**Warning: the sound quality on this podcast is a bit uneven. The music is much louder than the talking segments. Please adjust your volume accordingly.**
Abstract:
We researched the connections between music and sexuality in an attempt to understand modern notions of sex, sexuality, and censorship and how they are related to representation in music. We also explored how individual artists in the music industry as a whole responded to censorship and how their responses influenced the sexual narrative of audiences. Through an intersectional approach, we also analyzed how other aspects of the “American” identity (i.e. race, class, gender, etc.) worked in conversation with the development of sexual discourse in the U.S.
Author Bios:
Marisa Leib-Neri: Marisa is an independent major in disability studies with a concentration in policy studies. She grew up in a household that avidly listened to uncensored rock and rap music and she turned out just fine.
Denisha Renovales: Denisha is a Sociology and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies double major. The daughter of two “hip-hop heads”, she hopes that this podcast will shed a light on the ridiculous double standards that the music industry adhered to in regards to censorship.
Jamie Schaforth: Jamie is a Psychology major with a concentration in Neuroscience. Jamie grew up with Tipper Gore as a father and hopes that her father listens to this podcast and is humbled.
Chanyce Wiliams: Chanyce is a Psychology major and interested in analyzing the psychological affects of music censorship. As a mom herself, she hopes that artistic freedom, particularly for marginalized identities, continues to be maintained in the U.S.
Let’s Talk About Sex: Parental Advisory Explicit Content
**Special Thanks to Carolyn Lewis and Gina Donovan for their constant support and guidance throughout this process.
Bibliography
Primary:
2 Live Crew, “The Fuck Shop”, Banned in the USA, Atlantic Records. 1989, Youtube.
Guns N’ Roses, “It’s So Easy”, Appetite for Destruction, Geffen Records. 1987, Youtube.
Kendrick Lamar, “DNA,” DAMN, Aftermath, 2017, Youtube.
Kendrick Lamar, “Humble,” DAMN, Aftermath, 2017, Youtube
Kulp, Denise, ‘Music Videos: Friday Night Sexism’, Off Our Backs, 14 (4), 1984, 21.
MTV News. “Tipper Gore Interview About Parents Music Resource Council | #TBMTV” [1988] YouTube Video, 1:34. [October 2016] https://youtu.be/Vjxe2lj1DZc
Winfield, Betty Houchin, and Sandra Davidson. Bleep! censoring rock and rap music. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Print.
Prince, “Darling Nikki”, Purple Rain, Warner Bros. 1984, Youtube.
Rolling Stones,”Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” Out of Our Heads. London. 1965,Youtube.
WordsWithMeaning. “The PMRC Hearing (Full) – Tipper Gore VS. Explicit Content. Feat Dee Snider, Zappa, Denver…”. [August 1985] YouTube
Video, 1:12:05. [May 2012]. https://youtu.be/d65BxvSNa2o
Secondary:
Agbo-Quaye, Séna, and Toby Robertson. “The motorway to adulthood: Music preference as the sex and relationships roadmap.” Sex Education 10, no. 4 (2010): 359-371.
Binder, Amy. “Constructing racial rhetoric: Media depictions of harm in heavy metal and rap music.” American sociological review (1993): 753-767.
Herd, “Conflicting paradigms on gender and sexuality in rap music: A systematic review,” Sexuality & Culture 19 (2015): 577 – 589.
Hall, P. Cougar, Joshua H. West, and Shane Hill. “Sexualization in lyrics of popular music from 1959 to 2009: Implications for sexuality educators.” Sexuality & Culture 16, no. 2 (2012): 103-117.
Heins, Marjorie. Not in front of the children: indecency, censorship, and the innocence of youth. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008.
Korpe, Marie. Shoot the singer!: music censorship today. London: Zed Books, 2004.
Kulp, Denise, ‘Music Videos: Friday Night Sexism’, Off Our Backs, 14 (4), 1984, 21.
Roberson, “Sex and music : Love in the club,” Men’s Health (2012): 27, 159.
McClane-Bunn, A. S. “Sex in the hillbilly field: Objectification of women in country music videos.” Media Report to Women 38, no. 4 (2010): 6-21.
Nuzum, Eric D. Parental advisory: music censorship in America. New York, NY: Perennial, 2004.
Schippers, Mimi. “The social organization of sexuality and gender in alternative hard rock: An analysis of intersectionality.” Gender & Society 14, no. 6 (2000): 747-764.
“Sexist Rap Music = Endorsing Sexism!” Women in Higher Education 17, no. 4 (04, 2008): 5.
