‘Beat the p***y up’ – the way we talk about sex with women
By Jessica Eaton
This blog contains a discussion of violent language to discuss sex, sexual violence and porn. It also contains the titles to real porn films that a lot of people may find disturbing. Please take care of yourself whilst reading this and seek support after reading if you need to.
As a massive old skool (and sometimes new skool) RnB, Rap and Hip Hop fan, I often find myself experiencing some pretty serious cognitive dissonance to try to enjoy my music without yelling at the radio or crying into my crisps.
As a younger feminist, I used to tell myself that it was okay that women were called bitches and hoes because that’s the way that artist chose to express themselves (I know, I know, so progressive).
As I got older, I started to resent the use of the word ‘bitch’ in my once-favourite songs. I stopped listening to some artists because I couldn’t stand the way they spoke about women and sex. The next challenge was dealing with the rise of female artists using ‘bitch’ and ‘nasty hoe’ to describe themselves. I thought the rise of female MCs, rappers and writers would eliminate this constant woman-hating but it didn’t. Nicki, Cardi B, Lil Kim, Missy Elliott – they made me wanna two-step and cry at the same time.
(Edit: I would just like to add that misogynistic and rape-glorifying lyrics are found in Death Metal too so this issue clearly isn’t unique to my music preferences, but I have never listened to it so didn’t know until someone told me today! Here’s a link.)
It is often the case in music that women sing about loving men and men sing about f*cking women. And it’s this that I want to talk about.
I noticed recently that the range of ways men sing, rap and talk about having sex with women has become inherently violent. They aren’t talking about ‘getting jiggy’ or ‘having fun’ or ‘doing the deed’ – I mean, they are not even calling it sex anymore. Not only that, but they are not even naming or identifying the woman anymore.
I decided to sit and think about all the violent ways men describe having sex with women these days, and came up with this list in about 3 minutes. I am sure there are many more and people will contact me with others.
List of violent terms to describe having sex with women:
Hit that
Hurt that
Smash that
Smack that
F**k that
Merc that
Destroy that
Crush that
Beat that p***y up
Beat it up
Ruin that
Bang that
Nail that
There are two main points here. The first is that sex is being described in very violent terms and the second is that the word ‘that’ is used in place of ‘her’ to objectify the woman they are talking about. These men aren’t saying ‘I would love to have sex with her’ or ‘I would shag her’ or even ‘I would f**k her’ – they are saying ‘I would f**k that’. ‘That’ is not a pronoun. ‘That’ is not a name. ‘That’ is used for objects. I’ll come back to this point.
The first point is the violence in the language. Hit. Destroy. Ruin. Bang. Beat up. Smash. Smack. Hurt. These are words that describe violence and injury. They don’t describe sex. They don’t describe the type of sex any woman wants to have.
When I started to search the terms I had heard and read, I easily found memes, articles, discussions and blogs using this language about women in a completely normalised way. Men saying to their friends ‘The girl next door, I would ruin that!’ or ‘She’s gonna get it hard. Beat that p***y up!’ The image of all of the guys saying they would rape the sleeping girl on the sofa. I found hundreds of song lyrics like the ones I have listened to.
Gucci Mane released a song called ‘Beat it up’ about having sex with women. So did Slim Thug. So did Chris Brown. And no, I’m not talking about one song they all featured on, I’m talking about three separately produced songs about ‘beating that p***y up’.
Here are the lyrics from Slim Thug:
Guess what? I’m f**kin tonight
Whether you know it or not, Ima beat that pussy right
Yeah I’m f**kin tonight, Ima beat it up
In song lyrics, R Kelly says he ‘beats the p***y up like Django’and Lil Wayne says he ‘beat that p***y up like Emmett Till’.
Chris Brown says he f**ks women back to sleep in ‘Back to sleep’. I don’t really know why he would want to make a woman he has sex with fall asleep but the song lyrics are creepy as shit:
F**k you to sleep, wake you up again, I go so deep, beat it up again
Just let me rock, f**k you back to sleep, girl
Don’t say no, girl, don’t you talk
Just hold on tight to me, girl
F**k you back to sleep, girl.
The issue here is that these influential men in our popular culture and music industry are openly using sexually violent references to having sex with women and then every day adults (and children) are singing along to Chris Brown riffin’ about the women he wakes up to make them have sex with him again when they are too tired. We are so oblivious to what we are listening to, this language quickly becomes the norm.
