Megan Thee Stallion: WAP "Freaks Men the Hell Out"

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” has topped numerous year-end music lists, hailed as the best song of 2020 by the likes of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and NPR. But despite the accolades, the unabashed ode to female sexuality still managed to piss off plenty of people this year, particularly male ones.

Why? Because, as Megan Thee Stallion herself told GQ, the idea of women celebrating their sexuality and exercising agency over their own bodies “freaks men the hell out.”

“Some people just don’t know what to do when a woman is in control and taking ownership of her own body,” the artist told GQ‘s Jonathan Heaf. “I feel like for a long time men felt like they owned sex and now women are saying, ‘Hey, this is for me. I want pleasure. This is how I want it or don’t want it.’”

Notable examples of inordinate male outrage hurled against “WAP” when it debuted over the summer include a viral video of conservative commentator Ben Shapiro reading the lyrics aloud, in which, as Dani Di Placido of Forbes put it, “Shapiro repeats the sexually explicit phrases with stilted, painful apprehension, as though the words themselves could summon a succubus with a swollen rear.” In addition to the awkward recitation of what turned out to be the most-Googled lyrics of the year, Shapiro also took to Twitter to air his “WAP” grievances, claiming his wife suggested vaginal wetness as described in the song could only occur as the result of infection in what has been called “perhaps the world’s most predictable self-own.”

Ben Shapiro reporting that his MD wife told him she's never gotten wet during their relationship except as a result of vaginal infection is–how do I put this dryly?–in retrospect, perhaps the world's most predictable self-own. pic.twitter.com/u5juioDTPw
— Dean Gloster (@deangloster) August 11, 2020

Other men who felt personally victimized by the pop song include Republican Senate candidate James Bradley, who claimed the song was in fact so offensive he considered pouring holy water directly into his ears after “accidentally” listening to it.

Such outrage “just comes from a place of fear and insecurity,” Megan Thee Stallion told GQ. “Like why would anyone be mad about my WAP? It belongs to me.”

Of course, as the singer well knows, that is exactly why so many men were mad about her WAP: because it belongs to her, and nothing freaks a certain kind of man out like women claiming ownership over their own bodies. Let us all now bow our heads for a moment of silence in recognition of the brave men who were harmed in the making of the greatest song of 2020.