When it was released in the summer of 2020, Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B’s viral single and music video “WAP” (an acronym for “Wet-Ass Pussy”) exploded, receiving 25.5 million views within twenty-four hours and debuting at number one on the US and global charts, becoming the first female collaboration ever to do so. Soon after, the internet was consumed with a debate about the hypersexual aspects of the lyrics and video. Many cultural commentators praised the song as a sex-positive anthem and claimed that, in rapping about explicit sexual details and their desires, Cardi and Megan were asserting their agency and enacting an overdue role reversal. Others argued that the song and video were setting feminism back a hundred years.

The last time a music video sparked such a heated debate around women’s empowerment and sexuality was in 2013, with “Blurred Lines,” cowritten and performed by Robin Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I. The video featured three women dancing around almost completely naked. I was one of those women.

“Blurred Lines” propelled me to overnight fame at age twenty-one. To date, the censored version, which partially conceals our nakedness, received approximately 721 million views on YouTube and the song is one of the best-selling singles of all time. The “uncensored” version was removed from YouTube soon after its release, citing violations of the site’s terms of service; it was restored and then taken down again, only adding to its controversial allure.