Like the song it discusses, this article is rated R for adult content.
I just listened to “WAP,” Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s new track that dropped Friday, much to the amusement of the internet. WAP stands for “wet a– p-ssy,” and apparently that’s what Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion want you to know they have. They also want you to want to have sex with them. The only problem is that this whole thing is the least sexy song and video that have come around in a long time.
Many a vulgar songs have preceded “WAP”—think Salt n’ Pepa’s “Push It” or Prince’s “Sexy Motherf-cker.” But this slippery little ditty called WAP has none of the fun, hot confidence of either of those songs. Instead it’s a slip ‘n slide down a rabbit hole of grossness where all I could really think about was that I hoped B and Stallion would take matters into their own hands at this point, as it seemed like their needs are way too desperate to wait around for a man.
It also is not a good song. It’s incredibly boring musically, and sounds like a joke song Issa Rae would do in the mirror on “Insecure.” Also, like, maybe get a towel? In the song, the duo mention how their wet -ss p-ssies need a bucket and mop, and I don’t know about you, but splashing a mop around on some kitchen linoleum is about the sexiest thing I can think of. Throw in a big bucket of sudsy water to soak my dirty mop in and, uh, I mean, I guess that’s hot?
If you’re thinking “Wait, that doesn’t sound hot at all,” you’re starting to get the picture. From the Paglian perspective—based on the work of Camille Paglia, noted feminist intellectual who is not at all afraid to talk about sex or sexiness or the differences between men and women—”WAP” takes all the fun out of sex. It’s not hot at all. There’s no discovery, there’s just a puddle that would be super gross to slip in. And so many images of dampness.
Paglia talks often about the differences between men and women, and what gets the other one’s motor going. Ladies who present themselves as a big, sloppy mess are less sexy, just extra available and desperate. That attitude of desperation is scary, not hot.
“Bare flesh,” Paglia wrote in 2019, “is suffering serious overexposure. Wholesale blurring of the line between private and public is ultimately antithetical to eroticism. When everything is seen and known, there is no titillating taboo to transgress.”
Plenty of women are into sex as much as men claim to be into sex, and that’s not bad. There’s nothing wrong with digging sex. It’s a “natural, zesty enterprise,” to quote one Maude Lebowski. But spreading the legs and screaming “stick it in” a la a joke from the formerly funny Margaret Cho is about the least enticing behavior in which a woman can engage.
It’s brazen and brash, and we’re probably meant to believe it’s empowering, but what it really does is deprive sex of mystery and remove seduction from the process. Since the idea is that the lady is already lubed up, there’s not even any legitimate reason for foreplay.
I mean sure, maybe they’d all enjoy a round of edging up to the big moment, but from the sounds of things, and the massive fountains spilling from large-breasted sculptures in the video, probably they just want a quick pounding from literally any available man and to be finished. These ladies have other things to do, like tame tigers and learn new dances. To them, a man is there for one thing and one thing only: to stick it in, shake it around a little, add to the river of liquid already trickling down their inner thighs, and be gone.
In fact, there aren’t any men in this video. Maybe the tigers are male, or the snake, or any of the other animals seen lounging about nonsensically, but there are no men. In a very real way, that stands to reason. The video is just not hot. The ladies talking about their wet p-ssies—similar to when guys talk about their penises in glowing terms—is just not sexy. When everything is on display like that, it’s banal, trite, and dull.
Stereogum said the video was “delightfully raunchy.” It’s not delightful, although it is raunchy. While there are raunchy tunes that leave a little something to the imagination, this one does not. For perspective, next to “WAP,” Lil Kim’s message is veiled as thoroughly as if it were in a burqa and niqab.
The video is all about that need for a towel, as women dressed in animal prints and the occasional nod to bondage gear twerk and slide around a mansion full of water features. Kylie Jenner makes a cameo, kind of like the Alice in Wonderland of B and Stallion’s horny imaginations—or O at the Chateau, for any of you who are into French erotic fiction. She doesn’t add anything to the vibe of the video.
The internet hated Jenner’s appearance, with some ruthless, self-involved TikTokers starting a petition to take Jenner out of the video. Maybe that mess should be banned after all. Especially since it’s bound to be full of teens imitating B and Stallion, twerking, slipping and sliding, and leaving absolutely nothing of value to the imagination.
