satisfy her sexual desires. Female

sexuality was thus understood in terms of the male sexual act, a kind of reverse rape

fantasy” (Groneman 1994: 353-5). Sexual women were problematized and perceived as “out of

control, inverting the natural order because of [their] aggressive, powerful sexual

demands” (Groneman 1994: 355).

The fear of female sexuality is racialized. The stereotypical image of the hypersexual Black

woman came into existence during slavery to justify the abuse many Black women endured. Mary

Ann Doane describes how “the exotic and erotic were welded together, situating the African woman

as the signifier of excessive, incommensurable sexuality” (Doane 1999: 449). The effect of racial

stereotypes is, as Fanon taught us, that the conduct of those who fall victim under these stereotypes

“is perpetually overdetermined from the inside” (Fanon 1999: 419). Their behavior becomes

scrutinized: every decision they make either subverts or reinforces stereotypical imagery. This may

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cause the feeling Fanon describes as being held responsible “at the same time for my body, for my

race, for my ancestors” (Fanon 1999: 419). African women came to symbolize “the epitome of

sexual aberration and excess” (McClintock 1995: 22). African American women have contested this

stereotype through the embrace of a sexual saintliness that is often referred to as the “politics of

respectability”. Here, “Black women suppress or deny erotic expression and advise those around

them to do the same” in order to gain a more respected position in society (Lee 2010: viii). The

effects of these ‘politics of respectability’ are that “African-American women are considerably less

likely to masturbate, use a vibrator, enjoy and achieve orgasm through masturbation, give and

receive oral sex, and enjoy giving and receiving oral sex than other women” (The Kinsey Report as

in Lee 2010: x).

White female sexuality is often juxtaposed to Black female sexuality (Railton and Watson

2005: 54). Where Black bodies were pictured as available to all, White bodies were characterized by

unavailability. “While nineteenth-century discourses were constructing black women as animalistically

hypersexed bodies, accessible for scrutiny and pleasure, those same discourses were simultaneously

constructing white women as, on the one hand, civilised and restrained, and on the other hand as

fragile bodies in need of protection from the sexual” (Railton and Watson 2005: 55). White women

were asexual in a way: they were “above and beyond the base needs and desires of the ‘primitive’

body” (Railton and Watson 2005: 55). Their sex remained tied to notion of heterosexual marriage.

Moreover, they were more interested in romantic love than in sex itself. Their sexuality was thus

located outside the flesh, while Black sexuality was precisely featured inside the flesh, especially in the

Black behind. “In defining black women first and foremost through a series of physical

characteristics, her body is not only made available to both white and black men but the buttocks of

that body are figured as emblematic of black womanhood generally and the icon of black female

sexuality precisely. White women’s asexuality, on the other hand, is seen precisely as a product of

civilization, a process by which the natural is regulated, ordered and thus mastered” (Railton and

Watson 2005: 56).

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Female sexuality becomes still more difficult to theorize when we turn to oral sex. Sociologist

John Gagnon argues that oral sex, in terms of traditional sexual scenarios, has always been seen as

unnatural. Oral sex deflects from coitus and historically has been treated as criminal and sinful

(Gagnon 1990: 18). However, the tide has turned quite a bit. Gagnon explains:

Kinsey inverted the biological argument in this position by making the counter argument that oral

sex was widely manifested in the mammalian realm and therefore part of the bounty and variety of

nature that was repressed by civilized life. In the more advanced social thinking of the secular

marriage manual, oral sex seemed be an activity which had a number of virtues: It was a prelude to

coitus that expressed a heightened level of interpersonal intimacy (I wouldn’t do this for just

anybody), it was an activity which mechanically increased lubrication and hence the ease of coitus,

and finally it was an activity which seemed to produce (for a variety of reasons, both mechanical and

psychological) more intense levels of psychological arousal. In the most liberated arguments, often

made by feminists, oral sex to the point of orgasm, particularly for women, was an end in itself and

somewhat better for purposes of sexual satisfaction than coitus. All of these arguments are evidence

for changing cultural scenarios for oral sex (Gagnon 1990: 18).

