Abstract
Excerpted From: Tareeq Jalloh, Prospects for a Progressive Critique of Self-Sexualizing Rap Music: The Challenge of Oppressive Double Binds, 31 Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy 173 (March, 2026) (98 Footnotes) (Full Document)
In this article, I aim to understand these competing responses to self-sexualizing rap using Sukaina Hirji’s analysis of oppressive double binds. This framework helps us understand the dialectical stalemates that emerge in evaluating Black women rappers’ self-sexualization by offering a new understanding of the complexities involved in self-sexualizing rap. I argue that self-sexualizing rappers, trapped between norms of hypersexuality and respectability, cannot fully realize their sexual autonomy and agency. Consequently, we will be better informed about how to construct progressive critiques of self-sexualizing rap by shifting our attention to constraining norms and the media perpetuating them rather than by focusing on the artistic expression of individual rappers.
The article proceeds as follows. Section 1 defines self-sexualization and explains how Black woman rappers self-sexualize in their music. Section 2 outlines a Black feminist critique of self-sexualizing rap that sees it as perpetuating the problematic colonial stereotypes and controlling images that sustain the oppression of Black women. Section 3 presents an alternative evaluative perspective on self-sexualizing rap that sees it as empowering and as an important form of social resistance. There is a clear tension between these evaluative perspectives, and section 4 outlines the concept of oppressive double binds and diagnoses self-sexualizing rappers as being caught in them. Section 5 develops a progressive critique of self-sexualizing rap based on this diagnosis.
In his 2023 article “ Sexualisation,” Robert Morgan describes sexualization as occurring when one person treats another as a sexual being or a sexual object (a sexual entity)--specifically when someone foregrounds some actual or perceived sexual property of another. An actual or perceived sexual property includes “ a person’s actual or perceived sexual desires and a person’s actual or perceived role in the sexual desires of others” (486). Morgan explains that the properties of a person may be sexualized if the properties are generally seen as playing a role in sexual desire. For instance, certain body parts (genitals, breasts, and so on) and certain acts (oral, penile-vaginal, and other types of sex) are so widely assumed to be implicated in sexual desire that drawing attention to body parts or acts is sufficient to foreground sexual desires.
Drawing on the work of Amy Olberding, Morgan and Rosa Vince assert that we can understand foregrounding here as raising property x to salience or treating property x as the most relevant thing about person Y . Olberding gives the example of a conference organizer who attempts to foreground the property of being a philosopher by starting conversations about philosophy, but the conference attendees do not cooperate with this foregrounding--they instead foreground the property of being pregnant by focusing on the philosopher’s pregnancy and ignoring her philosophical contributions. Crucially, what the philosopher backgrounds--her pregnancy--is foregrounded by the attendees, and what she attempts to foreground--her philosophy--is backgrounded.
Morgan’s conception of sexualization is morally neutral. However, in his paper, he gives the following example of unwanted sexualization:
Business Meeting : Ashley is attending a business meeting shortly after accepting a job at a new organization. The small team that she works with, most of whom are men, are also in attendance. The meeting is led by their manager, Bill. After welcoming her, Bill turns to Ashley and says: “ You’re very pretty, aren’t you? I know the guys are very happy to have you working here. I’m sure you’ll have a good time with them.” (481)
Here, Morgan asserts that Ashley is being treated as a sexual being or a sexual object against her will. This is because Bill “ casts Ashley in a sexual light, commenting on (his view of) her sexual capacities and sexual desires, and sexualizes her male colleagues by implying that they would enjoy engaging in sexual acts with her” (482). Crucially, she is perceived to have a role in her colleague’s desires, and this is taken to be the most important thing to comment on.
