The Joy of Wet Ass Pussies

 

A lot of people seem to be weighing in on Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s song WAP so I may as well add my own voice to the chorus of ill-informed opinion despite, like so many other commentators, having literally no qualifications to do so.

At least, unlike Ben Shapiro I am not going to smugly tell people that vaginal lubrication is an indicator of a medical disorder. (It isn’t, Ben and if your wife is telling you that’s why she’s not getting wet during your marital intimate time, I think she might be sparing your feelings.) Nor am I like Russell Brand  who can join the large and ignoble group of supposedly woke menfolk telling women that they’re doing feminism wrong. Bitches love it when you mansplain feminism to them, Russ. Always a winner, that one.

WAP is not the sort of song I usually listen to. My Spotify playlists are mostly full of music from the 60s and 70s which is odd because I was only six when the seventies ended.

But my newsfeeds are full of people celebrating women celebrating sex and other people (presumably time travellers) expressing horror that a lady might do anything in the bedroom but lie back and think of England. And that pushes it into my particular area of interest.

I like sex. I like sex-positive people. I also rather like it when people who want to shame women for liking sex get upset and then get their arse handed to them on a plate.

So here we go, the Good, the Bad and the Sexy about Wet Ass Pussy.

The Good

The Video

Just all of it, really. From the opening shots of lactating pond statues to Cardi and Megan’s almost slapstick exit and everything that happens in between. It’s fun-packed theme park of light-hearted erotica and they all look like they’re having a marvellous time.

“Macaroni in the pot”

In a whole song full of bonkers lyrics, ‘Macaroni in the pot’ in the bonkerest. But hell, why not? I suspect that Cardi B took a bet that she could make anything sound dirty in the right context especially if she did that hand gesture at the same time. “What’s the least sexy thing you can think of?” “Um, macaroni?” “Challenge accepted!”

“Swipe your nose like a credit card”

A wonderfully evocative image. I am including this in my come-hither bedroom banter forthwith.

“Bring a bucket and a mop”

Yes, this list of the good stuff is just mostly a list of my favourite lyrics because, well, they’re great. With this, our bad-ass ladies are both informing their gentlemen friends that (a) there’s going to be a lot of pleasurable excretions when they’re together and (b) if anyone is going to clean it up, well it’s not going to be them.

The Bad

Whores in this house

I’m a middle aged white woman from one of the whitest, most middle-class, most conservative areas of England. I am not this song’s intended audience. Which is probably why I’m baffled by the Al “T” McLaran’s “Whores in this house” sample from which is used throughout this song. Is it being used ironically? Have young cool women reclaimed the word ‘whore’ in the same way that LGBT people have reclaimed the word ‘queer’? I’m probably missing something important but to my ears, having a male voice refer to the women in this video as whores in the midst of their female empowerment sounds very jarring.

Transactional Sex

And again, this is my middle-class white Englishness shining through like a big shiny beacon, but I am a bit puzzled by the number of references to transactional sex in this song. Like “Pay my tuition just to kiss me on this wet-ass pussy.” Hold up ladies, are we talking about having sex for the sheer unashamed joy of it or is it about having the sexy times for material benefit? I think those two things don’t necessarily overlap all that often.

Big cats

OK, I know the leopard and tigers featured in this video were added afterwards with CGI. But that doesn’t excuse using actual wild animals as a shortcut to “ostentatious wealth” in the song. Those big cats were being held in captivity and filmed by someone. Give the beasts some dignity. Has Tiger King taught us nothing? And the snakes shouldn’t have been there either.

The Sexy

Kink

There are a lot of references to kinky shit in this song and it’s great. Megan Thee Stallion sings about whips and leashes and tell us that she’s “lookin' for a beatin'”. I appreciate that a beating in this sense might be referring to vigorous penis pounding from an enthusiastic sex partner. But whenever I’m talking about beating, I’m talking about spanking so that was how I interpreted this lyric. And because I want there to be references to spanking everywhere I’m sticking to that.

