To think songs from the 90s and 00s were just as sexual as WAP

[Sedih]

DD 23 played me WAP and I felt old, obviously I had the Typical mum reaction.

However she asked me about whether I had songs like this when I was younger and I remembered

Khia: my neck, my back

Madonna - Erotica

I’m sure there are countless others.

So why is WAP so shocking to us ladies in our 40s and 50s?

Surely WAP is the same thing as these hits ?

I heard ‘freak me’ by Another Level the other day - we used to sing that as young teens!! It’s pretty filthy. I forgot about the neck and back one too... not to mention the dancers in music videos to be fair.

It doesn't shock me in any way at all. I think it’s vile, and I thought those other songs were vile as well. Just not suitable for the public sphere.

Agreed, there have always been songs that are sexual.

Absolutely - nothing new under the sun!

Janet Jackson ‘All for you’ - Got a nice package alright / Guess I'm gonna have to ride it tonight

Mariah Carey ‘Loverboy’ - I got myself a lover / And he's so sublime / He's quite a bit of heaven / When he comes inside / So come on sugar daddy / Take me for a ride

Lil Kim ‘Magic Stick’ - I got the magic clit / I know if I get licked once, I get licked twice / I am the baddest chick

People have been singing explicitly about sex for decades. Not sure why WAP in particular is so controversial!

There's a fantastic quote from PETA about the video: 'If Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion really care about pussy liberation, they wouldn't use suffering big cats as props'.

I remember The Divinyls and what about Prince? Now he WAS a dirty bugger!

I think people have been singing explicitly about sex for decades but I actually don’t think I’ve ever heard a song quite AS explicit as WAP. That’s not to say one doesn’t exist. Just that I haven’t heard any others that I think are quite on the same level.

I instantly thought of Lil Kim!

Teens are attracted to shock value and, with hormones running wild, explicitly sexual lyrics. I certainly was.

One of my favourite songs as a teen was SWV ‘Downtown’, a sugary R&B song on the surface, but all about a woman telling her boyfriend he had better get down there and perform oral sex on her. 😆

I suppose when you’re older you just don’t find that approach sexy any more. I cringe at WAP and I also cringe/sigh/despair at this sort of stance being somehow ‘liberating’ ‘empowering’ and feminist. Fuck off is it.

Salt N Pepas “Push it” comes to mind too

I’m not really sure the issue is simply that the lyrics are explicitly sexual. It’s the sheer volume of repeating ‘there’s some whores in the house’ in the song. I mean... really?

And the bit about buying things for her to get sex is pretty dismal too.

The whole thing is just grim.

Bloodhound gang! I used to love that song

There have been grim songs for a long time, of course. But having just read through the lyrics of WAP, I just despair that a woman would sing it.

The difference is is that WAP is treated as an 'empowering' song

1992, Consolidated ft the Yeastie Girlz, “You suck”

It starts with “ I know you're really proud 'cause you think you're well hung
Well I think it's time you learn how to use your tongue (yeah)”

@Daisiesinthemeadow

The difference is is that WAP is treated as an 'empowering' song

When it actually seems the opposite.

I don't think women can ever reclaim words like 'whore', I just don't.

Also it's just...tacky. Most of the other songs mentioned had some wit about them.

I would say the 80s was when a lot o sombgs like that began to appear, and in the 90s and beyond that's continued. Arguably they have increased somewhat in their explicitness over time and also what the music videos show but that's a general statement.

Before the 80s there wasn't the same volume, or general acceptance.

You did get songs like Let's Get It On, or even later I Want Your Sex, but I would say they aren't quite the same.

It may be that the reach of this kind of music has increased somewhat. Lil'Kim was very much a rap artist when I was young, and that wasn't the most common genre of pop music, plenty of suburban kids never listened to that kind of thing. Whereas what they now call R&B and rap (though it sounds pretty undifferentiated these days) is very much the mainstream pop music. There has been a change in the way many young people listen to music generally.

I cant see the problem with sexual songs tbh.
I think WAP is empowering in that men have rapped about women's bodies for basically as long as rap music has been around, and no one apart from elder people have batted an eyelid. It's streamed everywhere, played on the radio etc.
Yet when women do, it's all shock horror, apart from a select few, it's never as widely broadcasted as it would have been if it was rapped by say, Kanye/Drake/Uzi etc.
If this song had been given to a man, rapped from his perspective of the same thing, it wouldn't be half as controversial.
The only reason this song HAS been so widely popular is because A) It's from someone already hugely famous, and B) It's so controversial, that people are spreading it further by talking about it.

DiVinyls ?

I do find all the controversy over WAP odd. I remember Madonna from the 90s, with her sex book and everything.

I think its quite sad that in this day and age people find the idea of a woman enjoying sex and taking about what she enjoys to be controversial. If a bloke had released WAP no one would bat an eye.

Kim Kardashian was in one of Kanye's naked and no one complained about that half as much as the Wap video.

Just read the lyrics...'Macaroni in a pot' is she saying her pussy is like macaroni?

@Porgy

I do find all the controversy over WAP odd. I remember Madonna from the 90s, with her sex book and everything.

I think its quite sad that in this day and age people find the idea of a woman enjoying sex and taking about what she enjoys to be controversial. If a bloke had released WAP no one would bat an eye.

Kim Kardashian was in one of Kanye's naked and no one complained about that half as much as the Wap video.

Exactly what I was saying.

It is sad, really.

It's the fact that it's 2020 and this song is being dressed up as an empowering anthem wherein women retake control of their sexuality. But in actual fact all they're doing is performing a certain porn-inspired aesthetic that sees them pander to the male gaze and pretend to be really into violent and degrading sex. When a man writes a song about his sexual desires, he doesn't call on his female partner to ram a dildo down his throat til he chokes, and the video is not accompanied by zoomed in close ups of his arse wiggling in a sequinned thong.

It's a farce, and the furthest thing from feminist, and frankly it doesn't matter what sexualized songs existed in the 90s. This is not equality. We're supposed to be more evolved than this, but it feels like all we do is go backwards.

True OP they have always been these types of songs. The difference is though that I would say it’s younger kids listening to this type of music due to the big impact of social media today where as before it didn’t exist.

@SquareSausage17

Absolutely - nothing new under the sun!

Janet Jackson ‘All for you’ - Got a nice package alright / Guess I'm gonna have to ride it tonight

Mariah Carey ‘Loverboy’ - I got myself a lover / And he's so sublime / He's quite a bit of heaven / When he comes inside / So come on sugar daddy / Take me for a ride

Lil Kim ‘Magic Stick’ - I got the magic clit / I know if I get licked once, I get licked twice / I am the baddest chick

People have been singing explicitly about sex for decades. Not sure why WAP in particular is so controversial!

I mean, I think a woman asking a man to lick her magic clit is possibly even more empowering than asking a man to tie her up, beat her and spit in her mouth. But I guess Im just old and not sex positive enough.

So, it's only feminist if it fits your ideas of what sex should involve?

How dare they like it differently to you, tut tut.