8
Queen Bees and Big Pimps: Sex and Sexuality in Hip Hop
KATHRYN T. GINES

Bamboozled: Images from the Idiot Box

Sex and the reduction of women to objects of lust and violence is among the staple themes in feminist thought, particularly Black feminist thought which has exposed the persistent myth of the Black “jezebel” and the unceasing portrayal of Black women as bitches (or angry, emasculating matriarchs), hos, and tricks. Sometimes overt and other times veiled, these images appear in the evening news, television sitcoms, and films. Perhaps they are most explicit in the lyrical and visual content of hip-hop music and videos. So it’s no surprise that many male hip-hop stars have been criticized for their negative portrayal of women in their songs and videos or that hip-hop music is often described as sexist, misogynist, masculinist, and reflecting a general disdain for women.102
Tupac and Nelly, for example, have been criticized for negative depictions of women in their lyrics and videos. But criticisms of them and other male rappers are often unbalanced insofar as they focus on negative portrayals of women while uncritically embracing the perpetuation of stereotypical perceptions of Black masculinity. Furthermore, inadequate attention is given to female rappers guilty of upholding destructive sexual ideologies about women and men. Lil’ Kim, for example, has been demonized for reinforcing negative images and stereotypes about Black women (both through her music and her image), but the way she represents Black men in her lyrics gets less attention.
In this track I’m going to look at the way hip hop contributes to the construction of sexuality through myths and stereotypes. My approach is similar to Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled, which explores the negative images of blackness produced and reinforced by ‘the idiot box’. During this examination we’ll contemplate the existentialist philosophical notions of objectification, the gaze, performativity, and authenticity.103

“Bitches,” “Hos,” and “Housewives”: What’s in a Name?