Oral sex has become more accepted over time. Nevertheless, it is still a topic that is often ignored in

the public domain. Beyond that, when it is discussed there is more attention for fellatio than for

cunnilingus. When we look at popular hip hop music, only a handful of songs have been written

about cunnilingus while rappers like Lil Wayne almost made a career of creating songs about

fellatio. This can be explained through the above mentioned fact that sexuality is gendered, and that

male sexuality is more widely accepted than female sexuality is. It is safe to say that oral sex has

different meanings when it is discussed from either a male or female point of view. There is a

difference between receiving/giving fellatio and receiving/giving cunnilingus. Whenever songs

about cunnilingus are written they effectively battle the fear of female sexuality — the notion that

women must be contained and controlled — and create a space for female desire.

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Songs about cunnilingus present us with publicly accessibly discourses about a mostly private

matter. The tension between private experiences of sexual pleasure and the public nature of sexual

scripts that grant meaning to these experiences is showcased here. Like Jackson and Scott I contend

that sexual pleasure does not exist without its social meanings — we need to be able to recognize

and decode experiences of sexual pleasure in order to define these experiences as pleasurable.

Through using scripting theory, or interactionism, a conceptualization of sexual pleasure as socially

mediated is made possible. Moreover, these theories give room to a view of “embodied sexual selves

as reflexively constructed and reconstructed” (Jackson and Scott 2007: 95-6). The scripts should not

be seen as “closed texts that lock us into predictable plots and roles, but something much more fluid

and open, offering opportunities to improvise” (Jackson and Scott 2007: 109). Jackson and Scott

argue: “scripts are played with, not simply played out; they are open to renegotiation as we take cues

from partners and make sense of what is happening to them, to us and between us” (2007: 109).

Sexual scripts do thus not determine our sexual behavior and experience, we rather use them to

“make sense of our own embodied sexuality” (Jackson and Scott 2007: 109). The self in this view is

always provisional and in process, and meanings are constantly being developed, negotiated and

renegotiated. Not all scripts are possible: they depend on social context, and in new situations we

make them up as we go but with reference to our previously available scripted materials (Gagnon

1990: 11). “The advantage of this perspective is that it is non-deterministic, in that it allows for

fluidity and agency, without assuming that we are free to do anything we please or to apply any

number of infinite array of meanings to erotic encounters” (Jackson and Scott 2007: 110).

Jackson and Scott conclude: “The most evident source from which it is possible to learn how

to perceive [sexual] effects and come to define them as pleasurable is the media” (Jackson and Scott

2007: 108). Through focussing on sexual discourses in the media we thus enable ourselves to

untangle some of the meanings that are granted to female sexual pleasure today. In this paper I will

research the ways in which cunnilingus is discussed in American popular hip hop songs by female

artists. I will look at both the lyrics and videos of these songs to analyze discourses of female desire,

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sexual pleasure and sexual agency. I will do so through a hip hop feminist and necessarily

intersectional lens with special attention for the intersections between gender, sexuality, and race.

HIP HOP FEMINISM

Hip hop came into existence during the 1970s in the South Bronx, New York. The genre has

represented “the voices and visions of the culturally, politically, and economically marginal and

disenfranchised” ever since (Phillips et al. 2005: 254). Successful hip hop artists in the American

music industry have a reach that goes far beyond the borders of the USA. Even though the genre

quickly became an accepted part of global popular culture, the perspectives in hip hop mostly

continue to voice the experiences of marginalized groups in society. Especially African American

and Latino experiences are well represented (Phillips et al. 2005: 254). Music in general, but hip hop

in particular, is filled with ideological discourses around race, gender, and sexuality. While not all

female performers in hip hop are feminists, their songs depict gendered and racialized experiences

— they lay claim on lived realities in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect. Moreover, their

songs often articulate notions of independence, agency and empowerment. Female hip hop artists

regularly use their music to “talk back” to racist and sexist scripts. As Phillips et al. conclude we find

“feminism and womanism at street level” in hip hop (Phillips et al. 2005: 255). Nevertheless, self-

objectification and the use of derogatory lyrics about other women are omnipresent in the genre as

well. Phillips et al. convincingly argue that women (and men, for that matter) “have participated in

Hip Hop culture and rap music in ways that have been both oppressive and liberatory for

women” (Phillips et al. 2005: 254).

