In Support of Kat Stacks

I’m not going to lie: I had never heard of Kat Stacks before today, and if I had, I would probably have mentally filed her away in the “people I don’t need to pay attention to” pile. Kat Stacks is a “super-groupie” who has made a name for herself by fucking various rappers and blogging about it. Her blog(s) appear to have been taken down, but according to reports, she frequently denigrated the men she had slept with, commenting on the size of their penises and their skill (or lack thereof) in bed.

Recently, Kat’s candour got her into trouble. Specifically, fans or supporters of her previous sexual conquests — Fabolous and Bow Wow are mentioned by name — took it upon themselves to accost her in a club, assault her, and upload the video of the attack to the internet. I am not going to link to the video over here, because I do not want to condone or encourage physical violence by providing backlinks or hits.

Reaction to Kat’s beating has been mixed, from conspiracy theorists wondering if she set it up herself to fans of various rappers saying that she deserved it for talking about her liaisons with them. Overwhelmingly, however, the reaction has been less than supportive to a woman who was beaten in public. Beaten in public for committing the crime of being less than impressed with the sexual prowess of a number of her partners.

Can we get real for a second? Can we just remind ourselves what modern hip-hop looks like? You’ve got a bunch of men talking about making money, and how that enables them to have their pick of “hos” and “bitches.” Their lyrics talk about providing women with handbags and diamonds in order to get sexual favours. Their videos are filled with gyrating “video vixens” whose brief is to appear sexually available to the rapper: mute, compliant ciphers upon which the men watching can project their own fantasies. “If I just had the money/record contract, maybe I could get a woman like that too!”

Hip-hop has been exploiting the sexual conquest of women for years. Remember the feud between Biggie and Tupac over whether ‘Pac had fucked Faith Hill? Did anyone bother asking Faith for her opinion about whether it was an issue? Overwhelmingly, women in hip-hop are objects to be collected and discarded at will, afforded the minimum of respect and expected to serve the needs and wants of men first. The aggressive hyper-machismo of what it means to be a “baller” does not allow men to acknowledge they might have real or perceived weaknesses, or even that they might be criticised. Which is why “beef” between artists is as predictable as it is futile.

Kat Stacks committed no crime. It is not against the law to name one of your paramours and state he was rotten in bed. It is not against the law to say he has a small dick. It is not even against the law to make fun of your erstwhile fuckbuddy’s bad small-dick sex skills. Nor does doing any of the former warrant a beating. If you’re unhappy about it, do what you do best: write a song about Kat’s lack of blowjob skills, or how sleeping with her was a one-time-only thing. Ban her from your backstage area and warn your entourage to be on the lookout. Do not, under any circumstances, encourage or incite anyone to beat her up. Because from where I’m sitting, that doesn’t make the cowards who assaulted Kat — or the man-children whose honour they were hoping to defend — look like anything other then insecure inadequates.

And for all those “fans” who have been condoning the assault on Kat Stacks: fuck you too. Really. Fuck you hard with a rusty chainsaw. You would rather see a woman beaten than to imagine that your idol is anything other than a stud in the sack? Would you stand for the same kind of treatment if it was your sister or daughter who received the same treatment? Kat Stacks has done what thousands of women do: laughed at the inadequacies of men she’s fucked. The only difference is that she has done it in public. And even then, what she is doing isn’t that new: there are hundreds of sex blogs out there; it just so happens that Kat specialises in rappers. If the rappers are so upset by what she has to say, maybe they ought to crack open a copy of the Joy of Sex or the Kama Sutra and up their game.

I’ll end by saying that I don’t believe that all rappers and their fans are ignorant numbskulls who need to get a clue. Rather, it is just an unfortunate and unwelcome subset who perpetuate the misogyny, hypocrisy and double standards that are shown in all their ugly glory in this incident. For grown-ups, we will always have groups like the Roots to keep us honest:

No, you can’t see the subtitles, but it’s still an indictment of the shallow depths that current hip-hop is paddling in.