Stephens, Dionne P., and April L. Few. “The effects of images of African American women in hip hop on early adolescents’ attitudes toward
Physical attractiveness and interpersonal relationships.” Sex Roles 56, no. 3-4 (2007): 251-264.
Turner, Jacob S. “Sex and the spectacle of music videos: An examination of the portrayal of race and sexuality in music videos.” Sex Roles 64, no. 3-4 (2011): 173-191.
Wallis, Cara. “Performing gender: A content analysis of gender display in music videos.” Sex Roles 64, no. 3-4 (2011): 160-172.
Whiteley, Sheila. Sexing the groove: Popular music and gender. Routledge, 2013.
Winfield, Betty Houchin, and Sandra Davidson. Bleep! censoring rock and rap music. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Print.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Section 1:
**Plays Kendrick song “Humble” clean version**
Denisha: In recent weeks rapper Kendrick Lamar released his fourth studio album. Entitled Damn, it provides a critique on current events in the U.S., including the current state of hip hop.
Chanyce: What else does the critically acclaimed album include? If you look at the bottom right corner of the cover you will notice a little black and white label that reads, “Parental Advisory Explicit Content”.
Jamie: Almost thirty years since the label made its debut, its presence in pop culture has become so normalized that people rarely think twice when they see it on an album. But what does this label really mean? How do we define explicit? Where does this label even come from? On this episode of *Let’s Talk about Sex* we are going to take a look at the history of the case that lead to the implementation of the Parental Advisory Label, the Tipper Gore case.
Marisa: As we look at the moment that defined our notion of what it means for a song to be “explicit” , we will also explore the history of censorship in the music industry. With a focus on the censorship of sexually suggestive lyrics, we hope to tackle the impact that the the Tipper Gore case and the parental advisory label that followed it have on present day discourse on music, sexuality, obscenity, and the freedom to express oneself.
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Section 2:
**Play “As Nasty as They Want to Be” from the 2 Live Crew album**
Denisha: The parental advisory explicit content label didn’t just appear from an onslaught of so-called explicit music. There was a major push for music censorship in politics that created a movement to censor music, specifically rap and heavy metal
Chanyce: This censorship movement was led by Tipper Gore who was married to Al Gore at the time and Susan Baker who was married to then Treasury Secretary James Baker, These two women and their comrades were called the washington wives.
Jamie: The wives and their witnesses testified that this type of music filled youthful ears with pornography and violence and glorified risky behaviors ranging from suicide and drug use to occultism and anti-patriotic activities.
Marisa: Tipper and the rest of her gang heavily encouraged censorship for God and country and the protection of precious children, of course we say that sarcastically.
Denisha: At the heart of this movement in 1987, Tipper Gore was quoted saying “We feel as we do because we know that children are special gifts, and deserve to be treated with love and respect, gentleness and honesty. They deserve security and guidance about living, loving, and relating to other people. And they deserve vigilant protection from the excesses of adult society.”
Chanyce: As we’ll get into later, there was a stark difference between why heavy metal was censored and rap was censored. Briefly, heavy metal music was censored in order to protect children from the apparent dangers of adult society.
Jamie: This is pretty different from rap music because rap music was thought to be a reflection of black culture that was inaccurately depicted as being riddled with sexual promiscuity, gang violence, drugs, and alcohol. So rather than protecting youth, Tipper Gore wanted to protect only the white side of society from the so-called dangers of black culture.
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Section 3:
**”Can’t Get No Satisfaction” Rolling Stone plays**
Marisa: In 1965 the infamous rock band The Rolling Stones released the song “I can’t get no satisfaction” detailing the lead singer’s sexual desires and other taboo topics like menstruation. The song was banned on the U.S radio almost immediately. Despite the initial censorship the song still rose to immense popularity around the world and is considered one of the greatest rock songs of all time.
Denisha: So how did we get here? And perhaps more importantly, how did the United States that explicitly protects free speech as a founding principle of its constitution end up with a widespread censorship of artistic expression?
Chanyce: The motives for censorship laws have not changed drastically over time. Historically, censorship was justified as a way to protect children from indecent content and maintain their youthful innocence.
Jamie: Censorship of sexual content in music began as a form of social control: the lyrics and sounds of music, particularly of rock and roll in the 1950’s and later in the 1980’s rap, were highly suggestive to children. Leading them towards deviant, taboo, even violent behaviors that would taint society as a whole and create a generation of youth that was ungovernable.