Within intersectional feminism, and possibly as a reaction to post-feminism, hip hop

feminism made its entrance. Treva B. Lindsey explains it as “a generationally specific and

historically contingent iteration of intersectionality and of critical race feminist theory” (2015: 54).

As one of the founding mothers of this form of feminism with her book When Chickenheads Come

Home to Roost (1999), Joan Morgan writes how the new generation is in need of a feminism

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committed to “keeping it real” (62). She explains hip hop feminism as a feminism that is “brave

enough to fuck with the grays (Morgan 1999: 59). She elaborates: “We need a voice like our music

— one that samples and layers many voices, injects its sensibilities into the old and flips it into

something new, provocative, and powerful. And one whose occasional hypocrisy, contradictions, and

trifeness guarantee us at least a few trips to the terror-dome, forcing us to finally confront what we’d

all rather hide from” (Morgan 1999: 62).

We need a feminism that possesses the same understanding held by any true student of hip-hop.

Truth can’t be found in the voice of any one rapper but in the juxtaposition of many. The keys that

unlock the riches of contemporary black female identity lie not in choosing Latifah over Lil’ Kim, or

even Foxy Brown over Salt-N-Pepa. They lie at the magical intersection where those contrary voices

meet — the juncture where “truth” is no longer black and white but subtle, intriguing shades of gray

(Morgan 1999: 62).

In other words: we are in need of a less rigid and more flexible form of feminism. A feminism that

does not divide people in good and bad feminists, but that dares to focus on the complexities and

oppositions within experiences. With the help of hip hop feminism, I will try to dissect the intriguing

shades of gray present in music about cunnilingus. There are two discernible discourses in the

discussed music about cunnilingus. First, there is a narrative about cunnilingus tied to the notion of

heteronormative romantic love, with a focus on sex as expression of love. Second, there is a

narrative about cunnilingus as a demand for sexual pleasure, with a focus on sex as a goal in itself.

“THIS IS THE WAY TO MY LOVE”

Sisters With Voices, better known as SWV, is an American girl group that started out as a gospel

choir but quickly evolved into an R&B group. They were in the heydays of their career in the 1990s,

and quickly rose to fame when they released their ode to cunnilingus, “Downtown,” in 1992. When

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journalist Lucy O’Brien asked them why they made the song band member Coko answered:

“Usually it’s the guys sayin ‘let me lick you’ […] This is the first time a girl group has come out and

told a male where to go. It’s time for the ladies to take a stand” (O’Brien 2012: 238). In the video

that accompanies the song we see the girl group dressed in Fly Girl attire — leisure wear with a

sportive and cool vibe. The men fulfill subordinate roles: we never see them completely but are only

able to catch glimpses of them. They mostly serve as complementary props to the Sisters With

Voices. While they are never fully visible but are mostly seen from behind, the women constantly

look into the camera and directly confront our gaze. We are unable to identify with the men and

thus experience the video through the female point of view.

SWV - “Downtown” (1992)

Water forms an important trope in the video. This is not exceptional. Water is an often used erotic

symbol in music videos. In the lyrics, cunnilingus is tied to a notion of romantic love. The artists sing

oral sex “is the way to my heart” and “the way to my love”. Even the experience of an orgasm is

tied to romantic imagery: “Take it round and round, ooh you can’t stop till you find my love”.

