Let’s Talk About Sex: The Radical Sexual Politics of Early Women in Blues

In the early 20th century, women at the epoch of the blues revival challenged the constrictive dominant culture with their fearless willingness to discuss the sexual lives of Black people.

In Let’s Talk About Sex, writers talk about sex. And music.

Written by Kaileen Rooks

Photos courtesy of Carl Van Vechten and Getty Images

In 1996, Lil’ Kim released her first solo album, Hard Core. Raunchy and vulgar, Kim’s sex-positive lyricism flipped the script of female objectification in the male-dominated rap scene. This album spearheaded the surge of female rap that did not shy away from shameless sexuality. The theme continues to this day with Nicki Minaj, Megan Thee Stallion, and a host of other modern female trap, rap, and hip-hop artists. However, the bold lyricism of modern female rappers was preceded by the early Black women of the blues. The first luminaries of the genre were Black women, whose sincerity and bold honesty pioneered sexual liberation for Black women in the music world.

The blues genre rose to fame following emancipation, a time when the private lives of Black people were restructured to exist without the mark of enslavement as a comprehensive system, although Jim Crow and convict leasing continued to facilitate systemic oppression. This shift allowed for the proliferation of the arts among Black communities, specifically artistic works that reflected historic and current struggles with oppression; the nature of the blues inherently derived from melancholy, down to the name itself. Though oppression was still a reality, Black people founded a new social and sexual landscape for themselves in society post-abolition. By regaining relative open expression of their personal lives, Black people reconstructed their intimate relationships and inculcated a sense of power into attitudes toward interpersonal affairs. This allowed Black artists to explore their private lives more deeply, and to revel in an increased ability to cut loose. However, these new subjects were still entirely averse to the general public, which still considered sexuality -– and especially that of Black women -– as inherently profane. Public culture in this time period was heavily influenced by the Protestant religious sects that had gained ground at the turn of the century, namely Fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, and Evangelism. All three emphasized a lifestyle based on restraint, and tied their religious views to conservative associates with “traditional American values” that entailed hard-working, self-discipline, and (subtextually) a white, rich, male centered worldview. Thus, both the identity of Black blues women and their indulgence in unrestricted life, made them antagonistic figures to the emerging cultural conceptions pushed by these religious movements. The pushback they faced from the general public, though, only heightened the power of the progressive, rebellious politics of early women in blues.

Bessie Smith, dubbed the “Empress of the Blues,” was a quintessential proponent of sexual liberation in 1920s blues. Her lyrical sincerity and brazen obscenity (both in her music and in her personal life) shocked the public. In spite of the backlash, she advocated for an unprecedented level of freedom for Black women. In “What’s the Matter Now,” a song rife with sexual innuendo, Smith beckons to a nameless lover, insisting that “Mama wants some honey from that honeycomb.” Amid a jaunty, breezy beat, Smith drawls for her lover to stop mistreating her and start giving her sexual pleasure. The track endows her with her own sense of lewd desire, communicating her direct agency in the realm of sex.

Similarly, the slow, sultry track “Young Woman’s Blues” disavows marriage and expresses Smith’s love of drinking, sexual pleasure, and partying. Smith’s luscious tone lays over the idle backbeat of a piano, accompanied by the mellow droning of a cornet and clarinet. The lyrics emphasize Smith’s enjoyment of the wild side of life, insisting, “I’m a young woman and ain’t done runnin’ round.” Her lewd desires are an extension of her strong sense of self-worth. Expressing this confidence, Smith asserts that “I’m a good woman / And I can get plenty men.” The song not only expresses Smith’s acute knowledge of her own value, it also highlights her intention to capitalize on it, reveling in sex and booze. She knows life has much to offer her, and she intends to collect.

“Young Woman’s Blues” was not Smith’s first musical exaltation of self-worth, but it was the first of her songs that placed her sense of pride in direct relation to sex. Her radical connection of self-determination to sex, while certainly upsetting some more conservative members of 1920s society, was an early representation of empowerment. The main reason her perspective was given more ground as a source of inspiration is due to Smith’s extreme popularity. Smith was beloved, her vocal abilities were so renowned that the public was receptive to whatever rhetoric she produced — no matter how progressive it was. Booze, sex, and partying might not seem “progressive” or radical nowadays, but the culture of the early 20th century was heavily conservative and restrictive to the so-called finer things in life. Especially in relation to Black women’s enjoyment of indulgence, making Smith’s overt debauchery scandalous.

Mentor to Bessie Smith and revolutionary in her own right, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey frequently presented herself as brazenly sexual, daring, and entirely self-sufficient. “Hear Me Talking To You” is a declaration of self-worth, specifically in a sexual context. Rainey’s husky vocals instruct her lover that “What it takes to get in these hips of mine” is to “Fetch it when you come.” She also warns them that “[She] doesn’t bite [her] tongue,” and maintains high standards for her sexual partners. In a striking early example of queer affirmation through music, “Prove It On Me Blues” openly declares Rainey’s sexual interest in women and describes her active pursuit of them, that she “Talks to the gals just like any old man.” This track’s theme is accentuated by Rainey’s characteristically guttural, sultry voice, which, throughout her discography, operates as an instrument unto itself. With audacious honesty and provocative self-assurance, Rainey not only affirms her sexual agency, but she also extends it to breach the conventional constructions around sexual orientation of the time, providing a rare example of early Black women in the blues using music to redefine their sexual identities.

Whereas Rainey and Smith, though outspoken and incredibly forthright, mostly confined their vulgarity to some level of subtlety and innuendo, other Black blues women rose to fame as “dirty blues” singers. The dirty blues is a sub-genre, marked for explicit lyricism about sex and drugs. By 1940, the genre was banned from the radio, but that didn’t hinder its popularity. Lucille Bogan, a former sex worker who gained prominence under her stage name Bessie Jackson, was one of the most notable proponents of the dirty blues. In the heady vocals of “Shave ‘Em Dry,” Bogan asserts that “I would f-ck you baby / Honey I would make you cry.” Her provocative lyrics contrast almost humorously with the playful, lively tune of the track, bolstered by Bogan’s lilting laughs and a sprightly piano. Not only is the song wildly obscene — it also portrays Bogan as the dominant figure in her sexual relations. She takes sexual liberation one step further by reversing traditional standards of binary gender roles in sex. Bogan, like Rainey, discussed queer sexuality in her music, specifically in the song “B.D Woman’s Blues” (B.D. meaning “bulld-gger”), which describes a class of Black lesbian women and their lack of reliance on men for sexual pleasure. The bawdiness of her lyrics and oppositional sexual interpretation that restored power to the woman was taboo to the common, constrained culture of the time, and presented a radical refusal of its rigid ideologies.

The prominent blues women of the time, including these three, had discographies deeply rooted in inherent self-assurance, particularly in terms of their own sexuality. This conceptualization of sexuality being in the sole hands of the Black woman was a wildly different message compared to the restrictive slavery-era narrative that continuously aimed to circumscribe their sexual experiences. Black women in the blues were not only revolutionary in the reclamation of their agency and self-definition in sexuality, they also comprised a cultural resistance to the presiding oppressive ideologies of the time — a resistance that persists to this day.