Ishawna and the 'Equal Rights'

Yoggo, yoggo, yow, yow! Wah gwaan, TamFam? Bless up unuh self, straight. Deh ya a inna Agent Orange Man lan a pree di flooding inna Jamaica. Mi feel it fi all who suffer losses. Jus gwaan hol it and tan up trang inna di tribulation.

Anyways, on to di matter at hand: Ishawna and har controversial Equal Rights song. Reactions to the song are mixed. Many, especially women, are in full support of the song. Others, men and women, are strongly opposed. Most of the opposition focuses on four areas: 1. The discussion of sex (you'll always have that with religio-puritanical Jamaica);

2. The specific discussion of oral sex.

3. The graphic language used by Ishawna.

4. Ishawna's main point that if a man wants oral sex from a woman, then he should be willing to give her the same.

Time and space doesn't allow me to adequately address all the main points here, but let me just make two brief points on the last issue:

The opposition and anger towards Equal Rights loses merit based on the following:

1. At no point in the song did Ishawna state that all men should swipe (indulge in cunnilingus). In fact, the entire song only speaks to those who ask women for oral sex, but do not want to return the same. Hence, if you have nothing to do with swiping, then the song should be of no problem to you. Just ignore it as you do millions of other songs that do not interest you. The song is about parity and reciprocity.

2. There is a blatant hypocrisy in the attack on Equal Rights allegedly being 'nasty' and 'disrespectful to man'. Male dancehall artistes have long been singing about women performing oral sex on them. It's been many years since Cham sung, "a which gyal and which gyal a seh she nah suck, right ya now a dat run di cut." Over the years many other artistes have sung similar lyrics. For example, Vybz Kartel doing so on many occasions, and Gage's infamous throat. While there has been some opposition to the sexual content in these songs, I have never heard many of Ishawna's critics complain that the male deejay's swiping songs were 'nasty' and 'disrespectful'. So, if it nuh nasty when woman a swipe man, why is it nasty when man a swipe woman?

And just on a side note, there is no biological basis to justify a female getting swiped as nasty compared to a male getting swiped. Of the following three organs, the male genital, the female genital and the human mouth, the female genital is the cleanest! The female genital is actually a self-cleaning organ. The human mouth is the most dangerous of the three because it's loaded with harmful toxins. It is possible to die from infections obtained from a human bite, while one never has to fear that a vagina will bite you to death. In short, it is a scientific fact that the female genital has more to fear from the human mouth than vice versa. It would, therefore, be more accurate for a woman to say it's 'nasty' to put her genitals on a man's mouth than for a man to say it's nasty to put his mouth on a woman's genital. Woooiiieeee! Ishawna, all di science a wap dem!

All right, enuff a dat. A leggomentz again. Sen mi unuh drama dem at ragashanti@tambourineradio.com. See unuh nex Thursday same place ya so. Bless.

Road!!