Moreover, cunnilingus is mentioned as a requirement for the possibility of love when they sing

“That’s where I keep the key to my love / It opens the door to so much more”. The sexual activity

in this song is thus not a goal in itself, but a tool to get to somewhere else. It is interesting to note that

it sounds like the sexual partners are not involved in a romantic relationship just yet — through

performing cunnilingus the possibility is created.

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This is similar to the message of Kelly Rowland’s “Kisses Down Low” (2013). In the colorful

video that accompanies this song we see Rowland in various hairdos and outfits. There are no other

persons in the clip, but we see as much as four copies of the artist herself in one room at some point.

In the song she sings that she cannot believe how her male counterpart pleases her sexually. While

he gives her kisses down low, chills run down her spine. She sings: “You’re one of a kind, I swear I

gotta make you mine,” which at once ties his sexual capacities to the possibility of romantic love, but

at the same time places their sexual interaction outside a romantic framework just yet. This is very

different in a song about cunnilingus released by former fellow co-member of Destiny’s Child:

Beyoncé.

The song “Blow,” featured on her album Beyoncé (2013), is accompanied by a video which

starts with a scene where we see Beyoncé and her sister Solange riding lowrider bicycles towards a

roller rink. In the roller rink they dance around on roller blades, accompanied by many others.

There is strong R&B vibe and disco feeling to the song. The lyrics focus on the fun in sexual

satisfaction, and the video extends this fun to a different environment: the roller rink. One of the

most interesting things is probably the way in which Beyoncé appropriates the word “blow” in

connection with cunnilingus while it is normally connected to fellatio. The second thing to notice is

the way in which Beyoncé’s sexuality is always framed within the institution of heterosexual

marriage. Her roller skates have “Mrs Carter” written on them — a name also used for her world

tour in 2013 — referring to her marriage with hip hop mogul Jay-Z.

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Image of Beyoncé’s roller skates in “Blow” (2013)

This is the only video in all songs discussed in which this marital framework is present. Jay-Z himself

does not physically appear in the clip but is present in both the artist’s star text and the physicality of

his last name on her skates. Beyoncé addresses “all the grown women out there” and explains how

she cannot wait to get home “so you can tear that cherry out,” a sentence that refers to the swelling

of the clitoris that takes place when women are aroused.

The lyrics read:

You like it wet and so do I, you like it wet and so do I

I know you never waste a drip, I know you never waste a drip

I wonder how it feels sometimes, must be good to you

Keep me coming, keep me going, keep me coming, keep me going

Keep me humming, keep me moaning, keep me humming, keep me moaning

Don't stop loving 'til the morning, don't stop loving 'til the morning

Don't stop screaming, freaking, blowing, blow-ow-ow-ow

Can you lick my skittles, that's the sweetest in the middle

Pink that's the flavor, solve the riddle

Imma lean back, don't worry it's nothing major

Make sure you clean that, that's the only way to get the flavor

When you're thirsty and need love, I give it up 'til I'm empty babe

Must be good to you

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It is interesting that Beyoncé says she wonders how it feels sometimes. This could either point to a

curiosity in pleasuring another woman, or a kind of egocentric interest in how it would feel to orally

pleasure herself. She motivates her partner to endlessly satisfy her in the chorus. Female genitalia are

compared to skittles: sweet and colorful candy. Female orgasms are called a riddle, which resonates

with the general image of female orgasms as mysterious and ungraspable. Moreover, her attention

to her partner swallowing all of her vaginal fluids seems to play into the well-known fetish in which

men ask their partners to swallow their sperm.

“WE DON’T WANT DICK TONIGHT / EAT MY PUSSY RIGHT”

Aside from these narratives wherein cunnilingus is tied to notions of romantic love, there are also

songs that approach oral sex as end point, as a goal in itself. Funnily enough, Kelly Rowland also

released a song that fits this narrative. In 2011 she and Lil Wayne recorded the song “Motivation”.