One article I found listed every artist they could find who referred to sex as ‘beating the p***y up’ and they found over 15 current male artists using that term in hit songs. Jay-Z to Lil Wayne – they were all describing sex as harming women.
After searching for evidence on each one of the terms I listed above, I found a website discussing what ‘destroy that’ and ‘ruin that’ meant and was surprised to find how open men were when talking about what they meant. I had thought that maybe it was being used semi-consciously by men who were using it in banter, but they were using it literally. One page defined it as ‘having sex with her so rough that you cause injuries, the more physical injuries the rougher it probably was’. One man said he used it with his friends to mean destroying or ruining a ‘nice girl’ by having very aggressive sex with her or by taking her virginity.
It reminded me of a film I watched (and use in my teaching) about mail order brides and the way white, wealthy guys were buying and sexually exploiting women as servile brides from deprived areas. There was this one guy who used military metaphors to discuss meeting and having sex with potential brides. He made my skin crawl.
He is sat in a dark club when he says to the camera:
“Uh, the search and destroy mission for today is to circulate, work the room, identify a target and go for it. If plan A doesn’t work, I retreat, rally the troops and then go out and then try plan B uhh to capture the target.”
He doesn’t even say woman. He doesn’t even talk about humans. He talks about destroying and identifying targets.
This links to the second point I wanted to make – that this language dehumanises and dementalises women – it reduces them to their ‘p***y’ or their ‘ass’ that the men are going to ‘hurt’ or ‘hit’ or ‘crush’ or ‘beat that up’. They no longer converse about sex in human terms – they talk in metaphors and disconnected, dehumanised language. They refer to women as ‘that’ or they only talk about her body parts. She is there to be used, abused and hurt for their pleasure.
Where is this sexually violent language coming from?
Well, sorry to be the not-the-fun-kind-of-feminist, but its porn and societal misogyny. There is no doubt about where this is coming from. Work by people like Julia Long and Gail Dines has long told us that porn has become more and more violent, with Long (2012) arguing that over 90% of porn now features violence against women including hitting, slapping, kicking, choking, hurting, whipping and deliberately painful and extremely degrading sex acts.
You only have to look at the titles of porn films on Pornhub or X Videos to see the way they describe women in violent and degrading terms to see where this is coming from.
Here are some examples that are on porn sites today (18th May 2018):
‘Passed out slut letting me f**k her brains out’ (this film is of a clearly unconscious young girl being raped on Pornhub)
‘Unwanted painful anal’ (another allowed to stay on Pornhub despite clearly describing a rape)
‘Rip her up’ (the name of a series of videos in which women are raped)
‘Blonde babe gets brutally slapped and f**ked’
‘Beauty humiliated and ruined – BRUTAL’
‘Teen gets anally destroyed – hear her real screams and crying’
‘Heavily pregnant teen used by men’ (Pornhub allows this!)
We must talk about the way that violent materials depicting the rape and abuse of women and teenage girls is becoming the norm. Actually not the norm, the goal. The harm of women is becoming glorified, not normalised. When women like Long, Dines, Bindel and Blac talk to us about violence in porn, they are not talking about a light tap, they are not taking anything out of context or exaggerating, they are talking about the sexualisation of choking women, beating women up, raping women on camera and hurting them so badly during sex acts that they cry out for help, pass out or scream in pain.
It hasn’t taken long, but this acceptance and arousal of sexual violence against women has slipped into common everyday language about sex with women. Role models in hip hop, rap and RnB are using this language in their hit songs. Children and adults are singing along to these lyrics. Hit that. Hurt it. Beat that p***y up. Smash that. Destroy that. Ruin it.
In a study conducted in 2006, Fischer and Greitmeyer found that men who listened to sexually aggressive and violent lyrics were more likely to choose for women to suffer painful situations than the men who had listened to normal music lyrics in a controlled study. In a follow up study, men listening to misogynistic lyrics were more likely to subject women to ice-water-treatment than men who did not listen to the misogynistic lyrics.
However, its incomplete to argue that these lyrics and language only affect men and boys – the reality is that these lyrics, language, imagery and porn affects women and girls too. They are also absorbing these messages as normal, and as shown by the work on hypersexualisation of girls by the APA in 2007, girls and women normalise and accept these sexually violent behaviours because they have been taught by society that they are supposed to enjoy them.
