Raunch aesthetics is a term in feminist theory which describes the ways in which women in hip hop express their sexuality through the performance of lyrics, choreography, and staging. These aesthetics are performed by artists such as Lil’ Kim, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Ciara, Beyoncé, Doja Cat, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Sexyy Red, and Miley Cyrus with the intention to embrace and take control over their own bodies and sexual identities through verbal and physical expression.
Historic background In the 1960s and 1970s, American feminist women started to become labeled as anti-sex, anti-porn, anti-heterosexual, and prudish in general. It is believed that there was a strong link between power structures and male dominance in pornography. It wasn't until the 1990s and 2000s that pro-sex women who embraced sexuality became more predominant.
Hip hop emerged in the 1980s as an outlet for young African-American youth to replicate the experiences of urban life and marginalization. It created a space for groups to share and communicate their struggles living in highly populated areas with little resources available to them. Hip hoppers created and innovated new ways to manipulate music, their voices, and their bodies to showcase their talent and skills and gain respect within the community. The hip hop genre is overwhelmingly male-dominated and leaves women of color on the periphery or completely shut out; women are not taken as serious contributors even though they have always been prevalent in hip hop.
Some female rappers choose to incorporate a sex sells framework into their work to market their sexuality and be successful. Female rappers of the late 1990s began engaging in the increasingly hypersexualized genre, using it to gain cultural power and reverse the elevation of pimp roles weaved into many rap songs. Such raunch aesthetics were their source of power in the male dominated genre for many female artists such as Lil Kim.
Some artists use raunch aesthetics to critique the ways in which women's bodies are profoundly commodified and debased in the genre to the point that there is little mobility for women artists to express their experiences, gain respect, or even describe themselves as sexual beings without being labeled a "video ho".
Feminists who support and those who critique Feminists have long critiqued art for its focus on the male gaze and how it penetrates its multiple dimensions including who makes the art, who it is made for, and who and/or what it represents. There is a link between art and sexual politics including issues surrounding power and the influence the male gaze has on how women are viewed in life and art. The use of art reflects cultural standards within a society, and some feminists claim that art, especially film, was intended for the male consumption of pornified and sexualized women due to patriarchal beliefs mirrored in larger society.
The way in which a female hip hop artist uses her words and her body to exude her own sexual empowerment expressed through raunch may be critiqued by feminists who think this aesthetic can be harmful through the mimicry of sexual objectification of women's bodies in their music videos. There is some controversy over whether women are actively choosing to express their sexuality through the use of raunch or whether society is influencing women to internalize patriarchal ideas about how a woman should want to act, dress, and behave for attention. While most feminists would agree on the importance of female sexual empowerment, some do not agree on the paths taken toward sexual liberation. This is mainly because it's hard to decipher between real sexual empowerment and a false sense of it because the terms have been so com-modified in the United States to get women to consume various goods.
There is an important distinction made between a woman's subjective sense of sexual empowerment and society's influence over a woman's expression of sexuality. The prior implies a personal sense of power and the latter a political sense of power pertaining to how women are perceived and treated in a culture. The ways in which women find sexual empowerment are both important to consider to gain a more holistic view of female sexual entitlement because it includes the analysis of empowerment through subjective feelings of desire and pleasure as well as society's use of empowerment to market sexuality to young girls and women.
Some critics have voiced that these images and over-sexualization in music videos have contributed to a rape culture among the younger generations. They do not support women that "give into the system" to reap the benefits of making a great deal of money from their body image. The images of women barely clothed and performing sexual symbolism such as sucking on a lollipop or on other phallic symbols. The idea is that it gives young men and women the perception that every women should act like this. There is little respect shown in these videos with men slapping girls' buttocks and swiping credit cards through them, as depicted in the music video for the song Tip Drill by rapper Nelly.
It is believed that such portrayals have led to the increase in violence towards women because they are so common and have desensitized our society's perception towards violence. Hip hop uses these images because it sells and it is what the public consumes. Studies have shown that men who watched these videos are more accepting of violence against women and see them as sex objects.
It is believed that this distinction of accepted and unaccepted raunchiness chalks up to the idea "classism". Classism is differential treatment based on actual or perceived social status. It is the systematic oppression of subordinated class groups to advantage and strengthen others. It's the systematic assignment of characteristics of worth and ability based on society's perceptions.
