Can We Talk About “WAP” for a Minute?

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion are not the first female recording artists to get explicit about straight female sexuality. They’re following in the footsteps of such greats as Missy Elliot, Lil Kim, and many others. But with their new single, “WAP,” they are doing it big, loud, brilliantly, and unapologetically — and during one of the bleakest years in memory. The world can use a little WAP these days.

“WAP”stands for “wet-ass pussy,” and the song delights in graphic descriptions of sex acts and sexual anatomy, packing such twerk-worthy lyrics as: “Bring a bucket and a mop for this wet-ass pussy”; “Put this pussy right in your face/Swipe your nose like a credit card”; “Not a garter snake, I need a king cobra/With a hook in it, hope it lean over”; and “I want you to touch that lil’ dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat.”

The song, released last Friday, has been a point of delightful color amidst the pall of a pandemic that’s dragging on to the six-month mark, suppressing the production of porn that would normally provide the world with its share of well-soaked vaginas. And YNOT is far from alone in thinking so. The single and its accompanying video (which had to be censored for YouTube) have garnered praise from fans and critics alike.

Celebrities from Viola Davis to Halle Berry to Christina Aguilera have posted their approval of the song. The Guardian rhapsodized dryly, “There is something rebellious and subversive in women, especially oft-oversexualized black women, openly discussing enthusiasm and predilections for intercourse.” Teen Vogue wrote, “‘WAP’ is a perfect example of women specifically communicating their sexual desire — something we have relatively few examples of in pop culture.” And Vulture called the song “the very embodiment of filthy, delirious joy, a paean to loving your vagina so much that you must dance about it with friends and tigers in a shallow indoor pool.”

But, of course, this is America, where we can’t just enjoy women’s sexuality. This latest expression of two women of color rhapsodizing about their bodies and desires has sparked outrage among the religious and political right—you know, the dried-up folks who call pornography a “public health crisis” amidst an actual pandemic, yet refuse to wear masks in public. Because it’s easier to police women’s bodies than their own. Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro tried to shame the musicians for their lyrical shamelessness by reading some of the lyrics aloud—a video which will live forever in infamy online. His wife, a doctor, went on to declare that having a wet-ass pussy is a sign of a yeast infection or bacterial vaginosis—“as though,” wrote The Guardian, “arousal was foreign enough for her to treat it as a sexually transmitted infection.” 

Meanwhile, Republic congressional hopeful DeAnna Lorraine tweeted that the song was “disgusting & vile” as well as “trash and depravity.” And James P. Bradley, another Republican congressional aspirant, announced to the world that the song “made me want to pour holy water in my ears.” As if anybody asked.

Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion just set the entire female gender back by 100 years with their disgusting & vile “WAP” song.

— DeAnna Lorraine