Christina Aguilera has never shied away from selling her music with overt sexuality, and she recently took yet another shimmy away from her original straight-laced persona when she told a UK interviewer that “Two women are way sexier than two men in bed. We have a better feel for our bodies.”
She went on to add, “I love experimenting with my sexuality. Sex is a beautiful thing. I like having sex. It’s fun.”
Not one to be outdone, pop star and lesbian look-alike Pink recently told the UK’s Heat Magazine “I’m trisexual. I’ll try anything once.”So does this mean that Christina and Pink are finally coming out? Or is it yet another example of pop stars exploiting lesbianism for profit?
I believe it’s neither. Instead, Christina and Pink are following in the footsteps of the many women before them – from the leaders of the sexual revolution in the 1960s to Madonna and Angelina Jolie in the 1990s – who have declared their love for and right to have sex.
Women who, like Pink nor Christina, are not concerned with identifying themselves as gay or straight; they are simply insisting that they like to have sex, and it doesn’t matter whether their partner is a man or a woman. It’s the media that wants them to choose a box.
“I love experimenting with my sexuality,” Christina told Zoo Magazine in January. “If that means girls then so be it. It would be wrong to hide this side of my personality.” This is part of Christina’s overall attitude towards sex. “I have casual sex, I love casual sex,” she said in the same inteview, and continued. “What is so wrong with a 22-year-old woman showing her sexuality? If people want to insult me, let them. Call me a slag [British slang for a prostitute]. If being a slag means being a strong woman, I’ll gladly be that.”
You have to admire Christina’s gumption, since she obviously recognizes that our society still adheres to a double standard in which male promiscuity is expected but sexy women are castigated as sluts, but refuses to let it control her.
Of course, Christina definitely plays up her sex appeal at times to sell records (witness last year’s kiss with Madonna at the Video Music Awards), but she is arguably controlling her image rather than being controlled by it.
