On a lighter note, I finally watched the WAP video and listened to the lyrics. Warning for those clicking that link: I went all in with the explicit version because I was curious what all the kerfuffle was about after seeing Joe Rogan’s critique of Ben Shapiro’s critique of the song.
Like most things, I see it as a layered experience, although a quick summary would be: anyone who objects to it isn’t watching the same porn I am! 😂
As a parent, I can only assume you’d want to shelter your kids from it. It’s explicit and anything from racey to vulgar — perhaps even degenerate — depending on your threshold around topics like sex, whores, liberated women, women being sexually expressed, and explicit communication in any of those domains. The more comfortable you are with overt expression, the more meh you’d likely feel about it and equally so, the more conservative and reserved around sex you are, the more shocking and distasteful it would seem. However, I’m pretty sure few would argue: it’s not made for children and I can see how a parent would be infinitely justified in that stance.
It’s made more complex for a parent to explain or discuss the song and video with, say, 14-18 year old children. Explaining it to the girls and how that’s something you don’t want to portray all the time but maybe sometimes would be complex to be sure. Maybe it goes something like: “Well you see, when you’re excited to be with a man, you secrete fluids which accounts for the “wet” part. This actually makes the sex more enjoyable, which is a good thing. However, too much of a good thing is actually a bad thing.” That seems perfectly clear to me as a mature adult but it would have been incredibly confusing to me as a teen. How do you explain the nuanced lines to someone who is hopefully a virgin and doesn’t understand sex, let alone appreciate how lubrication is a good thing. Granted, I was a very innocent teen so maybe I’m a bad example, but it’s also a complex perspective and I don’t see how you can explain it to a teen easily.
I don’t think it’s less complex explaining it to a boy: “Yeah son, you do want your partner to have a WAP because that shows you’re doing it right. In fact, if she doesn’t have a WAP, one could arguably contend that isn’t an “enthusiastic yes” and as we’ve explained before, enthusiastic consent is sexy. Of course you have to remember son, you don’t want a wonton woman with a gaping WAP either.” The delicate balance one would have to tread there seems equally difficult. Thus, it seems easier to avoid discussing it which likely presents its own danger in terms of the impact on culture and young people as they grow into sexual maturity.
As an embodied adult woman in touch with her sexual center, I can only imagine someone would appreciate the sentiments expressed herein, which, from my perspective, occurred as explicit descriptions about good sex hitting a woman in all the right places. Surely not all women are as explicit, nor do they all want to be this explicit, nor do they necessarily enjoy all the acts described. However, the lyrics, while perhaps crass, do touch on the very real and pleasurable parts of sex between men and women which was a taboo topic not so many decades ago.
As an unmarried embodied sexually active, horny, straight man, I can only assume you’d want to be with a woman who felt something akin to what’s described herein. Seems like it would be a great opportunity for two people to have a fantastic time together and I’m all for consenting adults enjoying themselves fully with each other.
Although I imagine a straight married man with kids, as a parent, would feel some amount of conflict because it can be difficult to hold the dichotomy of a woman being a sweet, gentle, loving, nurturing mother while also being the “hoe in the house” described in the video. I imagine this is also complex for mothers: how can a woman retain her feminine sex appeal and own what she’s got under the chassis while also setting the sort of innocent example befitting of childrearing, particularly of young children?
As a cultural commentary, this seems not particularly different than countless rap songs men do talking about women being hoes and what not. It’s been going on for decades; should it be surprising women finally got around to owning it fully?
As an empowerment piece, it shows, truly, how far feminism has come. To think back to the outrage when Madonna showed her mid drift in Like A Virgin compared to this video… all within my lifetime… demonstrates how culture is ever moving and how not stagnant we really are as a society despite any protestations to the contrary.
And finally, as a piece of visual performance art, I found the video interesting in its own right apart from the lyrics. I appreciated the animal themes, colors and use of CGI bringing it all together. I enjoyed the costumes, some of which seem less revealing than the Solid Gold Dancers when I was growing up, and the dancing as well which didn’t seem particularly worse than any other sexualized dance performance. In fact, the Sold Gold Dancers clip above, to a song called Family Man, has similar gyrations as the Cardi B video.
What I love most about the hoopla around this video is that a we’re at a place in history where this is possible in every sense of that word “possible”. The technology to make the video, distribute it, and have people discuss it freely on the internet; and moreover, the liberty women feel to be able to produce something of this nature a mere hundred years after women won the right to vote. #WeveComeALongWayBaby