Sexuality in music videos

Pop star Rihanna (wearing white) performs S&M while chained during the Loud Tour in 2011. Her dominatrix (wearing black) is sitting in the background.

Sexuality in music videos has been evident since the 1980s. The extent in which stereotypes align with gender portrayal varies each decade. Music video content has remained culturally relevant and subliminally influential on adolescent character development. In addition, the intersectionality between race and gender is evident throughout music video history. By analyzing the correlation between music video material and gender representation, conclusions can be drawn pertaining to how music television impacts young adults' perception of their appropriate societal behavior.

1980s

On August 1, 1981, the first 24-hour music video channel aired.^[1] Directed towards adolescents, MTV promoted societal trends through video content and advertisements. The material displayed helped the audience identify appropriate male and female roles, behaviors, and careers.^[1] In the 1980s, typical feminine stereotypes included: submissive, performed household duties, emotional.^[2] Contrastingly, common male clichés were as follows: dominant, professional occupations, aggressive.^[2] Young adults mainly watched MTV because it was different from other programs, they were intrigued by the unification of visuals and music, and used it as "leisure time entertainment".^[3] Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Michael Jackson, and Guns N' Roses were leading significant figures, displayed on MTV. Music Television had a commanding influence on its audience and heavily effected the ways adolescents viewed their societal role.^[3]

Music videos, released in the 1980s, typically depicted women as alluring objects. Aligning with typical stereotypes, women were portrayed as attractive, yet submissive. Although women's talents may be acknowledged, their skill never surpassed the male's—this concept is evident in AC/DC's video for "Sink the Pink".^[2] In the Rock n' Roll video, one of the main characters is a self-assured woman, who is a skillful pool player; the woman utilizes her talent and sexuality as an attention getter, but is not shown as more talented than the male characters.

In a study, conducted in 1987, thirty hours of MTV content was analyzed. The research performed helped draw further conclusions, regarding sexuality in 1980s music videos. The results suggested: 57% of music videos displayed women being objectified, 17% showed women's talents being accounted for, yet her sexual role was highlighted, 14% did not align with typical stereotypes, 12% acknowledged women's independence.^[2] In addition to these results, touching was displayed in over 50% of music videos and females were frequently seen in seductive clothing.^[3]

1990s

Music remained an essential part of the cultural evolution of the 1990s. The music scene transitioned into the darker and more provocative sounds of the genres of alternative, hip-hop, and R&B. Popular music videos of the time came from artists such as Nirvana, Notorious B.I.G., Aaliyah, Weezer, and RadioHead. While the acclaimed artists and genres of the times differed form the previous decade, the visual depictions of this music and how they were delivered to the public remained the same. MTV remained socially relevant in constructing images to correlate to music, helping propel youth culture into the atmosphere of visual experiences. As music videos grew in popularity and cultural prominence, researchers became continually fascinated by the link between gender identities and mass media platforms. Several studies have been conducted regarding gender portrayals in music videos of the 1990s.

In early 1990, MTV created a Program Standards Department which aimed to reject music videos featuring extremely graphic and explicit content. The program sought to prohibit any signs of female nudity and violence directed toward female figures. For example, MTV rejected Madonna's "Justify my Love" video due to its explicit content. After this program was implemented, a study was conducted to analyze the centrality and depiction of women in the most 100 popular videos of the decade. The study first sorted men and women in the categories of either leading or supporting figures in the videos, discovering that men outnumbered women in lead roles by an astronomical 5 to 1 margin.^[4] Secondly, the study categorized the lead roles into seven main portrayals (artist, poser, comic, actress, superhuman, dancer, or crowd pleaser). The analysis found that a majority of women in lead roles were portrayed as either posers (35%) or dancers (29%) while men in lead roles were more equally disbursed amongst the seven categories.^[4] Portraying women predominately as dancers or posers implied that, in the 90s, women needed not to display musical talent, but instead physical talent that emphasized a sexual attitude. Meanwhile, the equal disbursement of men amongst the categories suggested that men could better exhibit skills of musical and performing prowess.^[4]

Other studies analyzed 123 music videos from varying genres that aired in the summer of 1995. 44.7% of the videos failed to feature a female in a central role, while 31.7% of the videos portrayed women as conventional, meaning that they served as either objects or sensory props to romantic male desire.^[5] However, the overt sexual nature of women in these videos was not the only thing analyzed. Gender displays in the form of nonverbal sexual cues were also considered, proving that women could also be depicted more subliminally sexual than men. For example, in the videos only 1.24% of men touched their hair compared to 38.35% of females.^[6] Additionally, only .74% of males danced suggestively in their videos compared to 26.80% of females. The study examines the distinction between the prominence and depiction of male and female gender portrayals within the music videos of the 1990s.