In the video we see Rowland dancing in a warehouse, surrounded by half dressed male back-up

dancers. Rowland is clearly in control. She is sitting on a chair judging the performances of her

male dancers and is free to touch whomever she wants. She does not wear much clothes — mostly a

bathing suit and long coat. Various scenes show impressions of group sex in which lots of bodies rub

each other up and down. It is noteworthy that other women are touching Rowland as well, and that

the male dancers also feel each other up. The video thus also breaks with the homophobic

framework with which hip hop culture is often associated.

In the lyrics Rowland motivates her partner to enable her to receive an orgasm:

Oh lover, don’t you dare slow down

Go longer, you can last more rounds

Push harder, you're almost there now

So go lover, make mama proud

…

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And when we're done, I don’t wanna feel my legs

While she does call her counterpart her lover, she is not focused on discussing notions of romantic

love like she did in “Kisses Down Low”. Lil Wayne raps that he “turn[s] that thing into a

rainforest,” and that he “like[s] to taste that sugar; that sweet and low”. He adds: “I put her on my

plate then I do the dishes”. Pleasing his partner is part of his manhood in this narrative, and

hegemonic masculinity gets subverted through his play with the dishes. Both Rowland and Wayne

make her pleasure and satisfaction the center of the song.

The songs in this category often talk back to hegemonic discourses of male sexuality, in

which male sexuality is presented as active and aggressive and female sexuality as passive and

accommodating. An example of such a song is Trina’s “Tongue Song” (2000). In this case, Trina

reacts to Sisqo’s popular “Thong Song” (2000). In the “Thong Song,” Sisqo gives both a lyrical and

visual ode to the hypersexual Black behind. This focus on the physicality of the butt as defining

feature of Black womanhood, and especially Black female sexuality, makes the body into an

fetishized object. As aforementioned, this focus on the Black behind strengthens the view of Black

sexuality as “primitive, as ‘animal-like,’ a physical sign of an uncontrolled and, indeed

uncontrollable, animalistic sexuality” (Railton and Watson 2005: 54). Katrina Laverne Taylor, better

known as Trina, quickly recorded an answer to this song. With her song she subverts the idea of the

Black woman as sexual object but instead creates a Black sexual subjectivity in which she demands

female pleasure. She starts with calling attention to the thing Sisqo did not mention in his song,

namely “What niggaz need to do with wutz in tha thong”. Trina raps:

This might sound so scandalous but itz tha truth -n- men can't handle it

See most of tha time a nigga dick aint shit

He needa go a step further -n- lick tha clit -uh-

Keep lickin 'till ya hit my spot

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In her final verse she puts Sisqo in his place: “My niggaz be talkin bout thongs -n- shit / I wanna see

ya face in between my hips”. Trina tells Sisqo to put his money where his mouth is: if he is so full of

female sexuality he should stop blabbering about the physical attractiveness of their bodies and

focus on pleasuring them instead. This demand for female sexual pleasure was followed by two

notorious artists that made sexual emancipation a big part of their narrative: Lil’ Kim and Khia.

Kimberly Denise Jones became a very successful American rapper who performs under her

pseudonym Lil’ Kim. Aside from her rap skills, she is also very much known for her racy sexual style.

Although female sexuality is the topic of most of her music, two of her songs revolve around

cunnilingus and will be discussed here. First, I will discuss “Not Tonight” (1996). This song was

released on Lil’ Kim’s album Hard Core and does not have a video to accompany it. It samples

Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” and features an all female choir that collectively sings the blunt

chorus: “I don’t want dick tonight / eat my pussy right”. The verses consist of an enumeration of ex

lovers. Kim tells us how these men financially and sexually treated her, and focuses on how they

failed to sexually satisfy her. A guy named Jimmy gets critiqued for being sexually inadequate:

It was somethin’ about this dude I couldn’t stand

Somethin’ that coulda made his ass a real man

Somethin’ I wanted, but I never was pushy

The motherfucker never ate my pussy

Kim is clearly displeased by Jimmy’s unwillingness to perform cunnilingus on her, and ties this to a

lack of manhood: “real men” satisfy their partners. This narrative continues in her verse about Ron

Doo:

The sex was wack, a four stroke creep

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I jumped on his dick, rode his ass to sleep

He called next week, askin’ why I ain’t beep him

“I thought your ass was still sleepin”

He laughed, told me he bought a new Path

Could he come over right fast and fuck my pretty ass?

