The combination of sex and music is nothing new. Even the combination of sex and music videos (MTV is almost 30 years old!) seems a bit expected. But look to mainstream pop videos, and you see not just sexual imagery but kinky sexual imagery. Is the whole world secretly a fetishist or do latex and riding crops just mean “extra” sexy?
I don’t think I can scream “trend!” just yet, but when you have both Christina Aguilera and Beyonce releasing their titillating new videos in the same week, you take notice. In “Why Don’t You Love Me?” (above), Beyonce channels fetish model Bettie Page. The homage is half pure retro indulgence and half kink allusion. Compared to other contemporary examples, Beyonce’s kink is subtle: a 1950s household in which she cleans in pearls and skintight outfits and the brief shots of her thin riding crop in one hand. I don’t think she’s alluding to her equestrian activities here.
Christina, on the other hand, goes so far kink in “Not Myself Tonight” (NSFW) that she even sports a crystal-encrusted ball gag. Not to mention the ballet boots, various collars, latex/PVC outfits, riding crop (again), bondage, eating from a bowl on the floor, hoods, a hand job ring, and omg is that liquid latex?! I’m sure I’m missing more fetish accessories.
Not that Christina hasn’t done something similar before, as her Xtina chaps from “Dirrty” come to mind, and less obviously, that light blue latex number from “Candyman.” But this video almost makes you want to safeword. Is it so blatantly kinky because Christina is secretly a latex-loving, designer-fetish-wearing, dominant-but-switchy kinkster in the bedroom? Or does the kink explode because she lumps various homages to Lady Gaga and Madonna in the same video?
Which, by the way, you can’t talk BDSM in music videos without talking about Madonna. Yeah, OK, I’m trying to look at a contemporary trend, but Madonna laid the framework with “Erotica” and “Human Nature” and “Justify My Love,” just to name the more obvious (and very NSFW) examples. Madonna was shocking and outrageous and delighted in her deviancy. Remember, these were pre-everyone-has-internet days.
Now, though, we’re able to have eager beavers like Violet Blue gleefully point out all the fetishes in Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” The fetishes and kinks we see in current music videos aren’t shocking per se, but then again, we live in a time where BDSM is less stigmatized and it’s not quite as pervy to purchase a first-timer’s bedroom bondage kit or a feather tickler.
The internet has made a lot of this possible. In reading different editions of SM 101 and The Bottoming Book/The Topping Book, you find that the internet allowed kinksters to come out of the woodwork somewhat safely and anonymously and find each other on sites like FetLife or collarme. More people can look into BDSM on the internet, and that sort of fulfilled curiosity makes a collar with a D-ring on the front somehow less scary and more sexy.
Now that MTV doesn’t air videos anymore, or at least not while people are awake, these videos live in the internet world, the same one that has pushed BDSM into a more mainstream light. It’s not a conscious thing, as in Rihanna soaks in a tub of champagne and thinks, “I should wear a leather catsuit in my next video because the internet is slightly kinky and catsuits are kinky.” It’s a subconscious path in a more diverse and varied world. The network of people we connect with and contact (however remotely) has influenced the way we think nowadays, and that includes how we think about sexuality. Just think about how many people were willing to sit through the scat play in 2 Girls 1 Cup.
And 2 Girls 1 Cup these popstars are not. It’s hard to say whether these women include a kinky prop or outfit because they secretly enjoy dressing up like cops, but it’s certainly a thought to entertain. Many people engage in kinky sex without labeling, realizing, or acknowledging its inherent kinkiness. How many people out there think it’s hot when your partner pins you to the wall? Pulls your hair? Spanks you? Tickles you? Dresses up in naughty costumes? For some, this is “sexy” sex, the kind you have when you’ve been thinking about it for a long time or you two haven’t done it in a while. For others, this is the sex they have. Who’s to say whether Beyonce really does enjoy beating the crap out of her ponyboy or whether the crop just fit into the Bettie Page feel of her video? Either way, I’m turned on and downloading the single.
Main page image by Anna Fischer.
The Sexual Manifesto is Christine Borden’s weekly column on sex in the city, sex and culture, and, well, sex. Got a tip for Christine (and it’s not in your pants)? Email her at christine@sfappeal.com.