Morgan argues that unwanted sexualization is wrong because it contradicts a person’s self-presentation (487). He claims that contradicting a person’s self-presentation is typically prima facie wrong because it undermines their autonomy and instrumentalizes them. Contradicting a person’s self-presentation undermines autonomy because the person whose self-presentation has been contradicted is unable to determine which aspects of their own life are foregrounded and backgrounded and are thereby “ prevented from determining the role that they take in their interactions with others and from withholding aspects of themselves that they consider private or otherwise appropriate for discussion” (487). This infringement is often psychologically and emotionally draining. Contradicting a person’s self-representation also instrumentalizes them since the perpetrator treats the victim as though aspects of their life may be foregrounded for the purposes of the perpetrator and/or bystanders regardless of the victim’s preferences (488). Morgan asserts, “ when a person’s self-presentation is contradicted without good reason, they experience their interactions with others as being for the benefit of their interlocutors rather than themselves” (489). The contradiction thereby fails to respect the victim as an individual with personal preferences and interests, treating them instead merely in terms of the role they can play for others. Crucially, failing to respect a person’s self-presentation without justification is detrimental to their autonomy and instrumentalizes the person.
One might object that contradicting someone’s self-presentation is not always wrongful. Consider the following case.
Thief : A group of friends are on a night out when the group notices that one of the friends is going around stealing the others’ wallets. The following day, the group confronts their friend, the “ thief.” The thief is visibly embarrassed and states that he does not want to talk about it. Nevertheless, the group continues to talk about his behavior and requests an apology.
The thief wants to background his actions, whereas his friends insist on discussing it with him. Therefore, there is a contradiction of self-presentation. However, this case does not seem wrongful, unlike the earlier Business Meeting case. Morgan explains that Thief involves the thief wronging his friends, and his friends have good reason to confront him (490). The thief’s friends can respect him--for example, by considering his interests-- while foregrounding what he wishes to background. It would be unreasonable to overlook the thefts just because of what the thief prefers to background. Morgan states that there are two ways to model the permissibility of contradicting the thief’s self-presentation. First, this contradiction can be justified by countervailing reasons, such as holding the thief accountable. Second, following Christopher Wellman’s rights forfeiture theory of punishment, he states that the moral claim against others contradicting a person’s self-presentation can be nullified when the person behaves wrongfully. By behaving unethically, the person forfeits the right to not have their self-presentation contradicted.
Morgan explains that in cases like Thief, the friend’s bad behavior means that we can make a principled distinction between such cases and others (like sexualization) where it is wrong to contradict a person’s self-representation. He emphasizes that there is typically no reason to subject a person to unwanted sexualization that would outweigh concerns from autonomy and instrumentalization.
To further explain why unwanted sexualization is different from cases like Thief, Morgan asserts that unwanted sexualization is a “ morally special” contradiction of self-presentation because sex is seen as distinctively private, and it is often threatening, discriminatory, and experienced as especially harmful (491-95). When unwanted sexualization occurs, the perpetrator fails to cooperate with a victim’s self-presentation, preventing them from obscuring intensely private aspects of themselves. This can make the person feel vulnerable and humiliated since they are prevented from keeping hidden aspects of themselves that are, according to cultural norms, heavily private. This undermines the victim’s autonomy and instrumentalizes them in more severe ways (491). Furthermore, unwanted sexualization is threatening since it may lead the victim to believe that they are at risk of escalated harassment and violence from the perpetrator. The experience of being sexualized against one’s will is often a distressing experience that can lead the victim to feel afraid, panicked, and humiliated; in the long term, it can lead to a decline in mental health (492). It can also impact a victim’s freedom of movement since it may compel them to avoid public areas in which they have been targeted or feel unsafe. Finally, unwanted discrimination can be discriminatory insofar as it conveys misogynistic messages. In the specific case of Business Meeting, such workplace sexualization fits into a trend that emphasizes women’s sexuality above other aspects of their lives, and it constitutes a refusal to cooperate with women like Ashley who wish to foreground their professional roles. Bill’s comments convey that Ashley should not have her self-presentation as a businesswoman respected, which may be interpreted as implying that Ashley is unsuited to her job because she is a woman (493).