C. Delores Tucker, the first Black woman to serve as a Secretary of State and the founder and chair of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc., is a women’s activist and an opponent of what she calls “gangster rap” and “pornographic smut.” Describing some hip hop as pornographic is not entirely inaccurate when one considers the uncut versions of music videos that could easily double as pornographic videos. And then there is Snoop Dogg who entered the porn industry with a video titled “Doggystyle.”
While rappers like Snoop Dogg are targets of Tucker’s criticism, her disdain for Tupac’s music is unmatched. In 1997 Tucker and her husband William Tucker sued Tupac’s estate accusing the deceased rapper of slander, invasion of privacy, and causing Ms. Tucker emotional stress. They further charged that Mr. Tucker suffered loss of consortium in connection with two songs on All Eyez on Me that mentioned C. Tucker by name, “Wonder Why They Call U Bitch” and “How Do U Want It?”
In the first song Tupac describes the behavior that he claims prompts men to label some women as bitches. This includes women “sleeping around” and going after men for money. According to Tupac, they should be getting educated so that they can be more independent: “Keep your mind on your money / enroll in school /and as the years pass by / you can show them fools.” And Tucker’s name is dropped at the end of the song when Tupac explains: “Dear Ms. Delores Tucker / keep stressin’ me . . . / I figured you wanted to know, you know / why we call them hos bitches / and maybe this might help you understand / it ain’t personal.” Although Tucker’s criticisms of pornographic smut may be valid, Tupac’s “Wonder Why They Call U Bitch” doesn’t fall into this category. Tucker misunderstands Tupac; he is criticizing the unequal exchange of sex for money, a cycle that sometimes ends in single parenthood, welfare dependency, and HIV. He isn’t attempting to reduce all women to bitches and hos.
Yet we should examine other aspects of the song more closely. Tupac’s explanation of the use of “bitch” evokes the image of the hypersexual Black welfare mother. Patricia Hill-Collins informs us: “The controlling image of the ‘bitch’ constitutes one representation that depicts Black women as aggressive, loud, rude, and pushy.”104 It also entails assumptions about Black women’s sexual looseness. Collins adds, “Whether she ‘fucks men’ for pleasure, drugs, revenge, or money, the sex-ualized bitch constitutes a modern version of the jezebel, repackaged for contemporary mass media.”105 Tupac conjures up this sexual looseness in his explanation of the use of “bitch” in spite of his efforts to discourage women from becoming “bitches.” So he reinforces rather than reproaches the image.106
The same is true of the connection Tupac makes between Black women’s sexuality and welfare dependency, a correlation that government officials (including Republicans and Democrats) have used to justify cuts in welfare programs under the guise of “welfare reform.” Collins exposes the myth of the Black welfare mother as an image that “provides ideological justification for efforts to harness Black women’s fertility” insofar as the Black woman is portrayed as a lazy and immoral maternal failure who reproduces these vices in her offspring.107 This image reinforces the stereotype that Black women are on welfare because they are lazy and promiscuous. And that they have multiple babies by multiple fathers and expect everyone else to pay to support them. But these stereotypes ignore the countless Black mothers, wed and unwed, who work two or three jobs trying to support their families with minimum wages or less.
While many of us are familiar with this inaccurate portrayal of the Black welfare mother, we don’t typically conceptualize Black women on welfare as meritorious “stay-at-home” moms like those popularized and celebrated by radio personality Dr. Laura.108 Rather, the general attitude towards Black women who stay at home with or without welfare, can be summed up by the chorus of Dr. Dre’s song “Housewife” (2001): “So what you found you a ho that you like / But you can’t make a ho a housewife.” Kurupt adds on the same cut, “And bitches ain’t shit but hos and tricks.” Notwithstanding the growing number of middle-class Black women who have the option of staying home to raise their children, the prevailing idea is that all Black women are hos who don’t deserve to be housewives. This includes both urban and suburban Black women who are considered “ladies” in the street and “freaks” in the bedroom. “Housewife” and other songs suggest that Black women can’t be trusted because they are constantly using sex, scheming, or “plottin’” on a man, trying to bring him down. Perhaps these aren’t rappers’ personal views. Still, they are the lyrical content of songs like “Housewife.”
In “How Do U Want It,” Tupac states: “Delores Tucker, you’s a motherfucker / Instead of tryin to help a nigga, you destroy a brother / Worse than the others—Bill Clinton, Mr. Bob Dole / You’re too old to understand the way the game is told.” Tupac asserts that like Clinton and Dole, Tucker is too old to understand the language he uses to express what unfolds in his life, his world, his situation. Rather than hearing him, Tupac says, “They wanna censor me; they’d rather see me in a cell.” Here we also see Tupac evoking the image of the emasculating Black woman who, despite any merits in her position is always accused of trying to “destroy a brother.” This is the old yet enduring idea that Black women are always trying to pull brothers down.
The irony is that the desire to censor Tupac and confine him to a cell is not motivated by the desire to stop him from spreading vicious lies or slander, but to mute the crude and frank way in which he exposed some fundamental truths about oppression. Tupac didn’t try to outline a prescriptive ethics that everyone ought to follow. He offered a descriptive analysis which functions as a mirror of our society’s attitudes about the sexuality of Black men and women. Thus my point is not to condemn hip hop as “bad” for society or for individuals, but rather to highlight how societal attitudes toward Black men and women are reflected in hip hop.