2000s

Singer Britney Spears performs in The Circus tour in Miami, 2009

Music remained integral to cultural life in the 2000s, while not many new genres were created during this time other than a few indie-related and electronic genres. Teen Pop carried a heavy influence over from the 90s into the first part of the decade. Artists such as Britney spears Christina Aguilera, NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. By the mid 2000s Contemporary R&B had become the most popular genre with artists such as Usher at the forefront.

A study conducted by Jacob Turner in 2008, hypothesized that African American genres of music (hip-hop, rhythm, and blues) would feature the most sexual content in their music videos while White genres (Country and Rock) would feature less. The study found that 73% of all music videos had some sort of sexual content. Further, the study found that 90.09% of mixed Hip-Hop and R&B music videos contained sexual content. Followed by Hip-Hop with 79.7%, R&B with 76.9%. The genres that contained the least amount of sexual content on their music videos were rock with 40.0% and Country with 37.0%. The study also looked into how African American and White wallpaper characters were dressed in music videos. It found that African American wallpaper characters were three times more likely to dress provocatively than White wallpaper characters.The study also found that while African Americans were not underrepresented in music videos. However, the study proposes that this is because videos featuring African Americans featured significantly more sexual content than videos that featured Whites.^[7]

2010s

Into the 2010s, artists have continued to garner headlines for provocative content in music videos. For example, Rihanna's music video for the song "S&M", in which she simulates sex with a life-sized doll and wears bondage gear, generated much media attention and was banned in 11 countries. YouTube required its users to verify they were 18 years of age before being able to view the video.^[8] The director of the video, Melina Matsoukas, responded to the controversy by saying she felt the video was a success because the provocative imagery creating a dialogue around the video.^[9] Conversely, Ariana Grande's "Everyday" video depicts several couples beginning to have sex in various public places, such as on the bus, was praised for its sex positivity and inclusion of different races and sexual orientations.^[10]

Recent research has looked into the effects that music videos that sexually objectify women have on women's body image perceptions. A study of college students found that young women were more likely to view their body in a negative light after exposure to a sexually-objectifying music video, particularly in women with low self-esteem. The same study found that exposure to sexually objectifying music videos lessened the extremity of young women's conception of an ideal body weight.^[11] A 2017 study found a relationship between sexual content in dance music videos and negative attitudes toward sex and sexuality among young adults in the United States and Australia.^[12]

Some scholars have noted that sexualized content in music videos rarely depicts non-heterosexuality. Frederik Dhaenens has pointed out that when music videos to feature gay content, it is oftentimes involves a "heteronormative shaping of gay and lesbian identities", citing Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "Same Love" as an example.^[13]

Depictions of race

Studies have shown that music videos featuring African American characters tend to feature significantly more depictions of sexual acts than videos featuring white characters.^[14] For example, African American women are the most likely group of people to be depicted as engaging in sexual behaviors and wearing provocative clothing. A study in the American Journal of Health Education attributed music videos' "frank sexual messages, objectification, and overtly sexual images" to an apathy toward these behaviors in African American girls, which the journal considered dangerous in light of the heightened HIV risk for African Americans.^[14] It has been suggested by scholar Jacob Turner that white-run corporations like Viacom (which owns MTV) are more willingly to pay for music videos from African American artists that perpetuate racial and sexual stereotypes as an explanation for why African Americans videos are disproportionately sexualized compared to white videos.^[15]

Asian artists, such as BoA, have been accused of presenting Western stereotypes of Asian female sexuality in their music videos as an attempt to gain popularity in the United States. Japan's Koda Kumi and AKB48 also presents sexuality in their music videos. Male K-pop star Rain's music video for his song "Rainism" has been credited with helping to refute stereotypes of Asian men as effeminate and weak depicting an Asian man in various sexual situations, primarily with white women.^[16]

See also

• Censorship of music
• Exploitation of women in mass media
• Misogyny in rap music
• Nudity in music videos
• Sexual objectification
• Sexploitation film

References