In these examples, one person sexualizes another in unwanted ways, which is morally problematic because it contradicts their self-presentation. However, in this article, I am concerned with self -sexualization, particularly of Black women rappers. Here, I take self-sexualization to be when someone treats themself as a sexual entity by foregrounding an actual or perceived sexual property of their own. That is, Black women rappers self-sexualize when they foreground their own sexual desires--for example, by raising to salience particular body parts and sexual acts that are associated with sexual desire. Unlike the above example, in which raising to salience particular body parts and/or sexual acts goes against how the person wants to be presented, it is much less clear what, if anything, might be wrong with self-sexualization. However, in the case of Black women rappers, self-sexualization is regularly subject to conflicting evaluative and moral responses. This article takes us through the contours of these responses and critically evaluates them.
There is a history of chart-topping and record-breaking rap songs that involve self-sexualizing Black women rappers. Most notable are Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s 2020 song “ wap ” (an acronym for ' wet ass pussy’ ), which topped the us Billboard Hot 100 chart, and Nicki Minaj’s 2014 song “ Anaconda,” which in 2021 became the first music video for a solo woman’s rap song to hit a billion views on the video platform YouTube.
In both songs, the artists treat themselves as sexual entities by foregrounding their actual or perceived sexual properties. For instance, in “ wap ,” not only is this sexualization evidenced by the title of the song, which raises the salience of and celebrates Cardi B’s and Megan Thee Stallion’s aroused genitalia, but the lyrics focus heavily on their sexual desires. When Cardi B raps, “ Look, I need a hard hitter, need a deep stroker / Need a Henny drinker, need a weed smoker / Not a garter snake, I need a king cobra / With a hook in it, hope it lean over,” she foregrounds her own sexual desires by describing the type of sexual partner she desires. Moreover, when she raps, “ I don’t cook, I don’t clean / But let me tell you how I got this ring,” Cardi B treats her sexual properties (rather than her other properties) as instrumental to securing marriage. This also supports the view that she has sexual skills that men desire. The music video to “ wap ” provides further evidence of self-sexualization. During many scenes, we see both Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion simulating sex positions and sticking their tongues out at one another, indicating a desire to engage in oral sex.
We also see similar self-sexualization in the music video for Nicki Minaj’s song “ Anaconda,” which features, as Cate Young puts it, “ ass, ass, everywhere,” with Minaj simulating various sexual positions, including deep-throating a banana, a fairly obvious stand-in for a penis. Even the cover art of the single features Minaj wearing a thong in the squat position.
I thus make the case that Black women rappers like Cardi B and Nicki Minaj engage in self-sexualization by foregrounding their own actual or perceived sexual desires. Self-sexualization might sometimes involve self-objectification, but it also accounts for Black women rappers expressing themselves as sexual subjects. This is important since some Black feminists reject the self-objectification framework as an appropriate way to understand most instances of Black women’s engagement with their own sexuality, something that becomes important in section 3 below. First, however, I explore one critique of this self-sexualization that sees it as perpetuating/reinforcing problematic stereotypes and controlling images.
The kinds of critiques often advanced against self-sexualizing rap were seen very loudly and clearly in the aftermath of the release of “ wap ” and “ “ Anaconda.” Both songs have become paradigmatic examples of self-sexualization in rap music, as well as indicative cases of the kinds of responses that self-sexualizing Black women rappers receive. A range of commentators have critically scrutinized both songs. On one end of this spectrum are conservatives, whose attacks are based on values such as modesty, sexual purity, and traditional family values. At the other end are progressive critics, whose criticisms are based on freedom and equality. In this article, I focus on progressive critiques of self-sexualizing rap because if one buys into conservative values of modesty and sexual purity, then it is obvious that self-sexualization is indeed morally criticizable. In contrast, for anyone who is progressive/feminist and believes that women have a right to sexual agency, whether self-sexualization is criticizable or laudable is a salient question.
