The Guide to Getting It On (138 page)

Booting & Name-Calling

While our culture encourages its straight men to strut their sexuality, this doesn’t mean we always do. For instance, the following story tells of how the term “faggot” is used by straight guys to deride other straight guys for preferring women to beer. It is from Regina Barreca’s
They Used to Call Me Snow White But Then I Drifted,
Viking/Penguin:

“When I started my first year as a student at Dartmouth College, there were four men for every woman. I thought I had it made. Dartmouth had only recently admitted women, and the administration thought it best to get the alumni accustomed to the idea by sneaking us in a few at a time. With such terrific odds in my favor socially, how could I lose? I’d dated in high school and although I wasn’t exactly Miss Budweiser, I figured I’d have no problem getting a date every Saturday night. But I noticed an unnerving pattern. I’d meet a cute guy at a party and talk for a while. We would then be interrupted by some buddy of his who would drag him off to another room to watch a friend of theirs ‘power-boot’ (the local vernacular for ‘projectile vomiting’), and I realized that the social situation was not what I had expected.

“Then somebody explained to me that on the Dartmouth campus they think you’re a faggot if you like women more than beer. This statement indicated by its very vocabulary the advanced nature of the sentiment behind it. If a guy said he wanted to spend the weekend with his girlfriend, for example, he’d be taunted by his pals, who would yell in beery bass voices ‘Whatsa matter with you, Skip? We’re gonna get plowed, absolutely blind this weekend, then we’re all gonna power-boot. And you wanna see that broad again? Whaddayou, a faggot or something?’”

Bitch vs. Faggot

The dirty words aimed at women often speak to how they regulate the space between their legs — too many penises, not good. Insults at men are aimed at a different level.

Guys are forever needing to demonstrate manliness. If we slip up, we’re called a fag or queer, even if the only dick we’ve ever held is our own. This is particularly true among teenagers. A knee-jerk response that teenage boys have when another boy steps outside of the fragile notion of what’s considered masculine is to call him a “fag.”

The insults for men and women have the same premise: each likes dick too much. But a woman who is being insulted is usually allowed to remain heterosexual, albeit a slutty one. The guy, however, has his sexual identity called into question. A man’s heterosexual status knows no rest. It has to be earned and re-earned or he risks falling off the stilts that define him as straight. (Saying “I’m not gay, I’m metrosexual!” doesn’t help.)

Origin of the Bimbo & the Stud

“Bimbo” and “stud” aren’t exactly dirty words, but they achieve dirty-word status when you consider the following observation made by a female friend of the author who was sitting on the beach:

A father was standing a few feet into the surf with a young boy on his right side and a young girl on his left. The children were the same size. Whenever a wave came in the father would keep his right arm rigid. This helped the boy brave the oncoming splash. At the same time, the father would lift his left arm, pulling the girl into the air so she could avoid the splash. The little boy was being taught how to face the wave; the little girl was being taught to expect a man to rescue her.

Bimbo training starts early in our country. All too often, the first step is getting little girls to believe that they are more fragile than boys. Then, ads in women’s magazines spawn the belief that there is something unsexy about the female body unless it’s plugged with a scented tampon and accessorized with perfume, high heels, Photoshopped physiques and fake boobs.

Blowjobs & Bounced Checks

Consider the following words of an American wife:

“My husband’s going to be furious when he finds out the check I wrote bounced, so I better give him a really good blowjob tonight.”

This book has no problem with really good blowjobs. But when blowjobs are motivated by fear, lack of power, or manipulation, it adds to the use of expressions like “blow me” as a putdown.

However, after this chapter was first published, protests from female readers flooded in, e.g. trading blowjobs for money is one of the few ways women have had throughout the ages to even the score economically; trading sex for money brings far more joy into the world and is less destructive than the ways that some men earn their paychecks; and what about the possibility that the wife finds the situation to be a turn-on and might totally enjoy giving the payback blowjob?

Husbands weighed in as well. “My bank charges $35 for each bounced check. If that gets me oral sex, let her bounce all the checks she wants!”

Rap Lyric Ho’down — Dirty Words and Then Some

No chapter on dirty words would be complete without mention of rap song lyrics. It is not unusual for rap songs to have a liberal peppering of words like “bitch” and “ho,” as well as sexual references that don’t always express loving intent toward women. Here are two examples of rap-song lyrics that contain the words bitch and ho:

The first is a line from Soulja Boy’s “Crank That (Soulja Boy).” It’s just three words and goes like this:

Superman dat ho.

Superman dat ho
is a theoretical concept that means to ejaculate on a woman’s back when she is sleeping so she wakes up in the morning with the sheet stuck to her back like Superman’s cape after the cum dries. Why would a man want to “Superman a ho”? It is apparently payback for when a woman won’t give him sex. Soulja Boy swears this isn’t what he meant, so let’s look at another line in this same song:

I’m cocking on your bitch ass.

This is rap for when one man says to another: “I have a gun and will shoot you with it.” The relevant dirty-word term is “bitch ass.” Instead of saying “your ugly ass,” Soulja Boy ramps up the insult by throwing in the gender card and making it a female reference.

