You've probably seen the fanny pack that looks like a dad bod. Maybe you've seen swimsuits that look like a hairy chest. Now, in the realm of clothes that look like body parts, Janelle Monáe wore vagina pants in her new "Pynk" music video. Before you start thinking that's super weird, though, let's just say that Monáe's pants aren't analogous to fanny packs and swimsuits. They're sending a message that is, in fact, about vaginas and power. And it's pretty perfect.
Monáe's song is in collaboration with singer Grimes and stars a familiar face, actor Tessa Thompson. The actor was first featured in Monáe's "Way You Make Me Feel" video, and she's back again for "Pynk." Thompson's appearance isn't just notable because she was in a previous video, it's notable because she actually pops out of Monáe's vagina pants like a little baby. Yes, you did read that correctly.
Monáe actually wears several pair of pants that look like vaginas in the video, but the most obvious pair is the multi-hued pink (like "Pynk," get it?) puffy pants that unmistakably look like labia. It's these pants that Thompson is essentially birthed from. While this all seems silly, Monáe doesn't exactly do things without meaning.
According to other reports on Monáe and Grimes' song, the singer set out to celebrate sexuality, and the video certainly fulfills that goal. According to source such as AV Club, the description of the YouTube video previously read that "Pynk" is "brash celebration of creation. self love. sexuality. and pussy power! PYNK is the color that unites us all, for pink is the color found in the deepest and darkest nooks and crannies of humans everywhere... PYNK is where the future is born...."
While Monáe wearing pants that look like a vagina is kind of a sentence you probably never thought you'd read, the costuming for the video is celebratory, and honestly, normalizing. With plastic surgery procedures designed to change the appearance of vaginas to a plethora of articles on what constitutes a "normal" vagina, seeing the vagina be praised and flaunted in a music video is refreshing.
Monáe isn't just celebrating the vagina as a physical part of the body, though. She's celebrating all it represents. Later in the video, you see the singer and her girl gang in a bedroom, chilling in their underwear. It's their panties that speak volumes.
Monáe herself dons a pair that reads "sex cells" complete with pubic hair, seemingly pointing to the vagina as a sexual organ and the harmful sexualization of women (a la sex sells.)
Then, of course, there's the Great Cosmic Mother pair symbolizing the vagina as the birth of all things — the universe and humankind.
Of course, there's the last pair with a familiar slogan that appear to suggest the fierceness of womanhood.
The internet seems completely in love with Monáe centering sexuality and vaginas in her video and song.
The song seems to have been particularly embraced by queer women online, and it's not hard to imagine why considering its a celebration of all thing woman.
Clearly, the video is so much more than a punchline about vagina pants.
If you haven't seen Monáe's new music video for "Pynk," now is probably a good time to do so. Not only will it probably soon be covering your Twitter feed, but it's an ode to female sexuality and womanhood that can't be mistake. Those vagina pants aren't just vagina pants. They're a celebration.