A subset of progressive critiques of self-sexualizing rap is Black feminist critique of self-sexualization. Tricia Rose argues that Black women in commercial rap, such as Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown, self-sexualize because they “ [rely] on the product reserved especially for Black women: sexual excess.” Gail Dines argues that the hypersexualized images of Black women in self-sexualizing rap “ serve to breathe new life into old stereotypes that circulate mainstream society.” Such critics assert that the self-sexualization occurring in rap is only part of a long tradition of sexualizing, objectifying, and stereotyping Black women’s bodies. Black women were viewed as commodities during colonialism and the era of transatlantic slavery , and stereotypes emerging from these times are still salient today. For example, there are parallels between Sara Baartman, a South African native who was sexually trafficked by Europeans to Europe in the 1810s and made to display her figure to spectators, and the sexualization of Black women in current-day popular media. For instance, Akeia Benard likens how Minaj presents herself in “ Anaconda” to how Baartman was presented. She asserts, “ the image of Nicki Minaj, caged, in chains, displaying, and singing about her prominent buttocks in no way differs from the nineteenth-century display of Sara Baartman.”
Why is contemporary self-sexualization criticizable in the ways described above? The reason is that the stereotypes that these critics refer to sustain the oppression of Black women today. We can illuminate this through Patricia Hill Collins’s work on controlling images in her book Black Feminist Thought . Controlling images are designed to make social injustice appear inevitable and acceptable (69). There are many controlling images, but most important for this article is Collins’s articulation of the hypersexual Black women or jezebel image. Black female bodies have always been linked with hypersexuality. Where sexuality refers to sexual capacities, including sexual thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and attractions, hypersexuality here refers to sexuality that is abnormal and excessive. While we often think that expressions of sexuality are healthy, Black women’s sexual expressions are often seen as “ at best inappropriate and at worst insatiable” (83). Collins notes that the jezebel’s original function was to legitimize the sexual exploitation of Black women during slavery by portraying Black women as sexually aggressive, thus providing a rationale for the widespread slave master practice of sexual assault against Black women.
This framework helps us understand the dialectical stalemates that emerge in evaluating critiques of Black women rappers’ self-sexualization. Similar to the teenage girl being pressured by her boyfriend to lose her virginity, self-sexualizing Black women rappers are caught in an oppressive double bind when we understand the oppressive norm at play as the norm that Black women should not have sexual autonomy. Adhering to the norm by being respectable and not self-sexualizing may allow Black women to avoid censure-- by, for instance, not being criticized as reinforcing stereotypes of hypersexuality--but it reinforces a system that takes away their sexual autonomy. By being respectable, Black women engage in self-regarding complicity since they are not trying to challenge or escape the oppressive norm regarding their lack of sexual autonomy. Instead, they keep the oppressive norm in place by focusing on their own prudential good--but this prudential good of avoiding censure or punishment is threatened so long as the oppressive norm remains unchallenged. There may be short-term benefits, but they reinforce the oppressive norm that dictates they lack sexual autonomy in the long run. Resisting the norm by self-sexualizing results in them being categorized as hypersexual “ bad” women, who should not be taken seriously, which detracts from their power and ability to resist oppression. Self-sexualizing incurs a prudential cost--censure, in the form of criticism about reinforcing controlling images that diminish Black women’s sexual autonomy--and this undermines the moral goal of resisting the oppressive norm.
[ . . . ]
I have argued that self-sexualizing rappers are caught in oppressive double binds, and this framework can help us understand the competing evaluative responses to self-sexualizing rap. Furthermore, this diagnosis better informs us about how to construct progressive critiques of self-sexualizing rap. While some criticisms are advanced from progressive Black feminists, self-sexualizing rap is also seen as empowering by other commentators. I have argued that the framework of oppressive double binds helps to capture the complexity of the normative situation faced by self-sexualizing Black women rappers. Trapped between the norms of respectability and stereotypes of hypersexuality, it is impossible under conditions of oppression for self-sexualizing Black women rappers to fully realize their sexual autonomy and agency. Articulating this helps to focus our progressive critiques on these constraining norms and on the media that perpetuates them rather than on individual rappers who engage in self-expression.
Tareeq Jalloh, University of Oxford