Peepin’, Pimpin’, and Drillin’ the T and A

Like Tupac, Nelly came under fire for his negative representations of women. This St. Louis artist known for songs like “Hot in Herre” and “Pimp Juice” (Nellyville), has been criticized for his video “Tip Drill,” which was protested by students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) including Spelman (a women’s college), Morehouse (a men’s college), and Howard (a co-ed university). It was the women at Spelman College who received national attention, some of which was very critical, for their protests. The video is flooded with images of women (of various shades, shapes, and sizes) wearing thong bikinis, or in many cases just thongs and topless. These women are constantly slapping each other’s butts or having their butts slapped by men as they gyrate in their thongs just inches away from men’s faces. In addition to this, the women are also simulating sex (oral, anal, and vaginal) in multiple positions both with men and with one another. The fact that men are also throwing money at the women in the video (apparently cash or credit is accepted as a credit card is swiped down one woman’s butt!) conveys the message that these women are prostitutes or strippers.
Nelly said that he was misunderstood and that he didn’t intend to degrade women. He added that he has great respect for his mother and sister, both of whom would let him know if he had crossed the line. But neither his mother nor his sister had the credit card in their butt. While I don’t doubt Nelly’s sincerity, the real issue is the blatant objectification of women in Tip Drill and other music videos. A rapper’s respect for certain woman notwithstanding, these videos reduce women en masse to mere sex objects. Objectification is the reduction of a person to an object to be dominated, manipulated, constrained, or even ignored (also known as non-recognition). Collins tells us that in Black popular culture there has been a shift from celebration to “objectification of Black women’s bodies as part of a commodified Black culture.”109 She adds: “Objectifying Black women’s bodies turns them into canvases that can be interchanged for a variety of purposes . . . African American men who star in music videos construct a certain version of manhood against the backdrop of objectified, nameless, quasi naked Black women who populate their stage.”110 By denying their individuality, music videos often allow the male performers to see Black women as sexual objects without being seen by the women, a concept known in existentialist philosophy as the gaze.
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre examines objectification using the concept of the gaze in Being and Nothingness.111 He presents a scenario in which he peeks through a keyhole and can see people behind the door without being seen by them. In this example, the “peeper” represents the subject. Those seen behind the door are reduced to objects, that is, until the “peeper” hears footsteps and is suddenly confronted with the possibility that someone he can’t see is looking at him, reducing him to an object. The subject doing the peeping or gazing always poses the threat of non-recognition. He sees without being seen, thereby reducing the other to an object. While this threat of objectification and non-recognition is reciprocal between social, political, or other equals, it becomes more complex in a society (such as ours) of race, class, and gender hierarchy.
In a later book, Anti-Semite and Jew,112 Sartre asserts that this reciprocal objectification (or the threat of non-recognition) is not possible in a hierarchical society (the example he uses is the Jew in an anti-Semitic world). We can add that the reciprocal objectification of the gaze is not possible for a person of color in a racist society or a woman in sexist society due to the power dynamics, evident in music videos like “Tip Drill,” where women are reduced to sexual objects. They are seen and manipulated yet unable to see or be acknowledged as persons.
To be sure, the “Tip Drill” video is a fitting backdrop for the lyrical content of the song in which the hook is: “I said it must be your ass cause it ain’t ya face / I need a tip drill, I need a tip drill.”113 Here, a “tip drill” is a woman with a sexy body or a big butt, but without the pretty face. Focusing on her “ass” or her body renders the woman in question “anonymous.” The term “tip drill” is also borrowed from basketball and evokes the image of “running a train” on a woman, or several men having sex with one woman, one after another.114 The video implies that the women performing these acts are glad to do so for multiple partners and for the money. But a man can also be a tip drill. A woman in the song has a verse in which she asserts: “It must be your money, cause it ain’t your face / You’s a tip drill, nigga you a tip drill . . . I got you payin’ my bills and buyin’ automobiles / You’s a tip drill, nigga you a tip drill.” The “tip drill” here is an unattractive male who may be good in bed, but is primarily used for his money. And so the stereotypical dichotomy between men and women is reinforced: men only want sex, women only want money, and both will do whatever it takes to get it.