The outfits.

This video is just a dream for lovers of fetishwear. From Cardi and Megan’s day-glo corsets to their latex and fishnet swimsuits, the whole thing is kinky as fuck and all the better for it. The celebrity cameos in this video showcase some great outfits too. Special shout out to Normani’s latex houndstooth bodysuit. Smart and practical! You could wear it literally anywhere.

The full-on unashamed enjoyment of sex.

Let’s talk about sex. A lot. In enthusiastic detail. And let’s not spare of the blushes of anyone who doesn’t think it’s ladylike to talk about gushing. That’s the message I got from this video. It’s a wonderfully empowering message to girls and women everywhere.

Sense of humour

Everyone knows that a sense of humour is the sexiest thing there is. And Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion clearly have that in spades. Sex might be sexy but it’s also fun. WAP embraces its over-the-top silliness, enjoys itself thoroughly and invites everybody watching to join in the fun.

And for that, ladies, I applaud you.

 

 

 

 

Hatari loves you

The Eurovision Song Contest happened this month. I love a bit of Eurovision. Even when the UK couldn't actually do any worse if it tried. Poor Michael Wotsisflip and his perfectly adequate performance. It wasn't the absolute shittest song that night. It deserved better than last place. Fourth from last at the very least, I reckon.

In the run up to the competition - during the time when I was ordering mini-flags from Amazon and planning my eurocheeseboard - I was especially excited to hear about Iceland's entry to the competition,  anti-Capitalist BDSM techo performance art group, Hatari.

I'm all for there being more BDSM on Light Entertainment television programmes. More BDSM everywhere, I say.

As it turns out, I was a bit disappointed by Hatari's performance on the night. The song was great in a shouty goth way, their dancing was enthusiastic and they'd obviously gone to a lot of trouble with their costumes.

"Life is meaningless. The Void will get us all."
Everybody, sing along!

I think I just wanted rather more BDSM from my BDSM performance art group. I'm willing to accept that this may have been an unrealistic expectation. Maybe the Eurovision Song Contest isn't ready for shibari, nipple clamps, CBT and floggings just yet. As it turned out, the only BDSMesque thing about the band's performance were the outfits.

Wearing a lot of PVC, leather and straps isn't really noteworthy in the world of popular music though, is it? It's just one stage up from ubiquitous corset and fishnets as stagewear. In the very same competition, Cyprus's Tamta and friends were rocking outfits that might well have been bought at the same Fetish Fair as Hatari's.

I'm not holding any kind of grudge against Hatari though. The more I find out about them, the more I like them. They are absolute poppets.

There are three core members of the band:  Klemens Hannigan who looks like Ben Hardy playing Roger Taylor in Bohemian Rhapsody;  Matthias Tryggri Haraldsson who looks like Neil from the Inbetweeners and Einar Hrafn Stefansson who looks like half a transformer.

Spot the difference. You can't can you?

They are all exceptionally polite and softly-spoken in interviews. Their particular areas of interest are death, the overhaul of human society, the pretentiousness of human existence and the end of the world. Also cake, apparently. Hatari loves cake.

And Hatari loves you.

Earlier this year, they challenged the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu to a friendly game of  Glima - Icelandic Trouser-Grip Wrestling, stating that if their representative won the game, then the band would be permitted to establish within Israel the “first ever Hatari-sponsored liberal BDSM colony on the Mediterranean coast”. Sadly, Mr Netanyahu didn't take them up on the challenge.

Glima belts.
You can see why our BDSM-loving boys might like it.

The contest was hosted by Israel this year and Hatari caused controversy by waving Palestinian flags while they were onscreen during the voting. This sounds cool and I'm sure they meant well by it but I have to say I'm with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which had demanded all acts pull out of the event. “Palestinian civil society overwhelmingly rejects fig-leaf gestures of solidarity from international artists crossing our peaceful picket line.” Any band who really wanted to support the Palestinian people shouldn't have been performing at this year's Eurovision.

