The music industry presents sex as a commodity to satisfy the ever-growing demand for explicit sexual content fuelled by human fantasy and vanity. In rap music, sex appears to be the only selling point, with lyrics littered with explicit content. Performers in videos or live concerts have to meet certain standards set by the audiences. In most cases, dancers come out as sex symbols. This commodification of sex makes it appear cool, and thus the audience idolizes the practice.
As such, women are seen as sex objects, and they should have certain body features to look attractive. In the majority of music videos glorifying sex, dancers are barely dressed, which exposes their body parts. The ideal sexually attractive woman is presented as having a flat belly, large breasts, and huge behinds. Such women attract the attention of male performers who seem to worship such idyllic beauty that should be attained naturally or artificially. In the hit song Anaconda by Nicki Minaj, the performers expose their huge rounded behinds, and they ‘twerk’ throughout the sexually explicit action. The song has over 400 million YouTube views which underscore the demand for such content by the targeted audience.
As mentioned earlier, if the ideal sexual figure cannot be attained naturally, then one has to look at it elsewhere. In the video, Nicki Minaj has undergone several plastic surgeries to attain the desired sexual bodily parts like wasp waist and huge behinds and breasts. In the song, Minaj rebukes men for only desiring women with certain bodily features. Ironically, she is punishing men by showing them exactly what they want to see.
It appears that music without sexual content is like an engine without fuel – it cannot run. In another record-breaking song, Candy Shop, by 50 Cent, sexuality is glorified as something that happens casually, just like walking into a shop, buying a commodity, and proceeding home. In the video, 50 Cent enters a brothel before performing some sexual innuendos with a prostitute accompanied by the lyrical message of how he loves nymphomaniac women. The video presents sex as candy, and society appears to be purchasing this community wholesale, going by the popularity of such songs.
The music industry continues to feed society with the fantasy that sex is appealing and should be enjoyed with abandonment. This perception has exposed young minds to a skewed mindset devoid of self-respect and appreciation. Every day the media is awash with stories of young women expressing their desire for plastic surgery for aesthetic purposes, specifically to boost their rear parts, hips, and breasts.
To this generation of misguided souls, the only way they can be appealing sexually is to have certain standards which have been set by the music industry in its quest for profitability. Few music videos emphasize that everyone is sexually beautiful and appealing by his or her birthright. The standards set by music producers and writers are a fallacy that cannot satisfy the objectives of sex, whether for pleasure or procreation.
Fortunately, not everything is lost, as some musicians have come up with love songs without the commodification of sex. Adele, in her record-breaking song, Hello, shows that music can still be used to communicate love and sex with decency. Unfortunately, the popular culture is drunk with explicit sexual content, and the likes of Adele will have to work extra hard to liberate society from sinking deeper into debauchery.