Adding sexually violent lyrics to some of the bestselling songs in the world is a clear method of normalising male violence against women and girls.
What can we do about this?
Parents and Carers of children and young people
If you are a parent of an older child, there is absolutely no point in trying to protect them from these lyrics – they are everywhere! Instead, focus on bringing your children up to be critical thinkers and media-savvy. Teach them that everything they see in the media, music, advertising and news outlets are trying to manipulate them or sell something to them. Teach them clear and positive ways of talking about sex. Teach them to say ‘have sex with’ or ‘make love to’ or even ‘sleep with’. ANYTHING that isn’t negative or violent. Talk to them about the language – use the songs on the radio as an opportunity, a blessing in disguise and start to comment on the language. When something sexually aggressive or degrading comes on the TV, use co-viewing to start a debate or discussion about what you are seeing. Make a comment and ask their opinion. If you don’t teach your children about sex, the internet will. If you already watch a lot of porn, think about how different porn sex is to the real sex you’re having. Do you really want your sons or daughters thinking that porn sex is real? Do you really want your son choking teen girls? Do you really want your daughter to think that being forced to have anal is normal? If you don’t watch any porn and this blog has terrified the life out of you, have a bit of a search and see how quickly you come across violent porn. I bet it takes you less than 60 seconds of scrolling.
Professionals working with children and young people
If you are a professional, you can do absolutely everything I have listed for parents and you can also make it your mission to educate other professionals about the way language is changing to encourage the normalisation of sexual violence towards women and girls – especially as you may be working with young people you can influence through your direct work, counselling, youth work or in school sessions. I deliver porn workshops to children and trust me, they know WAY more about porn than you think. I learn something new about porn every time I talk to kids about porn. Don’t think that when you deliver your porn workshops in school, you will be shocking those teens – you will be talking to a large majority that have not only watched porn but have been significantly influenced by it. Seriously, I’ve taught teenage girls who have told me that they thought that having pubic hair was disgusting and weird because none of the women in porn have any. If you can’t face workshops about porn, build some on song lyrics and music videos – you will get all the same discussions. Teach other professionals, talk about the impact of porn, consider it in your line of work and if you can, talk to young people about porn and violence.
Other adults in society
If you are an adult in society but you don’t work with women or children or have any children of your own, you are still responsible for making our society safe for women and girls. We all are. Be aware of what you are listening to. Be aware of your language. Stop watching violent porn. Stop watching porn all together. Seek support if you feel you need help about the amount or the type of porn you are watching. If you are reading this and you know someone or you are someone who is turned on by violent porn, look for some support. If you want to affect change, get involved in anti-porn activism and help to change the world. Read up on the famous porn stars who have left the industry due to abuse, rape, drugging and injuries. Read their first-hand accounts of the violence and hatred in porn. Read Anti-Porn. Read Pornland. Read Porn Inc. Read about the abuse and rapes of Jenna Jameson and why she is now an anti-porn advocate. Educate yourself and seek to educate others. We already live in an extremely sexist world, we cannot let the language we use around sex become so inherently violent that the only way men and boys talk about sex with women and girls is to say to each other ‘Yeah man, I ruined her, I beat that shit up!’ If you hang out with friends like that, challenge them when they say it. If you are in a relationship where the sex always seems to be centred around hurting you or causing you pain, please seek help.
I don’t know about you, but I want my sex to be healthy, pleasurable, consensual and safe. I don’t want anyone to beat it up, hit it, nail it, destroy it or ruin it.
Boycott this language everywhere you hear it or see it.
With special thanks to Suzzan Blac, Julie Bindel, Gail Dines and Julia Long for their tireless and selfless work in this subject.
Jessica Eaton is a speaker, writer and researcher in forensic psychology, sexual violence, feminism and mental health. Visit her website, follow her on Twitter, or email her at [email protected].
If you have been affected by the content of this blog, please find some contacts you may find helpful below. If you don’t want to talk to a stranger or professional, talk to someone you love and trust. This topic is not easy to stomach sometimes and it is normal to be disturbed by sexual violence and abuse. Please don’t struggle alone.
1800RESPECT (1800 737 732)
The National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line for any Australian who has experienced or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
http://www.1800respect.org.au/
Lifeline (13 11 14)
A national number which can help put you in contact with a crisis service in your state. 24 hours, 7 days a week.
http://www.lifeline.org.au/
To access more services click here.