I’ll pass, nigga the dick was trash

If sex was record sales you would be double plat

The only way you seein’ me is if you eatin’ me

Ron is also unable to please Kim. First of all, he does not have the stamina to keep up with her —

he falls asleep before she reaches an orgasm. Moreover, like Jimmy, he does not understand the

importance of cunnilingus. In “Not Tonight” Lil’ Kim thus disses these male personas about their

sexual performances. In the final verse, Kim concludes: “The moral of the story is this / You ain’t

lickin’ this, you ain’t stickin’ this”. Matthew Oware explains: “Kim defines sexual intercourse on her

own terms, critiquing male bravado about the sexual gratification of women; she has the ultimate

control over whether or not sex occurs and then the capability of assessing his poor performance —

the ultimate fear of many heterosexual males” (Oware 2009: 793).

While Kim stands up for the right of female pleasure she also reduces herself to a

hypersexual Black woman through making her sexual prowess the basis for her image — a known

role for Black women that is non-threatening to White patriarchal society. The fact that she had so

much success with this image might even be completely due to the fact that she is African American.

Hunter and Soto argue: “If Lil’ Kim were white and the audience imagined white women as the

personae in her songs, there would likely be a national response of outrage, or no one would buy the

music. Perhaps this racial reality is the reason that white women are nearly absent from rap music

lyrics and video” (2009: 181).

It is nevertheless a mistake to equate explicit lyrics with exploitative lyrics. Lyrics can be very

explicit without exploiting anyone. In this case, however, Lil’ Kim has often been critiqued for

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mimicking the exploitative language and images used by many male rappers. In her performances,

Lil’ Kim “displays bravado, confidence, and arrogance that are typical, even obligatory, for any

rapper. In doing so, her identity as a woman and as a black person is inherently resistive to

dominant ideas of gender, race, place, and power” (Ogbar 2007: 89). Hip hop scholar Tricia Rose

writes about these female rappers like Lil’ Kim: “They are hustlers instead of victims, but the male-

empowering terms of hustling, victimizing, and sexual domination as legitimate power remain

intact. And they also rely on and promote male sexual fantasy-based images of women as sexually

voracious and talented in their ability to please men” (2008: 123-4). In this view, Kim does not

subvert the dominant and oppressive racist and sexist narratives within rap and society at large.

Rose however does not blame female rappers for buying into this discourse: “Given the highly

marginal place that black women rappers have been given throughout the past decade, it is

completely understandable why those who survived the commercial demands have relied on the

product reserved especially for black women: sexual excess” (Rose 2008: 124). As Ogbar concludes:

“MCs like Lil’ Kim […] demonstrate that women can not only be hypersexual on wax but also extol

the joys of sexually exploiting the opposite sex” (2007: 102).

In her second song about cunnilingus, “How Many Licks” (2000) featuring Sisqo, Lil’ Kim

continues the vivid sexual imagery. While Sisqo is featured on the track he only gets to moan and

sing the chorus. He is completely absent from the video. In the video we see Kim as different mass-

produced edible dolls to practice cunnilingus on. We meet Candy Kim, Pin-Up Kim and Nightrider

Kim. Through literally objectifying herself as an edible doll, Kim ironically subverts the idea that

objectification defies agency. Here, it is very clear that even as commercial objectified commodity,

Kim is still in control of her pleasure. Kim uses irony to play with capitalist symbolism and confuse

its meanings.

In the lyrics, Kim mostly boasts about the various men she had sex with, and the centrality

of her pleasure in these interactions. Her personas are marketed with typical advertisement terms,

of which the most remarkable are “She doesn’t satisfy you. You satisfy her” and “Collect all three,

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taste the difference”. These advertisements function as a trope throughout the song — even the

chorus, “How many licks does it take till we get to the center of it,” is an allusion to a popular

Tootsie Roll commercial.

