A lot has changed since all the most popular songs featured innocent lyrics a generation or two ago.
For examples, listen to “I love the way you look tonight” by Frank Sinatra or “I want to hold your hand” by The Beatles. They are all about courting and complementing women.
Songs today have taken a dramatic shift by becoming hypersexualized.
For instance, popular contemporary rhythm and blues performer The Weeknd sings, “Do you like the way I flick my tongue or nah?” in his song about a one night stand with a woman called “Or Nah,” featuring Wiz Khalifa and DJ Mustard.
A study done by the Broadcast Education Association in 2011 found that 91.6 percent of sampled music videos featured at least one of the following signs of sexual objectification: “close-up shots of individual body parts, self touching of sexual body parts, ample skin exposure, or sexualized dancing.”
With the increased amounts of sexuality on our radios or on our playlists, it’s easy to become numb to the raunchy lyrics and explicit images.
Modern music just doesn’t sell as well unless it’s full of suggestive lyrics and themes. So, if the lyrics aren’t sexy enough, the music video will generally make up for it with hypersexualized images.
The shock factor that sex in music once had seems to have lost its effect.
“Lyrics in hip hop and rap can be very degrading but people have become just kind of numb to it,” Spencer Craig, a third year business economics major, said.
Though increased sexuality in music may not necessarily be a bad thing, the objectification and degradation of women that currently goes along with it is harmful.
Many popular songs focus on raunchy sex and being unfaithful, or else they give off a general impression that the female in the song is only there to perform sexual favors and is otherwise useless.
The BEA study found that objectification of women in music videos creates and promotes the idea that women are just sexual objects. This study showed that the result of this objectification led to men having altered sexual beliefs and becoming less sympathetic to sexual abuse.
While it may seem like men are the responsible perpetrators in charge of making the music industry sex-centered, women play a large role in objectifying other women.
“Cultural and industry expectations motivate female artists to participate readily in their own sexual objectification,” according to the BEA study.
For example, Beyonce Knowles sings, “Fill the tub up halfway then ride it with my surfboard . . . Grinding on that wood ” referring to the surfboard sex position in the song, “Drunk in Love,” featuring Jay Z. In the corresponding music video, Knowles is featured in a bathing suit on a dark beach, wet and dancing suggestively.
Many people may take these songs and music videos light heartedly, or they may not notice the effects the hypersexualized music content has on their everyday behavior or thought processes.
“It influences a lot of the younger youth because they are the ones getting targeted by the music,” second year communication studies major Larry Fabela said. “Look at the way [young people] are dressed, how they behave… I believe music has a lot to do with it.”
Even with all of the negative effects that hypersexualized music may have on young people, it’s difficult to avoid or pretend not to like the songs. Though the lyrics may be questionable, the beat, rhythm or melody in a particular song could still be enjoyable.
As long as we recognize and acknowledge that these lyrics that objectify and degrade women can be damaging if listened to in large doses, then we should be able to listen to a few sexual songs here and there without a guilty conscious.
Better yet, if we pay attention to the lyrics we listen to, we can avoid choosing to listen to sexually degrading songs. Since we, as consumers, control what the trends are, we can effect which songs make money and which songs are popular in the first place.
With that said, here is my list of the top 10 best sex songs in no particular order. None of them are degrading, so you can listen guilt-free.
- “Pussy is Mine” by Miguel
- “Whatever You Like” (cover) by Anya Marina
- “Take You Down” by Chris Brown
- “Ride” by SoMo
- “Earned It” by The Weeknd
- “Motivation” by Kelly Rowland
- “Body Party” by Ciara
- “Climax” by Usher
- “Neighbors Know My Name” by Trey Songz
- “Drown in It” by Chris Brown featuring R. Kelly
If you have any questions, comments or something you would like to read about, please email me at 49ersexpert@gmail.com.
Jasmine Caputo is a first-year journalism major.
