Two days ago, Rihanna premiered the video for her new single, S&M. Incase you were wondering, S&M stands for Sadomasochism, which is a form of sexual role play involving receiving pleasure from pain. Not a good start, ey RiRi?

The video has already been banned in 11 countries across the globe, MTV are considering airing a heavily edited version in place of the original, and it has been flagged countless times on YouTube. But why?

The S&M clip features Rihanna stimulating sex with a blow up doll, performing oral sex on a banana, leading Perez Hilton around on a dog lead, and making heavy references to other fetishes that are typical of porn films; like balls in mouth and whips. Obviously all in very minimal costumes which we as a society seem to expect from female pop videos these days.

The song itself features lyrics along the lines of “Sticks and stones may break my bones /But whips and chains excite me.” You can see the potential issues, right?

Click read more for the full article, but first click here to watch the video. You must have a YouTube account and be over 18 to view it. 

Of course we have seen raunchy pop videos before, and heard controversial lyrics in songs, but S&M doesn’t even deliver the sexuality in a subtle way. For example, Lady Gaga’s Poker Face is about having sex with a man whilst fantasising about a woman. Who would’ve known?

On the familiar note of Lady Gaga, it seems like all the popular female singers of our generation are continuously trying to out do each other in terms of shock value. Whether it’s Gaga singing about riding on ‘disco sticks‘ in LoveGame, Ke$ha brushing her teeth with whiskey in TiK ToK, or Katy Perry begging to see our ‘peacocks’ in, well, Peacock, it seems that female artists are constantly feeling the need to push the boundaries to gain recognition. They say any publicity is good publicity, and it seems to be working in Rihanna’s case with the S&M video racking up millions of YouTube views in a matter of days, but is the controversy really worth the possible backlash?

At worse, the video and song could be completely pulled from TV and radio. Unlikely, but possible. They could always air edited versions, but the song is so littered with sexual content that the lyrics could become barely recognisable. This would seriouslyaffect the song’s performance in the charts, resulting in a failed single campaign. Once again, unlikely, but possible. 

I’m sure there are many parental groups about that will campaign heavily for this video/song to be banned. It’s understandable, what parent wants their pre-school daughter dancing around and singing about how exciting chains and whips are, and how nice the smell of sex is?

Sex is a natural process that children will be curious about, and with modern day media aside they would be prone to Google it and find out more anyway, and potentially come across some pornography. However, S&M isn’t just sex. Curiosity could spark up in children after watching the video or hearing the song, and a quick internet search could easily lead to really young kids accidentally stumbling across websites with all kind of nasty films and images that could turn the stomach of a grown man, which could be really upsetting and damaging for a child to see.

But you know the worst part of it? The song is just so damn catchy. 

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