“Suck My D**k”: The Gaze Reversed from Tha Beehive

A dichotomy or dichotomous thinking is a process of dividing or categorizing people, things, or ideas into supposedly mutually exclusive groups. Other terms used to describe a dichotomy include bifurcation or binary thinking. Examples of such thinking are conceptions of black versus white, male versus female, reason versus emotion, and the virgin versus the whore. Challenging these dichotomies requires acknowledging and confronting the objectification of women and moving towards empowering women as subjects or agents of their sexuality. Take the example of the virgin and the whore, which is used to restrict and police Black women’s sexuality. To avoid being labeled a whore, Black women must go to the opposite extreme of becoming “pure” virgins. But the problem is that at both extremes, whether the virgin or the whore, women have no authentic sexual voice. They are forced to be either the hypersexual whore (which becomes an excuse for the label of “bitch” and “ho”) or the pure virgin (who is expected to be intimidated by or even fearful of sex, avoiding it altogether).
One way of responding to the virgin-whore paradigm has been to embrace one extreme and redefine it in a more positive or empowering way. Lil’ Kim utilizes this strategy in her rap lyrics and music videos in which she comfortably asserts her sexuality. She is arguably the most successful female rapper at taking up and popularizing the image of the ho and the bitch unapologetically.
Lil’ Kim, whose alias is Queen Bee (standing for Queen Bitch), made space for herself in the male dominated world of hard core rap with overt sexuality. Her lyrics graphically expose the double standards of sexuality for men and women. When men sleep around they are players and pimps, but when women do it they are bitches and hos. Consider these lines from “Suck My D**k” (The Notorious KIM): “Imagine if I was a dude and hittin’ cats from the back . . . / Yeah nigga, picture that! / I treat ya’ll niggas like ya’ll treat us.” Then when asked “Why you actin’ like a bitch?” The Queen Bee responds: “Cause ya’ll niggas ain’t shit / and if I was a dude / I’d tell y’all to suck my dick.” Lil’ Kim is taking phrases that have been used to belittle women or put them “in their place” and she is throwing them back into men’s faces. Lil’ Kim also “flips the script” on men in the bedroom by demanding oral sex, something it was thought only men could demand. In “Queen Bitch, Part II (The Notorious KIM)” she raps: “Niggas want to run up in my pussy like a pap smear / I’mma tell you now, just like I told you last year / Niggas ain’t stickin’ unless they lick the kitten.” In other words, there will be no intercourse without men performing oral sex.
Some may praise Lil’ Kim as a Black woman in charge of her sexuality, while others may denounce her as reinforcing the stereotype of Black women as whores. However, critical reflection reveals that Lil’ Kim is merely seeking to move men from the subject to the object position where she can manipulate them as sexual objects. But this attempted reversal of sexual status strengthens rather than undermines the prevailing distorted image of Black sexuality. In the end, Black women are still hos and bitches while Black men are players and pimps, and these images reinforce one another. Consequently, we can’t evaluate Lil’ Kim’s image in a vacuum. We have to remember that the image of the sexually loose Black woman has been used to rationalize the ways in which she has been exploited. The sexual exploitation of Black women is a fact that must be investigated from a historical perspective, both through the institution of slavery, as well as through the change in the sexual status of white women during that time. There was a transition in the sexual status of white women from sexual temptress to pure virgin, and a corresponding burden placed on Black women to bear the stereotype of the hypersexual jezebel. This characterization allowed white men to blame Black women for their own sexual addictions and it allowed white women to deceive themselves to believe that Black women, not white men, were to blame for their husbands’ sexual offenses. The stereotype of the Black woman as a whore made her sexually available to men because she was said to have wanted or to have initiated these assaults.
In “The Continued Devaluation of Black Womanhood,” bell hooks notes that “Black women have always been seen by the white public as sexually permissive, as available and eager for the sexual assaults of any man, Black or white. The designation of all Black women as sexually depraved, immoral, and loose had its roots in the slave system.”115 She adds that this sexual exploitation caused a devaluation of Black womanhood that has not changed over several centuries. A recent example of this public sentiment is the incident with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake at the half-time show for the 2004 Super Bowl. During their routine, Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson’s wardrobe to reveal her right breast. According to Vibe magazine, Internet inquiries to catch a glimpse of this flesh even surpassed searches on the September 11th tragedy.116 Timberlake said it was a wardrobe malfunction. What is interesting is the fact that Janet Jackson, not Justin Timberlake, received the brunt of the criticism about the incident. This Black woman was held responsible for a white man tearing off her shirt and exposing her breast (intentionally or unintentionally) in a public performance.

