“…boys and girls are eroticized through their exposure to negative Rap music and videos…their sexuality is being manipulated and strongly influenced by the lyrics, video images and personalities of the Rap industry- and it is an industry.†(Michael Porter, ‘Rap and the Eroticizing of Black Youth’ 2006). It seems sex has become a necessity for the lyrical content of rap music, but is this really another reason for the British youth crime? Is there a prevalent link between ‘Candy Shop Bitches and Whores’, the ‘Poor excuse for Porn’ videos and the omission of young people’s sexual health, emotional attachment to future spouses, domestic violence and even a rise in teen pregnancies? This article explores the sexual and misogynistic attributes in corrupted Hip Hop culture.
Extensive research from Sociologists like Michael Porter (mentioned above) has suggested that adolescent hormones are easily “manipulated†by sex. Corporate companies (namely MTV) create sexualised hip hop videos with strong lyrical content to hypnotise youths into buying products which expose them to sexual experiences they may not be ready for. Porter argues that young males who try to emulate their “Rap idol,†tend to fall for the idea of men having to be “hard†and not express any emotion other than anger and misogyny thus, the anger can lead to unexplainable violence which goes beyond the boundaries of the law and leads to a cycle of criminal minds and criminal actions.
If what Porter suggests is true then the ‘eroticisation’ in Hip Hop by way of explicit imagery in videos, advertising and lyrical content has an impact on how youth’s depict and develop relationships; the idolisation of rappers combined with mounts of videos that equate women with cars, jewellery and alcohol encourages young males to see women as objects, thus paving the way for becoming desensitised to domestic violence and seeing hitting a woman as putting her in her place and emphasising one’s male authority.
As for young girls who are exposed to these images (which in many cases are altered via make up, camera angles, air brushing, lighting, etc), they are lead to believe they are inferior to these size six models; their prepubescent bodies are no match to what they see every day and for acceptance and a mans love, they must behave and look the same way as the woman they see on the video which as we know has paved the way for low self esteem and eating disorders.
Furthermore, their idea of what makes a ‘real man’ becomes distorted (particularly for those girls who grew up without a father), making them susceptible to ‘thuggish men’ and accepting that objectification of women and being mistreated is acceptable. What’s more heartbreaking is the idea of women not only approving but promoting this behaviour; you only have to look and listen to Destiny’s Child’s ‘Solider’ single to find this more than evident!
But what about the years before corrupt Hip Hop when women were seen as inferior to men? When it was acceptable for a man to beat his wife, use his daughters for dowry or rape enslaved women to create more cotton pickers? Alice Walkers ‘The Color Purple’ and Maya Angelou’s ‘I know why a Cage bird sings’ depict these situations in their rawest forms. Women are still being trafficked and seen as ‘man’s helper’ and this is a custom shared amongst a multitude of cultures. So why blame Hip Hop?
Perhaps the overly sexualised videos do not represent Hip Hop but rather, reflect the way women have been seen in a mans world for centuries? Maybe the subject of misogyny is more controversial because it is no longer taboo and is spread across our TV screens and magazines? Possibly the videos we see are merely a result of what a ‘mans world’ has done to women which has now created a cycle we cannot get out of?
As can be seen from this article and the ones written before, Hip Hop being completely, partially, or not even nearly responsible for the current state of youth crime is down to individual opinion, but in my opinion, the culture has been made a scapegoat and we’ll be delving deeper into how and why in the next article.
Until next time, stay blessed,
Nadia Gasper.