Not that I can talk, obviously. I watched the bloody thing.

Any stated desire by Hatari to change the world should probably be taken with a pinch of salt. "Eurovision is part of Hatari's vision to bring Capitalism to its knees." Good luck with that, chaps. Someone needs to do it. It might as well be you guys.

But whatever they're doing I hope they carry on doing it for a good long while yet. They're outrageously deadpan, cheerfully nihilistic and obviously a bit kinky. Hatari, I do believe I love you.

Break-Up Songs

All songs are break-up songs really. Some are just better at hiding it than others.

Ylvis’s “What Does the Fox Say”? All about breakups. Let’s face it, nothing captures the feeling of being dumped like “fish go blub, and the seal goes OW OW OW”. Because songwriters – like all artists – love a bit of pain.

If you want proof of how artists are obsessed with the shittier side of love, try finding a reading for a wedding which isn’t about heartbreak. There’s a reason everyone always does Shakespeare’s sonnet 116 at weddings. You try reading any other love poem and you’re basically telling the happy couple that it will never last.

I give it six months. Tops.

There’s a scene in the excellent film The Tall Guy where Jeff Goldblum wallowing in post-break-up misery turns on the radio only to find the song all-too-horribly fits his situation. He flips to another station and then another only to find that he is continually taunted by post-breakup themed. Hey, we’ve all been there. The only problem with the scene is that all the songs chosen – Neil Sedaka’s Breaking up is Hard to do, Everley Brothers Crying In the Rain, Long John Baldry’s Let the Heartaches Begin and Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel are all sort of the same. 1960s croony numbers to a man. Whereas in real life, break up songs know no boundaries. Your ironic post-break-up radio listening might just as well see you taunted by Bob Dylan or some Swedish Pop Rock.

Jeff tries to find some less salt-into-wound-rubbing music 

I have a longstanding love of Billy Bragg. I spent my adolescence being roundly mocked for it so I always sort of assume that if anyone else ever says that they like his music then they’re being sarcastic. Bragg does a great line in break-up  songs. No-one explores the futility of attempting to successfully negotiate interpersonal relationships quite like him.

You can’t argue with a sentiment like “You're the kind of girl who wants to open up the bottle of pop
too early in the journey/Our love went flat just like that”. Bragg’s best break-up themed lyric comes from The Saturday Boy:

I never made the first team. I just made the first team laugh
And you never came to the phone. You were always in the bath.

Basically, you’re never going to cut it as a songwriter unless you’ve got a fair number of break-up songs under your belt. Even Disney manages to get in on the act. Well, OK, Hercules’ I won’t Say I’m In Love isn’t strictly speaking a break-up song, but you’ve got to love a Disney number which contains the lines “No man is worth the aggravation./ That’s ancient history. Been there, done that.”

Although the heroine Meg does kind of ruin it by living happily ever after with the hero afterwards.

If you want my personal recommendation of the best song to listen to post-breakup then I heartily recommend “There’s a fine, fine line” as sung by Kate Monster in Avenue Q.

There is something immensely satisfying in bellowing out the lines “I don’t have the time to waste on you any more / I don’t think that you even know what you’re looking for” at the top of your voice.

By way of a caveat, when I say ‘recommend’, I do mean for real-life situations rather than any fictional ones you might be writing. I am not sure that having one’s romantic heroine deal with the difficulties in her love life via a song sung by a pseudo-Muppet from the musical that gave us “The Internet is for Porn” is the right way to go.

Although, talking of “The Internet Is For Porn”, that’s a great song isn’t it? Let’s have a link to that one. Obviously, according to my theory, that’s also a break-up song. Because you know, everything is. “Grab your dick and double-click”? It’s all about the heartbreak.