70 Teyana Taylor: K.T.S.E

“Threeway, I couldn’t wait to have with you/’Cause I know it turn you on, so let’s do it, babe/’Cause two heads are better than one“

Fuck me, FFM threesomes are so boring these days, aren’t they? I mean, I accept they might have been exciting in the past, but people were generally more easily entertained back then. Like, in 1850, when Isambard Kingdom Brunel did Isabella Beeton from behind while Mary Ann Evans* licked his sagging testicles, I imagine it would have caused a light to moderate stir at dinner parties across the country. These days though? Pffffffff! We are done with FFM threesomes! They are so over!

(*and even that famous tryst contains the caveat that Isambard Kingdom Brunel actually signed up for a threesome with Isabella Beeton and George Orwell, so he likely would have made the common mistake and assumed he was getting an FMM)

I’m not questioning whether the fantasy exists for women as well (I for one would certainly prefer another lady rather than having two gross hairy cave trolls pawing at me), but almost every time it’s brought up in popular culture or unpopular conversation it exists merely as a crux for male fantasy. FFM threesome fantasies in squalid fictions and pornography never involve women enacting their own desires, just going through motions aimed at pleasing the male participant. How much fun do you think Mary Ann Evans had licking Islambard’s balls for two minutes on that famous night in 1850? Trying to get a decent purchase on the dangling clackers while Islambard thrust back and forth into Isabella Beeton for two minutes before rolling over to fall asleep? Not much, I’d wager. Plus there’s the fact that Isabella was 14 at the time while Islambard was 44, I don’t know how weird she thought that was. And Isabella’s first book wouldn’t even come out for another 11 years, so Mary must have been wondering who the fuck she was.

Regardless if the trope is so over these days, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about Teyana Taylor’s 3 Way, it might be one of the rare examples of a woman being allowed to express her own sexual agency. Maybe she spends the song demanding a man suck on her nipples while Amber Rose goes to town on her undercarriage. Maybe she sends the man out of the room to make tea so her and Amber can concentrate on some intense scissoring action. First let’s look at the song’s writers:

Okaaaaaaaay… Well… There’s a solid 16.67% female involvement there, so I guess by the standards of modern culture we’ll actually have more of a female perspective than normal. There’s no guarantee it’ll be a gross male fantasy…

“Anything for my baby, I’d do some crazy things (yeah)/So whatever he want, he can get that/Long as I like, we can hit that, hoes, we don’t love ’em, no/Soon as we done she leavin’ right out the door”

Sigh…

Of course, it could be me that’s removing all of the woman’s sexual agency here by assuming that she had little hand in crafting such an obvious pander to any local boners, but whether it was all Taylor’s vision or she was coerced into it by a panting Rodney Jerkins, 3 Way  is still a drearily dull retread of tropes. Where’s the female fronted song of loving the feel of two dicks inside her? The track where she says her favourite part is comparing the performance of the two useless idlers trying to pleasure her, especially when it turns out that you were markedly inferior?

Then, there is no gap whatsoever between 3 Way  and Rose in Harlem, one of the year’s absolute best songs, and all is quickly forgiven.

This is an example of why ‘K.T.S.E’* is so difficult to rate- its eight tracks contain two of the best songs of the year, and yet also two of the absolute worse -if you thought 3 Way was bad, wait until you hear WTP). The album contains the closest production to his ‘College Dropout’ debut that Kanye West has done in a long time, but his quality control was apparently way off on this record.

(*which stands for ‘Kunimitsu Takahashi‘s Sterling Effort’, which doesn’t make sense and isn’t really funny and she wishes she had more time to think of something else)

You probably expected me to talk more about Kanye West. Shame I didn’t have time. If only there were other records he’s had a hand in this year higher up the list…

22 Minutes

Whatever you think about Kanye West, you have to applaud his efforts to try and shorten the average length of records.