Raunch aesthetics and respectability Raunch culture uses a process of repackaging old gender stereotypes and adding a choice which helps it resist critique by others. At the same time, because of the extreme sexual nature of raunch aesthetics, many in American culture see its practices as grotesque, explicit and vulgar.
In a hypersexualized society, sex is a commodity. But in terms of practicing raunch it isn't the sex that is problematic, but the "publicness" of the act. Over the years, hundreds of sexualized media depictions have flooded public areas of cities all over the world. At one point in time in the past, the sexualized functions in urban society were contained and kept hidden from public space. These sexualized functions have now moved into plain view of society.
The presence of raunch aesthetics has seeped into normal, unsexualized places such as family restaurants. An example of this is the hyper-sexualized restaurant called "Hooters". Its waitresses are dressed in a sexualized way, and with each required to have big breasts and "show them off" while she works.
Family restaurants aren't the only venues that have become hyper-sexualized. The simple non-sexual act of getting your car cleaned can now be a sexual experience where people can see hyper-sexualized women, dressed half naked, clean your car, and while you wait, you can even get a lap dance. These types of venues support sexual oppression and embrace negative stereotypes of women. Because of the public display of explicit behavior, the practice becomes dirty, inappropriate, and ultimately looked down upon. This is believed to has an effect on women and is the driving force towards their oppression, objectification and inequality. The stigmatization of raunch aesthetics has been linked to this and devalues women's genuine experiences and practices.
When women take part in activities that may be considered "slutty" or unladylike, they are condemned by society for not complying with the gender norms. However, recently through the use of hip hop and the media, women have been combating these norms thus making raunchy aesthetic more controversial in today's society.
It is clear that some women within the hip-hop realm are glorified for their raunchy performances over others. This is referred to in society as slut-shaming. Slut-shaming is the experience of being labeled as a sexually out-of-control girl or woman being punished socially for carrying out this identity. Due to this, there have been female artists who state their opinions about other female artists who engage in this behavior. Amber Rose, for example, has spoken out on this issue. She mentioned that the animosity that both she and Kim Kardashian receive on a daily basis for revealing themselves to the public is unfair, whereas Beyoncé twerks and wears clothes just as revealing clothes; yet the terms "hoe" or "porn star" are not used when referring to Beyoncé. Rose said that at the end of the day, each are women and that they should all embrace one other, and that no person is better. Rose has since spearheaded a movement in the U.S. known as the “Slut Walk”, which is a parade she has hosted every year since 2014. The Slut Walk originated in Toronto in 2011 after police told women to stop dressing like sluts if they wanted to avoid sexual assault. That narrative disgusted Rose and inspired her to become a voice against slut-shaming.
Artists that practice raunch culture
Miley Cyrus Miley Cyrus is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She has gained much attention for her sudden foray in sexual liberation. In 2013, she performed with musical artist Robin Thicke for a VMA performance in which she danced on stage appearing naked.
Many were outraged by Miley's performance, saying it was over the top and that grabbing her crotch and sticking out her tongue was too sexual to be on television. Cyndi Lauper commented,"And there she is a young twenty-something trying to prove, you know, she can hang with the big boys and girls, you know, basically simulating a 'Girl Gone Wild' video onstage and I just felt like it was so beneath her and really. It was really raunchy. It wasn't even art. It was raunch."
Cyrus was also critiqued for appropriating twerking, a dance from African American culture that is performed by shaking the buttocks. Missy Elliott wrote a song called “WTF" that critiqued the performance.
Beyoncé Beyoncé Knowles is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She performs raunch aesthetics through her explicit lyrics and her seductive dancing. In her song "Partition" from her self-titled album Beyoncé, which came out December 2013, she sings:
The song suggests the sexual act of fellatio while being driven in a limousine to a club party. Visually, in the music video, Beyoncé performs raunchiness by dancing seductively in diamond-studded leotards and heels. According to Hollywood.com, audience members were shocked at her over performance of raunchiness when she and her husband, Jay-Z, performed their song "Drunk in Love" at the 2014 Grammy's Award show. Her explicit lyrics are implicative of a sexual liberation that is often censored out by media. Dr. Marty Klein proposes that media is sensitive to eroticism because of the privatization of sex.
Rihanna