WAP commodifies female sexuality

The argument

This argument holds that, far from liberating women, 'WAP' commodifies female sexuality — packaging it as a product to be sold and consumed, and thereby reinforcing the very objectification it claims to subvert. On this view, presenting women's bodies and sexual performance as the central selling point of a commercial hit reduces female sexuality to a marketable commodity, monetised by the music industry and consumed by an audience. The fact that the artists are themselves women, proponents argue, does not change the underlying transaction: sexuality is still being turned into spectacle for profit, fitting neatly into a culture that has long treated women's bodies as objects of consumption. The feminist concern is that this commodification ultimately serves patriarchal and commercial interests rather than women's liberation. A music and media industry that profits from sexualised images of women, proponents argue, is happy to celebrate 'empowerment' when that empowerment takes the form of more sexual content to sell. The framing of explicit self-display as liberation, on this view, can disguise the way it conforms to, rather than challenges, a market that has always rewarded the sexualisation of women — leaving the structures of objectification intact while rebranding them as freedom. Young women absorbing the message may learn that their value and power lie chiefly in their sexual desirability and willingness to display it. From this standpoint, the problem is that treating sexual self-commodification as the model of female empowerment narrows rather than widens what women's strength and worth can mean, and profits the same industries that have always objectified them. Because 'WAP' commodifies female sexuality, packaging it as a product within a system that exploits it, this argument holds, the song represents a crisis in feminism.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Those who defend the song reply that treating any depiction of female sexuality as 'commodification' risks denying women the same sexual expression long granted to male artists, reinstating a double standard in feminist language. They argue agency matters: Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion wrote and profited from their own work, choosing how to present themselves, which differs in kind from being objectified by others. Critics of the 'crisis' framing note that all recorded music is commercial, so singling out women's sexual expression as uniquely tainted by profit assumes the very objectification it sets out to prove. Whether self-authored explicitness is empowerment or commodification, they add, is exactly the contested question.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] That the artists are women who authored and profited from the work is a morally relevant difference from being objectified by others, so 'the transaction is unchanged' understates their agency. [Rejecting P3] All commercial music monetises its content; singling out women's sexual expression as uniquely 'commodified' applies a standard not used for male artists, assuming the objectification it aims to show.