Ben Shapiro & the Black Feminine Erotic
Originally written on August 13th, 2020
Deconstructing reactions to Cardi B x Megan Thee Stallion's WAP. The functionalities of anti-Blackness and white patriarchy and the ways in which they converge in the existence of the Erotic Black Feminine cannot be understated.
In the time of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, widespread critical reactions to WAP are timely, highlighting the deep performativity of near ubiquitous calls for Black Lives Matter. Ben Shapiro’s viral video reciting and maligning WAP serves as an opportunity to isolate pervasive narratives about Black Feminine Sexuality.
1) Anchored by the Jezebel archetype of Black femininity
2) For critics of WAP including Ben Shapiro, the music video becomes a confirmation of the perversity that is at the core of untamed Blackness and Black life force, an illness be diagnosed and cured by white institution and controlled and managed by patriarchal representatives
"As I also discussed on the show, my only real concern is that the women involved, who apparently require a “bucket and a mop” get the medical care they require. My doctor wife’s differential diagnosis: bacterial vaginosis, yeast infection or trichmonis" - Ben Shapiro
3) Shapiro’s comments refers to the role of white femininity since chattel slavery, to serve as peak representation of the ideal feminine and a figure who presides over Black women to civilize them into tempered beasts fit for the purity of the white home
4) Comments by Ben Shapiro are a clear iteration and call for medical intervention which, in the long and contemporary history of America, has been a site of direct violence against Black women. They allude to the need to deaden and amputate the power of the erotic, as a means of self-knowing and self-actualization, from the Black feminine experience. This is reminiscent of the literal forced sterilization & removal of Black peoples' reproductive capacity based on a belief that Black people, no longer producing new chatel slaves through procreation, are incapable and unfit to decide on or experience parenthood.
5) In general, Shapiro’s comments are a denial of feminine erotic capacity: a timeworn and hackneyed patriarchal device to justify inherent sexual difference and the dominance of masculinity over the feminine. There are dual justifying narratives which are the uncontrollable and dangerous nature of the feminine erotic is a weakness of character, "too emotional." And an alternate/simultaneous narrative of feminine libido as inferior or ineffectual - a proxy for weakness and lack of creative power. Here, the feminine is dangerous and needlessly uncontrolled, and thus exposes a weakness of character. There are calls to suppress the libidinal fervor of the feminine erotic to maintain "order" and "decency." Both codes for social control used to justify the most violent of actions against Black communities.
Thumbnail image taken by YouTuber, BabyGirlTos, and sourced from Wikimedia Commons
