“My Girl Got A Girlfriend”

By Kimberley K. McLeod ~ It’s your typical hip-hop and R&B video. Scantily clad women. An outdoor pool. Champagne bottles. Lesbians. Yes, lesbians. These women may not be your typical idea of a music video cameo, but it’s becoming more common for male R&B and hip-hop artists to sing and rap about discovering their girlfriends with other women. In their songs these men aren’t upset about the adulterous discovery; on the contrary, they are requesting (or demanding) that their girlfriends include them!

This male fascination with lesbian and bisexual women is nothing new and certainly not exclusive to hip-hop and R&B. More recent songs by artists, including Omarion (“Think My Girl Is”), Lil’ Wayne and Drake (“Every Girl”) and Ray Lavender (“My Girl Got A Girlfriend”), can now be added to the playlist of songs that mention women being both attracted to and intimate with other women. 

While women (and men) have been critical of hip-hop’s more blatant lyrics and videos that objectify women, some don’t seem to be up in arms about its portrayal of same-sex relations.

“I wouldn’t think two sh*ts about it,” says Modupe Akiwumi, a 25-year-old lesbian from Hyattsville, Maryland.

Akiwumi adds that the women portrayed in these videos do not reflect the type of women she dates so she is unaffected by their depiction. “Some girls are open to that – whether gay or straight – you know the whole ménage [á trios], fulfilling guys’ fantasy type of thing. I just date girls that are into girls,” Akiwumi says.

But should women be concerned about lyrics that declare, “Havin’ two chicks is better than no chicks/I’d rather just join in/Keep my girl and keep the other one too?” Natasha Forrester, a 21-year-old from New York City who considers herself heterosexual, believes they should be.

“Whether the women are gay or straight does not matter. The problem is that they are being objectified and hypersexualized,” Forrester says. CONTINUE READING...