“All you ladies pop your pussy like this,” Khia instructed back in 2002 with the since widely acknowledged feminist anthem, “My Neck, My Back (Lick It).” It was a message that listeners–particularly women–embraced quickly as Khia “wettened” the dry and arid landscape of declarative statements about raunchy female sexual desire. But Khia wasn’t saying anything that men hadn’t been rapping about for decades–indeed, only two years prior, Ludacris brought us his own immortal sex manifesto, “What’s Your Fantasy?” Before him, of course, there were countless other males rapping openly about “down and dirty” sexual pleasure, including 2 Live Crew with “Me So Horny” (from the bluntly titled album, We Want Some Pussy) and LL Cool J with “Doin’ It.”
Where women in the rap game were concerned, it was largely a wasteland in the 90s and early 00s for candid sexual expression, with basically just Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown to turn to for a girl’s own sense of “I wanna be sucked and fucked” gratification. When Khia came along to say what no one before her would–as simple as the directive was–it completely changed everything. With the take-charge command, “Do it now, lick it good/Suck this pussy just like you should/My neck, my back/Lick my pussy and my crack,” Khia paved the way for a duo like Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion to “cum” along, tongues blazing, with a single called “WAP,” an abbreviation for “wet ass pussy.” Not, as some might like to think, Wireless Application Protocol, or, worse still, a misspelling of the stock slur against Italians.
Taking their “whoredom” to another level, Megan and Cardi sample from Frank Ski’s 1993 track, “Whores In This House.” Chanted repeatedly throughout the song, the pussy-positive pair adds their own, shall we say, evocative flourishes. For example, Megan Thee Stallion demands, “Gobble me, swallow me, drip down the side of me/Now make it rain if you wanna see some wet ass pussy.” Cardi adds, “Look, I need a hard hitter, need a deep stroker/Not a garter snake, I need a king cobra.” The snake metaphor, naturally, is wielded for optimal effect in the Colin Tilley (the man who brought Britney together with Sam Asghari in the “Slumber Party” video)-directed depiction of a perverse Barbie dream house.
Where Khia was most focused on the cunnilingus and anilingus aspects of getting the most out of her own wet ass pussy, Megan and Cardi like to point out the many ways in which “big D” can capitalize on a woman’s self-lubricating ways for both parties’ satisfying benefit. In addition to “put[ting] him on his knees [and] giv[ing] him something to believe in,” Cardi highlights the perks of kink with the urging, “Tie me up like I’m surprised/Let’s role play/I’ll wear a disguise/I want you to park that big Mack truck right in this little garage/Make it cream/Make me scream.” Demands indeed. There are even moments that briefly conjure the allusions Madonna was making in 1992’s “Where Life Begins” when she said, “I’m glad you brought your raincoat/I think it’s beginning to rain.” Megan instead orders, “Now get your boots and your coat for this wet ass pussy.”
Alas, Cardi and Megan’s pussy-affirming track isn’t empowering overall. Whereas Khia’s main emphasis throughout her song was on a female’s right to good head, Cardi and Megan offer perhaps too many verses in favor of what has already been played up enough in the culture: sucking dick. So it is that they assure, “I wanna gag/I wanna choke/I want you to touch that little dangly thing in the back of my throat [FYI, it’s called an uvula]/My head game is fire/Punani Dasani.”
Even in terms of lusting after men for material reasons, Khia still has Cardi and Megan beat. For she never brings it to the listener’s mind that she would need a man for financial gain, quite secure in her own abilities to make enough dough to treat her “cookie” right (whether that means waxing it, purchasing a tricked out vibrator for it or bedecking it with Agent Provocateur and/or Savage x Fenty lingerie). Seemingly, Cardi and Megan think that “I don’t cook/I don’t clean/But let me tell you how I got this ring” is supposed to be some sort of “feminist” statement in its anti-domestic implications, but this is mitigated by the fact that a woman is still placing so much importance on needing to get married at all (or, if it’s just a “bling ring,” then importance on affection measured by material objects).
In the lyrics that repeat, “There’s some whores in this house,” the duo attempts to take the word “whore”–what all women who enjoy “freak practices” a.k.a. sex in general are branded as–back for themselves the way women have with “bitch.” A noble try, one supposes, but, nonetheless, like so many feminists before them, they continue to operate under the misconception that they aren’t still very much catering to the patriarchy and the framework of sexualization and “desirability” established by it. Khia, on the other hand, broke this mold in her rendering of men as mere tools of securing the often evasive female orgasm, citing neither money, looks, nor potential marriageability as motives for wanting this pleasure. Instead only seeking it for her own bliss, no matter how fleeting.
