Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Hypersexuality and Male Fantasy of Female Homosexual Behavior


The LGBTQ community is a vast community that consists of much diverse sexuality, races, personalities, genders and identities. There is an intricate dichotomy on both the perceptions of outside the community, and even inside the community. One might think that homosexuality amongst men and women are viewed in the same light. In actuality, it is not. There are still inequalities that lie between LGBTQ men and women in perceptions, acceptance, etc… As an example of the difference of society’s attitudes towards homosexuality, I will be focusing on the music video of the song ‘Make It Nasty’ by the artist Tyga, to illustrate how in mass societal view, women engaging in homosexual behavior is hypersexualized and looked upon as more socially acceptable for the sole pleasure and fantasies of men in a manner that is degrading and socially stratified (I must warn everyone that this music video is a little explicit in sexual content, so it is up to your discretion to watch or not).
If you watched the video, you would basically see the rapper (Tyga) rapping with maybe 2 or 3 at the most other men with him, in a mansion full of women (and a random rabbit?). All you see these women doing are dancing very provocatively almost to the point of full on nudity (which is sadly expected in a majority of hip-hop/rap music videos). But the interesting part about this video is that it shows these women engaging in homosexual behavior with one another. These women are kissing, fondling and licking each other’s breast, humping each other as if acting out sexual intercourse with one another, etc… while a couple men watch them in excitement and Tyga rapping ‘Make it nasty, make it nasty, tongue down her throat while the other bitch gaggin’”.
A major issue when it comes to the LGBTQ community is acceptance, equal rights, discrimination, etc… We live in a homophobic society that rejects the idea of same sex desire and love, whether that is based on religion, the area one has grown up in, race, class, etc… But is there a difference between homosexuality in women and men? YES! When you really think about it, imagine if a female rap artist made a video called ‘Make It Nasty’ with virtually all of the same lyrics. But imagine that instead of a mansion full of women engaging in homosexual behavior, it was a mansion full of men doing that. How appealing would this be to mass media? Most likely not as appealing as the original video. “Women were, at most, allowed to serve as modern-day “Adelitas”, performing the “three f’s” as a Chicana colleague call them: “feeding, fighting, and fucking.” as said in “Queer Aztlan: the Re-formation of Chicano Tribe” by Ricardo Bracho (pg.314_. This doesn’t just apply to Chicanas, but women in general. This stems to the stratification of women in society. Since women are not considered equal to men in almost all aspects, women are in turn subordinate to men, and in a way subservient to men. They are seen as only useful for home needs and sexual needs; objects for men to manipulate, play with, and fulfill their fantasies. But this calls to question; is it really homosexuality between women that men fantasize about? Or is it bisexuality/homosexual behavior that men hypersexualize? Because if it really was women only attracted to women, it wouldn’t be much of a fantasy because of the lack of realistic quality of these men having a chance with these women.
            So what does this say about gay men? Why isn’t the sexuality of gay men appealing or seen as sexually enticing? “This stigmatization places the modern gay man at the bottom of the dominant sexual hierarchy…”the object choice of the homosexual emarginates him from male power, except insofar as he can serve as a negative example and…is positioned outside the operational rules of normative (hetero)sexuality” as stated in the article “Chicano Men” by Tomas Almaguer (pg.538). It seems as if the gender roles for men that predisposes for them to be ‘masculine’ and dominant are more strict for men than it is for women. Homosexuality seems to take away a man’s status as a ‘man’ because of the social construction of what a man should ideally be like. Therefore they are not as respectable, and looked down upon more at times that women are. The LGBTQ community regarding females and males face their own struggles and stigmatizations and barriers that are still held up by society today.
Link to video: http://youtu.be/koUkTRHxKI4 

2 comments:

  1. We live in a male dominated society which is unfortunately acceptable. Lesbianism whether seen as a fantasy or a phase will never hold the same painful stature as male homosexuality. This inequality can be seen in music, television, and literature. Tyga, although raunchy with his approach, is exploiting women and their sexuality as it has been done throughout American time. Our Nationalistic view on women as well as sexuality is degraded by the man much different than that of Paula Gunn Allen’s description of Indian cultures. Lesbian women were “said to be the daughters of a Spirit who links two women together making them one in Her power” (Allen). In American culture lesbians are seen as less of a woman, incomplete, powerless, and shameful. These women are harassed or exploited and mocked. Tyga presents a common male fantasy demoralizing many women is his soft core porn music video. Aside from his monotonous lyric of “Make it Nasty,” the video offers nothing beside naked women touching each other in a sexual manner. I agree one hundred percent when you said that if the script was to be switched, Tyga, the woman, would have serious consequences from her audience, but because we live in a society undoubtedly controlled by men it was seen as sexy rather than what it should be seen as: offensive and done with bad taste. The fact that this video is perceived as acceptable and has almost 3 million views on Youtube is living proof that the man and his sexuality are in charge in this American world.

    Paula Gunn Allen “Lesbians in American Indian Cultures” from The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Beacon Press, 1992.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tyga’s song “Make it Nasty” is catchy, but as I watched the video the first time I was shocked, not only at what I saw, but also how many views the video actually had. I agree that male homosexuality and lesbian homosexuality will never be seen on the same level because we live in a country where the male society is dominant. As, Riki Wilchins states in his article, that a “Women is defined by her opposition to Man… and the one thing she has that Man does not, reproduction and sexuality” (pg 3). Women for many years have been seen as sex icons for men, which highly affects lesbianism. Men do not take lesbianism seriously because they see lesbianism as only a fantasy. This is where the media takes advantage of lesbianism. Artists, like Tyga know what the male society wants to see and likes to see. I also agree that a female artist can never do such a thing, because male homosexuality is not seen the same. The closest a female artist can get to homosexuality is in a span of seconds, as seen in Kelly Rowland’s music video “Motivation”. One however may not catch that at 3:14 a male is kissing a male and another male grabs one of the male’s crotch area. Not everyone catches this activity because if it would be too obvious than most likely the video would not be received the same, which proves that if male homosexuality is used in the media it has to be discrete and not too out there like, Tyga’s video.

    Wilkins, Riki. “Deconstructing Trans.” From Alyson Publications. 2002.

    ReplyDelete