Marisa: Not all music was censored; only music deemed to be deviant, or rather not reflective of the larger cultural demographic: Christian Euro-Americans. Starting in the early 1920’s when the radio was at the height of popularity, African American artists were subjected to forms of music censorship not applied to white artists. African Americans could write and perform songs in intimate small platforms, but any national broadcasts of this same music would have to be performed by white artists.
Denisha: African American music, largely based in jazz rhythms and sounds, were determined shocking and disruptive in comparison to traditional European melodies. What isn’t shocking is that the same jazz, soul, and bluegrass music banned from performance in the early 1900’s became the inspiration for rock and roll and later rap. Music generated by the African American community was automatically labelled as deviant from the moment black artists began to express themselves. In many ways music became a culture clash–one that continues to this day.
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Section 4:
**Plays Prince Song “Darling Nikki”**
Chanyce: The lyrics you just heard are from Prince’s 1984 hit album Purple Rain. Titled, “Darling Nikki”, Prince openly describes an encounter he had in which he finds a young woman masturbating.
Jamie: Not even half way through the song, the single verse was all it took for as Tipper Gore, to decide that a change needed to be made in the music industry.
Marisa: The former wife of Politician Al Gore, Tipper’s position within politics allowed her, alongside a few other “washington wives” to bring their concerns about explicit content in music to the forefront, catapulting a movement that later became the The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC.)
Denisha: During the case, witnesses brought in to testify in favor of Gore, shared their sentiments toward a group of songs brought into question. Informally labeled the “filthy fifteen”, witnesses described their content as violent and pornographic, going as far as to say that the group of songs glorified self harm and sexual deviance.
Chanyce: In efforts to bring these potentially harmful lyrics to light, Tipper Gore and the PMRC suggested that albums should have a detailed label that included categories of obscenity. While the proposed label was not fully accepted, the Recording Industry Association of America agreed to create a label that stated “Parental Advisory” on albums. This label however, and to the dismay of Gore and the PMRC would remain at the discretion of the artist and their record label.
Jamie: The label we know today made its first appearance in the highly controversial 1990 release of rap group 2 Live Crew’s fourth album, cynically titled “Banned in the U.S.A.” after the original title, “As Nasty As They wanna Be” was labeled salacious.
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Section 5:
** Plays “DNA” by Kendrick snippet**
Marisa: So what exactly makes a song explicit and requiring censorship? A lot of it has to do with how music is framed by people in power – aka white Christian god-fearing Americans – and the media. As previously mentioned, the two music genres that were heavily censored were heavy metal and rap music.
Denisha: Heavy metal was censored to protect children from exposure to taboo topics like anti-patriotism, drug addiction, and violence. Rap was censored to protect society from black culture that was depicted as being violent and sexually promiscuous.
Chanyce: The media framed rap music as a threat to authorities, which suggested that people in positions of political power felt most threatened by contemporary music.
Jamie: Unlike the referent images of “my daughter” and “our own kids” that appeared in articles and speeches about heavy metal, the prominent rap frames referred to a very different young listener: a young, urban, black male, or more often a group of urban, black male youths.
Marisa: George Will who is a conservative commentator invoked in the Summer 1990 trial of the alleged Central Park rapists, wrote: Fact: some members of a particular age and social group-the one making 2 Live Crew rich- stomped and raped [a] jogger to the razor edge of death, for the fun of it.
Denisha: Politicians, albeit white ones, stated that listeners of rap music were lamented not because their activities were a concern to their safety, but because they would probably travel in packs, rape women, and terrorize society.
Chanyce: Commentators also drew on the fact rap songs tended to be more explicit than heavy metal songs. Rap songs depict graphic sex, and no heavy metal songs and two rap songs portrayed violence against the police.
Jamie: For example, using George Will’s example from the rap group the 2 Live Crew’s rap song, “The Fuck Shop” the lyrics were considered more explicit. Some examples include:
**Plays “The Fuck Shop” 2 Live Crew**
Marisa: Overall, mainstream writers were not concerned about the detrimental effects of the graphic music on teenaged listeners, as they had been for heavy metal, but were concerned about the dangers black youths posed to the society at large.
Denisha: The societal belief that black kids pose more of a threat to society than “our kids” was reflected in the arguments about “black” teenagers’ cultural objects.
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Section 6:
**Guns and Roses “It’s So Easy” **
Chanyce: So why are some songs censored so heavily while others pass without much controversy from mainstream society? The answer lies in the implicit biases that shape what we define as explicit content and therefore what needs to be censored.
Jamie: Scholar, George Shaw said that censorship is an inherently conservative action performed by those who desire to preserve tradition. He Pointed out that musical censorship is based on morality phenomenons that are solely dependent on the majority- making this censorship inherently raced, classes, and gendered.