The second song to consider is Dr. Dre’s “Bitches Ain’t Shit.” Here are two of the lines:

Bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks

Lick on these nuts and suck the dick.

Based on these lines, most people would assume this is a derogatory song about women. However, the song is actually about a fight Dr. Dre had with his fellow N.W.A. band member and former friend Eazy-E. Dr. Dre also references N.W.A.’s manager as a “white bitch” in the song.

This is a song about men who were suing each other in a court of law. But you wouldn’t know it unless you had an insider’s knowledge of rap. Instead, what you’d probably hear are sexually degrading things about women.

Perhaps that’s why some of the people who work for companies that distribute songs like these won’t let their own children listen to the songs, because it’s difficult to appreciate the underlying social meanings.

The Sociology of Bitch vs. Ho

We usually think of “bitch” and “ho” as meaning the same thing. But that’s not always the case in rap lyrics. According to sociologists Adams and Fuller, the term “bitch” in rap lyrics could be referring to a powerful woman who dominates her household and her man. They suggest that “the bitch” in rap music is a woman who has a sharp tongue and is somewhat castrating.

The “ho” in rap lyrics is a different woman entirely. She is a woman who let’s herself be used, often to manipulate men into getting what she wants. She will give a man any kind of sex he might desire to achieve her ultimate goal. She is a woman whose moral compass could use a bit of adjustment. She is not well thought of in the world of rap.

A male singer can establish his street credentials by referring to the hoes he’s had sex with and which of their orifices he has penetrated.

Rapping It Up

Rap artists might say there’s no difference between a black man using rap lyrics that are hateful toward women and a white man yelling “cocksucker,” “pussy” or “fuck you.” Women and their sexuality are often at the core of the insults we use in all aspects of life.

Others say it’s the beat and energy of the music that makes these songs popular rather then the lyrics, allowing listeners to ignore the crude references about women.

Ultimately, there is no easy answer to why rap singers use words about women and their sexuality that sound hateful. Nor is there a straightforward answer for why so many women download these songs and enjoy singing and dancing to them.

END OF CHAPTER NOTES:
The Soulja Boy lyrics are from Soulja Boy’s “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” from ColliPark Music/Interscope Records, 2007. It received a Grammy nomination. “Bitches Ain’t Shit” is from Dr. Dre’s 1992 album “The Chronic.” This song is still covered today by a number of artists, including a Columbia University a cappella group composed of twelve very white young women that has gathered more than 1.25 million YouTube views and almost 9,000 likes. The analysis of the meaning of “bitches” vs “hos” is from an article titled “The Words Have Changed But the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music” by Terri Adams and Douglas Fuller, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 36, No. 6 (Jul., 2006), pp. 938-957.

There are certainly times when fuck-slang is used in a positive sense, as in “fuckin’ wonderful” or “fuckin’ amazing.” But when the word is used this way it tends to be role-neutral and refers to the act of intercourse rather than the woman’s role in it. When it takes its more usual form of “We’re totally fucked now!” it’s got “girl” all over it. As for the idea that the insult gets its grit from the homosexual implication, we have plenty of insults for that and few people hesitate to use them when that’s what they mean to say.

Special thanks to the writings of Ira Reiss, Paul Evdokimov, David Schnarch, Regina Barreca, Carol Tavris, the late Bob Stoller, and many others for inspiring concepts used in this chapter, and to the famous sex researchers who originally suggested that people should think of foreplay as everything that happened since the last time you had sex.

CHAPTER

67

Barbie the Icon

T
his chapter is about Barbie. You might be wondering what a cultural icon like Barbie is doing in a book on sex. Perhaps the following statements by our female readers will help explain:

When you were a little girl, did your Barbie doll ever have sex?

“I had lots of Barbies. She and my giant panda bear got naked and ‘did it,’ and my sister and I dressed her up in Ken’s clothes. Unfortunately, you can’t dress up Ken in Barbie’s clothes. We tried.”
female age 18

“My basement was a temple to Barbie and all her relatives. Barbie lived in a soap opera complete with abortions, sex changes, and adultery. She and Ken frequently got naked in their Laura Ashley canopy bed.”
female age 24

“Barbie and Ken had a very active relationship and ‘sex’ life. It’s hard to say it was a sex life without any genitalia. I guess I used them to emulate the adults around me. Barbie and Ken often went skinny dipping at the ocean, and slept nude most times.”
female age 35

“My Barbie had Ken on her ALL the time. If I knew then what I know now, Barbie would have been on top more often.”
female age 44

“My friend had a Ken and we used to make them have sex by making their little plastic bodies rub against each other when they were lying in Barbie’s little nylon bed. We were about ten and were disappointed that Ken’s underwear was glued on.”
female age 22

“You know those parts in movies that parents were always trying to hide from younger children? I got a slight peek one day, but all I saw were sheets moving. After I saw that, Barbie and Ken made those sounds and simulated those actions. But I wasn’t sure what they were really doing.”
female age 22