“Big Pimpin’” and Gender Performativity

Operating alongside the myth of the Black female jezebel is the myth of Black male rapist and sexual predator. Like the sexual-ized images of Black women, these perceptions of Black men go back to the institution of slavery and can be traced forward to more contemporary portrayals of Black men in music and the media. Over one hundred years ago Ida B. Wells-Barnett exposed the myth of the Black man as a rapist, which, along with lynching, was a tool, used to prevent Black political agency. This propaganda was also used to prevent consensual relationships between Black men and white women, and to deflect attention away from the reality of the white male rapist. The Black rapist image was used to instill fear in white women of Black men, but it was also used to provide an excuse for lynching, which Wells-Barnett described as “our national crime.” Contrary to the popular belief that lynching was only a response to sexual crimes against white women, Wells-Barnett demonstrates that many lynch victims were not even charged with such crimes, and when sex crimes were the charge, these charges were often unsubstantiated. Barnett’s issue was not with instances in which interracial rape actually took place, in fact she spoke out against this. Rather, she was concerned with the false accusations of rape, or even more, with consensual interracial relationships labeled as rape.
Today the image of the Black rapist or sexual predator still persists (consider attitudes toward O.J. Simpson or Kobe Bryant), but this image has also morphed into the present day image of the Black male as a “player” or a “pimp.” The pimp is not just the man who solicits customers for prostitutes. Being a pimp is a way of dressing and carrying oneself, and having the general attitude that women are sexual objects to be used and manipulated for one’s personal pleasure or gain. As Jay Z put it in “Big Pimpin’” (Volume 3: Life and Times of S. Carter): “You know I—thug em, fuck em, love em, leave em / ’Cause I don’t fuckin’ need em.” Nelly’s hit “Pimp Juice” and the promotion of his energy beverage that has the same name is also an indicator of the prevalence of this “pimp” image. Buttressing both the image of the rapist and the more contemporary image of the “pimp” is the idea that Black men have an insatiable, even animalistic appetite for sex or sexual perversion. This has been perpetuated by the myth that Black men have larger penises than white men, that it is their sexual appetites that lead them to irresponsibly father multiple children by multiple women, and now, that this drive for sex is so strong that it has led Black men to seek both male and female sexual partners, a phenomenon known as the “down low.”
The term “down low” used to denote having a secret heterosexual affair on the side. It now represents Black men who are openly involved in heterosexual relationships, but who also surreptitiously engage in sex with other men and yet don’t consider themselves homosexual or bisexual. The hysteria in Black communities about down low brothers, particularly among Black women concerned about whether “their men” have a man on the side, is fed by this characterization of Black men as sexual addicts. While it is true that AIDS among Black women is rising at alarming rates, and that this increase has been correlated with down low brothers having unprotected sex with men and then coming home for sexual encounters with unsuspecting women, AIDS is not at the center of this hysteria. Rather the hysteria is driven by both homophobia and the idea that Black men are so eager to have a sexual release that they will even engage in anonymous sex with other men to get it.

The Possibility of Authenticity: The Life We Choose

Everyone, from Nelly and Lil’ Kim to you and I, performs gender roles and sexuality daily. We chose to conform to or to resist these stereotypes. Feminist theorist, Judith Butler, argues that sex and gender (and it would be appropriate to add race) have been constructed and figuratively inscribed on our bodies.117 We are all performing socially constructed gender roles, something she calls gender performativity. By this she means that gender roles are constantly acted out and acquire meaning when they are “properly” and repeatedly performed. Hence the ideas and ideals of gender are created and maintained through repetitive gender performance.
Hip hop offers us a racialized context for the performance of gender and sexuality. The repetitive processes are the music itself (played repeatedly on the radio), the videos (played repeatedly on television), the consumers (who are inscribed upon in their hearing and seeing), but also—and perhaps most important—the performers themselves. The performers present and represent a particular performativity of gender, forcing and reinforcing perceptions of Black sexuality (and even Black morality) globally. Collins explains: “Because of its authority to shape perceptions of the world, global mass media circulates images of Black femininity and Black masculinity and, in doing so, ideologies of race, gender, sexuality, and class.”118 The mass media have grown into a colossal gaze and image-producing machine that outlines specific gender roles that we are expected to embrace and embody. Hip hop is used as a tool of mass media to objectify Black men and women under a global gaze, allowing them to be seen without seeing. Despite this overwhelming influence, what is empowering about gender performativity is that we may choose to perform gender and sexuality within or outside of the confines imposed by the media. As Nas put it on his hit “I Can” (God’s Son): “I know I can be what I wanna be. If I work hard at it, I’ll be where I wanna be.”
Through hip hop we can create radically different conceptions of gender and sexuality that do not conform to preexisting stereotypes. Once we are conscious of this fact, we are faced with a choice. We have the opportunity to choose whether we will be authentic or inauthentic in our performance. As Sartre explains: “Authenticity . . . consists in having a true and lucid consciousness of the situation, in assuming the responsibilities and risks that it involves, in accepting it in pride or humiliation, sometimes in horror and hate.”119 On the other hand, inauthenticity consists of trying to run away from, deny, or ignore the situation that confronts us. That is, attempting to run away from, deny, or ignore the fact we have been objectified and that Black sexuality has been grossly distorted. Will we choose authenticity or inauthenticity? Will we conform to the role that society wants us to perform? Will we act out the stereotypes that have been prescribed for us? Will we perform in a way that is merely reactive to these stereotypes? Or will we perform in a way that is radically different and new? It is time for us to make a decision. As Nas explains on Nastradamus it is, after all, “The Life We Choose.”