Marisa: Therefore, the reason songs like Guns and Roses “It’s so easy” remained on the radio, while songs like Prince’s “Darling Nikki” quickly hit the United States banned list is because despite the fact that these songs are filled with sexist sexual lyrics these lyrics still reinforce traditional gender roles by portraying women as subordinate passive characters and men as dominant authoritative actors in sexual encounters. Darling Nikki on the other hand presents a woman who not only masturbates and has casual sex, but she initiates these encounters.
Denisha: This style of gender binding and overt sexual expression is not unique to Prince however. In fact, studies show that Black Entertainment Television, or BET, videos depicted significantly more “discouraged sexual behaviors” than videos from CMT, VH1, and MTV. In addition, African American videos were significantly more likely to portray sexual content and female characters in provocative clothing than White videos.
Chanyce: In his article, Shaw notes that whatever is contrary to established manners, customs, and ideologies is immoral and therefore is considered deviant. But again who is the majority and decides what is immoral? The answer is again a very upper class Christian white population who explains their inherent racial and gendered biases as deviant and deflecting away from traditional customs, ideologies, and morals.
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Section 7:
**CLIP of Tipper Gore Interview (Speaking on Children)**
Jamie: So was Tipper Gore correct? Does music shape individual’s sexual identities? And more importantly, if music does shape an individual’s sexual identity what effect does censoring music that reflects and reinforces a person’s sexual identity have on that group?
Marisa: To answer the first question, we will look at an article from Sex Education titled “The motorway to adulthood” This article found that young people’s preferred genre and artists were found to be associated with all aspects of their lives and culture, with music functioning specifically as an educational tool for adult relationships. Thus, music influences sexual decisions.
Denisha: The findings from these studies indicate that the norms portrayed by young people’s preferred genres reinforce beliefs about sex and adult relationships. This can be both empowering or degrading to an individual’s identity formation.
Chanyce: Take African American girls for example: Hip Hop music has a long history of hyper sexualizing African-American female bodies This causes an internalized struggle for African-American women to fulfill European as well as African-American beauty standards. Studies show that this internalize and very physical search for beauty has caused negative health outcomes, higher levels of stress, more promiscuous behavior, and greater acceptance of abuse in African-American woman. African-American women are also found to engage in more disease causing sexual behaviors when associated with high consumerism of hip-hop music.
Jamie: Also, hip-hop directly shapes and limits African-American women’s choice and identity formation by reinforcing stereotypes. Such evidence could possibly be used as a tool for censorship. On the other hand some studies prove that hip-hop music also serves as a form of empowerment and reclaiming of African American bodies and sexuality. Some artist like Mary J. Blige, Beyoncé, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj are consistent advocates of embracing and loving not only the African-American American body but the African-American experience as well.
Marisa: Therefore although music may have negative effects on sexual identity formation, for some censoring sexualized music may Delegitimize some underrepresented identities that have used music as a platform to say that their lives, their experiences, and their identities are important and should be recognized. Censoring music may tell teenagers as their sexual identity and choices form, that they aren’t valid or acceptable.
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Section 8:
**Plays “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar***
Denisha: Did the Tipper Gore case and the parental advisory label and the accomplish what it intended? In some ways yes. Artists voluntarily put the label on their albums, or per the suggestion of their agents. Artists who use explicit lyrics put the label on their CDs to avoid potential lawsuits. In this way, music that is explicit, is at least labeled as such.
Chanyce: However, what the parental advisory label actually accomplished is a type of protection for artists. As long as they place the advisory label on their albums, they are free to express themselves in whatever ways they want. While certain retailers can refuse to carry the album due to its content, the actual content itself isn’t censored.
Jamie: Additionally, the parental advisory label did not affect album sales. There is no evidence that “clean” versions of an album sell more copies than its explicit counterpart. The parental advisory label also didn’t serve its original purpose to protect youth or protect youth from something as there’s been no evidence that censoring music equates to a safer and happier society.
Marisa: All in all, it actually could be argued that the advisory label actually increased the sales of certain rock and rap albums. While the impact of music on young listeners, whether negative or positive, will continue to be disputed, what started as a way to control a form of artistic expression may have actually turned out to unlock the pathway for artists to openly contribute to sexual discourse and distribute it to the masses. In turn, this allowed listeners of all ages to access a multitude of sexual narratives as they begin to develop their own.
Everyone: So here’s a special shout out to you Tipper Gore
**Ends with “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar**