“Collect all three / Taste the difference”

Kim seems to use men for her sexual gratification and demands satisfying sexual

performances. Sexual performance here is tied to the nature of either a man or woman: if you are a

“real” (wo)man, you are capable of pleasing your partner. The song is completely focused on

cunnilingus as a goal in and of itself. Her complaints about the inability of the men to please her

“undermine popular cultural myths of phallic power and the centralized role of the phallus in

heterosexual relations, and position the female sexual subject and her desires at the center of the

sexual encounter” (Chepp 2015: 559). In other words: sex here is not connected to romantic

imagery or reciprocity — Kim is not concerned with the pleasure of her male counterparts but

demands a complete focus on female pleasure. Kim “relegates men to being only extensions of

female pleasure and need” (Ogbar 2007: 91).

Khia Shamone Finch made her entrance as rapper Khia in 2002, when she released her

debut album Thug Misses. The song “My Neck, My Back (Lick It)” caused her to break through to a

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huge audience. On it, she raps how her partners should “Lick it good, suck this pussy just like you

should”. It is most known for the repetition of the lines “My neck, my back / Lick my pussy and my

crack” and constitutes an ode to both cunnilingus and analingus. The song was accompanied by two

video clips: one that was released in Europe, and one that was shown on American television. In

their eloquent analysis of both videos Railton and Watson explain the important differences

between these videos and how they each influence the meaning of the song. To put it in their own

words: “While the lyrics remain constant, the nature of that performance and display differs

considerably and does so in ways that fundamentally change the politics of its sexual

address” (Railton and Watson 2007: 118).

The video released in the United States shows us a Dirty South hip hop aesthetic. Railton

and Watson teach us two things about this genre. First, “while this is not a genre normally associated

with politicized lyrics, it, and the genre of hip-hop more broadly, has nevertheless provided a space

in which a number of female performers, or more exactly black female performers, have addressed

issues to do with the gendered politics of everyday life, and in particularly heterosexual

relationships” (Railton and Watson 2007: 118). Second, “the use of sexually explicit lyrics is both a

common, and indeed identifying, feature of the genre and therefore can be a key means through

which these politics are articulated” (Railton and Watson 2007: 118). These explicit utterances are

however more shocking and possibly subversive when women use them to defy notions of

hegemonic femininity, which is not necessarily done in this song. In the American video, we see a

house party in which a group of friends seems to be hanging out around a pool, dancing with each

other and sharing a meal. Khia is in control: we see her mouthing the words of her song and in this

way claiming her sexual subjectivity. In Railton and Watson’s words: “The setting for the video is a

realistic and natural one and what could be seen as pornographic lyrics are thus immediately

rendered unexceptional at least in part by locating them withint a logical, believable space and

place” (2007: 119). The clip not only revolves around sex, but also around other pleasures, like

eating and dancing. “Rather, what is remarkable about the video is that it works as a representation

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of a situation in which in-control female sexual agency is not simply permitted but normal” (Railton

and Watson 2007: 120).

In the European version of the video, Khia does not participate. Instead, three women in

different colored bikinis perform an erotic performance around a hummer that is “coded as male

and is installed as the surrogate subject for the implied male viewer” (Railton and Watson 2007:

121). The women do not sing but rather rub on the car, lick it and make masturbatory movements

on its leather armrests. “The anonymous women, therefore, never get to ‘disrupt the dominant

scenario’ of female passivity as they are never seen to perform the ‘demand lyrics’ of the

song” (Railton and Watson 2007: 122). This has a crippling effect on the meanings of the song. “In

uncoupling the lyrical performance of the song from its author and recasting it around the fetishistic

imagery and pornographic tropes of the later video, the more challenging political potential of the

earlier video and, indeed, the song itself becomes short-circuited” (Railton and Watson 2007: 118).

