Riddle Me This: What Does a Sexy Video Look Like That Isn't Sexist?

Regardless, we seem to expect our pop ladies to ride a very fine, dubious
line with their sexiness. We accept that they must be sexy on some level, and yet, we ask them to
somehow signal to us that they know this, that they hate it, too, that they don’t
really think it’s right, or fair, or that somehow, their version of
the sexiness being presented/sold to us is authentic,
or about their own pleasure, or, that
if it’s about attracting men, that it’s done so with agency or choice and not
to just pander.

This seems like a lot to ask in three minutes for a pop song
about an infatuation so intense that you equate the feeling with whiskey and
druggy-high-soaked blood, but OK.

Admittedly, I kinda hated the Charli XCX video at first because the
sexiness seemed so forced. But after
having watched it dozens of times (ok, maybe even a hundred), I began to see that vamping as total artifice, a complete
pose, a self-consciousness that belied the usual tit-jiggle/vag-grab of sex
appeal we so often see just for the sake of it.

But even if that’s just wishful thinking, I’m not sure I care.
Or that the medium can be saved anyway — or that it should be. I’ve been
watching music videos since the mid-80s, and they’re mostly terrible,
by-the-numbers sexual objectification that is barely worth even parsing, it’s
so obvious and dumb. And I say that even when the video is fun. Were I to eliminate every form of art that it is rooted in misogyny, I’d probably have a mere weekend’s worth of entertainment to get me through the rest of my life. As a friend put in a great essay, and I’m paraphrasing: Sometimes you love pop culture, even when it doesn’t love you back.

Take Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” video (1987) where
Tawny Kitaen foreshadows catfish
vaginas over a coupla Jaguars.

“I knew I wanted to have a sexy woman in
it,” Callner told a reporter. “Sex is a part of rock ‘n’ roll and the
song was about sex.”

Lulzlzolzozloolol, but also, yeah. Sex
is largely inextricable from videos, because it’s largely inextricable from pop
music, which is lousy with love, heartbreak, lust, pining. Also, by design,
pop stars tend to be attractive, whether by genetic blessing or insane
resources. Third, sex sells, and we know that. And overwhelmingly, we see that
the tidal wave of pornified culture has reached every corner, and persists in
spite of our collective groans (of disgust).

So I ask: How do women ever reclaim an authentic notion of their
own sexuality in the midst of all this? What does it look like? What risks do they take by perpetuating it and what do they risk by abandoning it? Can any old pop star make a nonsexy video and still get a paycheck anyway? And how do we reconcile our love for things that ignore or outright reject our deepest held ideas about representation?

Furthermore, is it, in fact, disingenuous when we argue that women clearly have agency
about how they present their bodies, that they are free to present them
sexually, and then express disappointment when the
thing they turn around and do with their bodies is this textbook striptease
straight out of the cheapest softcore, clearly designed to titillate men in
completely stale ways?

Is there even a way for a woman to make a “sexy video”
without nodding to centuries of messages about her ultimate value as a sexual
being? This roundup of videos from 2013 that pushed
feminism forward includes Janelle Monae’s “Q.U.E.E.N.” which I think is sexy while also being badass. But I also think Monae is unique among performers, and that what feels different about her presentation is also about the greater complexity in the material. Because as soon as we move back toward a narrowing down of the options for how women can present themselves, we are back in the sticky trap. A better solution, of course, would be a more diverse range of pop star, which would allow us to see a wider range of depictions that would ostensibly expand our notion of the girl in the video and what she does/is there for/up to/should be doing. But then again, we are talking about an art form that, by design, has to cut through in no time, and often does so by appealing to our most basic, universal feelings as humans. Perhaps the limitation is intrinsic to both the medium and the message.

Ultimately, I think Gloria Steinem said it best, when asked if
she thought Miley Cyrus had set feminism back with her gyrating antics:

I wish we didn’t have to be nude to
be noticed … But given the game as it exists, women make decisions. For
instance, the Miss America contest is in all of its states … the single
greatest source of scholarship money for women in the United States. If a
contest based only on appearance was the single greatest source of scholarship
money for men, we would be saying, “This is why China wins.” You
know? It’s ridiculous. But that’s the way the culture is. I think that we need
to change the culture, not blame the people that are playing the only game that
exists.