Bluestocking Oxford

By Emily Dillon

Sex sells. Sex sells so well, in fact, that love and sex are by far the most prevalent topics in contemporary popular music. Of course, this does make sense: relationships and intimacy are perhaps the most important part of what it means to be human, and the history of art can be seen as a history of human contact, and conflict.

Interestingly, many of these sexually explicit songs have been penned or performed by women. Women have always been singing about sex – Carol King was writing hits as early as 1960 about whether a male partner would still want her the morning after a hookup. However, contemporary female pop music goes a step further by centering female agency in its depiction of sexuality. A recent analysis of popular music by Marybec Griffin et al. revealed that women are increasingly comfortable writing lyrics about sex and expressing desire – a contrast to the traditional view of femininity which requires women to be passive receivers of sex. Take Sabrina Carpenter’s Juno, where she asserts that she might ‘let you make me Juno’. Throughout the encounter Sabrina is in control, decentring the man from the sexual experience.

The music we listen to can be a touchstone that tells us about the zeitgeist, and, in this case, contemporary attitudes to female sexuality. There is evidence that these increasingly sexually explicit and agentic lyrics suggest that women are enjoying greater freedom – that potentially the shackles of patriarchy have been unlocked. An analysis by Carney et al. of hip hop written by black women concluded that it allows for ‘erotic self-determination’. If women are able to enjoy sex and talk about sex in frank terms (in Juno, Sabrina Carpenter later sings that she’s ‘so fucking horny’) in a way they were previously unable, perhaps our oppressive view of sex is being replaced with a new, egalitarian sexual culture.

Film critic Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of the male gaze, defined as the presentation of women in media as attractive accessories to the male protagonists. Women are sexual objects on three fronts – for the male director, the male characters within the artwork, and for the male viewer. These three fronts first appear to be transformed in female pop music. The male director is replaced with greater artistic agency in creative direction, the male characters in songs are subordinated to female desire, and the finished songs are made with female consumption in mind. Perhaps the male gaze analysis is becoming outdated? It might be time to reconsider Mulvey’s framework, and interpret this newfound freedom in women’s pop music to represent a new, female, gaze.

I would disagree. While it is true that female pop stars are increasingly comfortable embracing their sexualities in their music, this cannot be seen as true freedom. Mulvey’s theory gave rise to the idea of the ‘internalised male gaze’: the phenomenon whereby women feel as if they are performing for a man, just like the men behind the camera or in the scene in Mulvey’s original theory. Margaret Atwood captured this concept succinctly – ‘you are your own voyeur’. Under this view of female agency, actions that are seemingly ‘empowered’ (for example, wearing makeup because it makes you feel good) are actually in service to the man in your head. Rosalind Gill criticises this repackaging of patriarchal standards into false liberation, for example, in one article questioning whether lingerie adverts are celebrating female masturbation and sexual agency, or inviting the female viewer to imagine being an object of male desire. We can map this onto our discussion of pop music written by women, suggesting that the sexual content is not a signal of liberation and agency, but rather an appeal by the singer that they are an object of desire.

This creates a dilemma that feels impossible to navigate – every action can be understood as appealing to this male gaze, making empowerment feel unattainable. Radical feminist Andrea Dworkin argues that, under this system, women are forced to accept the roles given to them by patriarchal society. Men have control over women’s bodies in all domains, from the economy to art. They justify this control by maintaining that women enjoy it – that women are whores. Thus, the only ‘choice’ women have is to embrace themselves as whores too. This brings out the central conflict in women’s sexual agency: are we embracing our sexualities, or performing? And how can we tell the difference between the two? It is impossible to know if we would have the same sexual identities or relationships to beauty outside of patriarchy, because every action we take is influenced by the conditions in which we live.

How, then, can female pop stars embrace their own sexuality? Again we can turn to Sabrina Carpenter, who also writes in her hit Nonsense,about her desire in frank terms. Despite appearing like a proud reclamation of female sexual agency in the face of patriarchal suppression of such freedom, we can also read the lyrics as an appeal to this male gaze. There is thus a conflict, as when female artists sing about sex we cannot untangle whether this comes from true liberation, or from conforming to the male desire for a girl that’s ‘game’.

Dworkin continues her analysis by suggesting that embracing female sexual agency will not liberate women from patriarchal ideals of sexuality. She argues that acceptance of current conceptions of agency and equality will only make women act like men. Our current sexual culture is a male model based on polarisation of humankind into man/woman, active/passive, etc. If women gain sexual agency in our current culture, they become no better than the oppressor. In Juno, Sabrina Carpenter apologises in case she makes her lover ‘feel objectified’. In gaining equality and agency in an oppressive system, Sabrina has taken on the role of the oppressor, adopting a position that is aggressive, objectifying, and based on inequality. It is only with true liberation from oppressive patriarchal standards that women can achieve proper sexual equality.

Unfortunately, this is quite a depressing conclusion. Patriarchy restricts the meaningful choices women can make. To deny ourselves sexual freedom is to deny ourselves liberty, but in embracing sexuality we are still shackled to the male gaze. However, I don’t think we should meet this conclusion with absolute pessimism. Patriarchy is still a relevant force that prevents women from making choices outside the context of male domination. However, I argue that women adopting what sexual agency they can (even if imperfect) is surely better than having none at all. Female pop stars having the freedom to sing about enjoying sex, even if this is complicated by the effects of the male gaze, still represents an improved position compared to women from previous generations who were expected to repress desire. The best thing to do is to challenge our cultural sexual values – the language we use to talk about sex, the way we centre male pleasure, our attitudes to women who enjoy sex. Only then can women enjoy and make art about sex on their own terms.

References

Carney, Christina, Jillian Hernandez, and Anya M. Wallace. 2016. “Sexual Knowledge and Practiced Feminisms: On Moral Panic, Black Girlhoods, and Hip Hop.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 28 (4): 412–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpms.12191.

Gill, Rosalind. 2008. “Empowerment/Sexism: Figuring Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising.” Feminism & Psychology 18 (1): 35–60.

Griffin, Marybec, Adele Fournet, Angela Zhai, and Dianney Mascary. 2023. “There’s Some Whores in This House: An Examination of Female Sexuality in R&B/Hip Hop and Pop Music, 1991–2021.” Sexuality & Culture 28 (November). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-023-10136-5.

Mulvey, Laura. 1975. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16 (3): 6–18.

Atwood, Margaret. 1993. The Robber Bride. London: Virago.

Dworkin, Andrea, Johanna Fateman, and Amy Scholder. 2019. Last Days at Hot Slit : The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin. South Pasadena, Ca: Semiotext