The women in the second video do not have a voice, which is opposed to Khia mouthing the words

in the earlier video. Railton and Watson conclude that in this case “it is not the removal of clothes

that is important but rather the removal of agency” (Railton and Watson 2007: 125). Through

removing the agency of the women in the second video, they become a voiceless spectacle of female

sexuality. The first video claims power over female lust and desire, and with this undermines male

sexual control. The second video revels in this male control, and portrays the female body as

interchangeable, available, and up for consumption for the other to devour.

CONCLUSION

We have seen that female hip hop artists discuss female sexuality in active, controlling and

sometimes even aggressive manners. This message, however, sometimes gets diffused through self-

objectification in the videos that accompany the songs. As we have seen, videos strongly influence

the possible interpretations of these songs. There is a danger in this complicit behavior since it

creates the possibility to view the aggressiveness of female sexuality as a mere performance or

Prins !18

spectacle towards the male gaze: as another iteration of the stereotypical Black hypersexual and

insatiable woman. While none of the songs leave a heteronormative framework, they all talk about

cunnilingus in positive manners. Receiving cunnilingus is framed within notions of romantic love,

but mostly as an act that creates the possibility of developing a romantic relationship. Only Beyoncé

framed her song within her marriage, and even this was only done through physically showing the

name of her husband on her skates and not lyrically. It does not matter whether it is tied to notions

or romantic love or discussed as end goal in itself, the female artists all utter lyrics that emphasize the

male pleasure of giving cunnilingus. Being capable of pleasing your partner is often tied to notions

of manhood: it takes a “real man” to satisfy a woman. If a man is unable to do so he will most likely

be dismissed. In my opinion, it is a shame when female sexuality is discussed in language that

mimics the aggressive and oppressive language of problematic male rappers. It would be interesting

to look for new and creative spaces where female sexual subjectivity can be defined on its own non-

oppressive terms.

Female genitalia are often discussed and visually supported with notions of candy, bright

colors and sweetness, although other artists refer to their vaginas as their pussy. They are, however,

never called vaginas. The female orgasm is discussed as a mysterious enigma. It would be interesting

to research counter narratives that focus more on the possibility of female orgasm instead of on the

difficulty of making it happen. To discuss the orgasm as mysterious and ungraspable might justify a

shift in focus away from female pleasure again. It is valuable that most songs feature clear directions

towards the givers of oral sex and have a strong focus on the fun that exists in receiving pleasure and

explorations of the body.

The popular music discussed and researched in this paper demands a view of women as

active sexual agents. I have focused on female performers of whom I contend that their messages go

beyond a mere sexualization of the female body. The performers and performances discussed

should be seen as both objects as well as subjects in the feminist debate. Their creations help women

to give meaning to female pleasure, and might help feminists to theorize a politics of pleasure.

Prins !19

Through close reading both the videos and lyrics in these songs about cunnilingus, I discussed

questions about agency, objectification of the female body, and voicing pleasure. I have shown how

important the intersections between race, gender, and sexuality are. Feminism is never finished, and

needs to continuously confront and critically analyze popular culture. This paper is an attempt to

add to that research.

DISCOGRAPHY

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. (2013). “Blow,” Beyoncé, Parkwood and Colombia.

Kelly Rowland ft. Lil Wayne. (2011). “Motivation,” Here I Am, Universal Republic Records

Kelly Rowland. (2013). “Kisses Down Low,” Talk a Good Game, Republic.

Khia. (2002). “My Neck, My Back (Lick It),” Thug Misses, Divine, Dirty Down, Artemix, and Epic.

Lil’ Kim ft. Jermaine Dupri. (1996). “Not Tonight,” Hard Core, Undeas and Big Beat.

Lil’ Kim ft. Sisqo. (2000). “How Many Licks?” The Notorious K.I.M., Atlantic, Queen Bee, Undeas,

and Big Beat.

SWV. (1992). “Downtown,” It’s About Time, RCA.

Trina. (2000). “Tongue Song,” Unknown, Unkown.

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