George Carlin famously explained modern censorship in his comedy act: "There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven you can't say on television … You know the seven, don't ya? That you can't say on TV? S---, piss, f---, c---, c---sucker, motherf---er and tits."
I'm going to go ahead and guess that you can't say "cunnilingus" either.
If you can say cunnilingus (what a great word, huh?) on TV or, as it were, on the radio, there's no reason for Rihanna's last single of 2010 to exist: "What's My Name," a catchy pop ditty featuring Drake about, well, cunnilingus.
It's shocking that the public isn't shocked about the song. It's possible that no one is listening closely or that the general population is more concerned with Miley Cyrus's bong hit or Justin Bieber doing whatever it is that the Biebs is up to lately. But Rihanna's song is bold, to say the very least.
The song is basically about how much Rihanna digs guys who perform oral sex on her. She's not going to say "vagina" in the song because it would sound ridiculous, and most of the popular euphemisms for the female genitalia are definitely not okay for radio play. Instead, we get "na na" and the total and complete refusal, or inability, to say … the word in question.
Drake, who is notorious for endearingly horrible and lame lines, drops quite possibly the lamest line ever. He kicks off this ode to … well, you know ..., with: "The square root of 69 is eight something, right?"
Yes. Right. It's ~8.31, but how nerdy can you get? It's like one of those ads on the T that's a hard math problem, and if you can solve it you get a job at some big computer company in Cambridge. Only instead of a cushy position at Google, you get a groaner (or a "moaner," if you will): the punch line to Drake's weird, lame joke about a sexual position: "Ate something."
If you don't get it, Google it. Or, you know what, don't. Don't Google it.
Drake goes on to wax idiotic on the unenumerated "things we can do in twenty minutes, girl" and then disappears from the song, leaving an uncomfortable taste in our mouths. From here, Rihanna lets loose with her own far-from-subtle lyrics: "Hey boy, I really wanna see/ If you can go downtown with a girl like me," "You've got something that keeps me so off-balanced/ … Let's explore your talent" and, the ultimate too-flustered-to-keep-singing verse, "Looking for a guy to put in work/ Oh uh oh/ Oh." She trails off to — ahem — catch her breath. Nice.
Almost all rap songs reference fellatio like it's a fact of life. It's almost hard to think of a rapper who hasn't rhymed about it: from Three 6 Mafia's "Slob on my Knob" (2005), to Raekwon's "Gihad" (2009), to Three 6 Mafia's "I'd Rather" (2008), to Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" (2008), to Three 6 Mafia's "Put Cha D--- in Her Mouth" (2003) — these jokes, it seems, will never go out of style.
While everyone brags about receiving, few emcees ever talk about giving. Besides Drake's impressive math skills, only a couple of recent lines spring to mind, both appearing in Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Friday posse cuts: J.Cole, on "Looking For Trouble" (2010), raps, "They say you are what you eat/ And I still ain't p----," and Kanye, on "Christian Dior Denim Flow" (2010), drops the line "I'm tryna eat out/ So what we going to dinner for?"
Also, I would be remiss if in this particular discussion I didn't make note of Khia's classic "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)" (2002, ultimately just the female version of "Slob on my Knob") or underground rap trio CunninLynguists. This stuff is out there.
It's definitely a touchy subject, and it can be awkward if it's not approached correctly, but if rappers keep an open mind, cunnilingus can be fun for everyone.
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Mitchell Geller is a senior majoring in psychology and English. He can be reached at Mitchell.Geller@Tufts.edu.
