In “The Body: An Abstract and Actual Rhetorical Concept” Karma Chávez notes how “In a history of rhetorical writing [. . .] that until the 1970s attended almost exclusively to the rhetorical practice of white, cisgender, able-bodied, heterosexual men, no sustained attention was given to how those actual bodies mattered to the addresses given, let alone how critics assessed them” (244). This highlights how white identity is neutralized and marginalized identities are othered for differing from this supposedly neutral standard. Chávez further illuminates this idea, writing: “If the body conforms to conventions, it is insignificant; if it does not, it becomes central to inquiry” (247). Thus, the bodies of straight white cis male and abled rhetors are treated as inconsequential while the bodies of marginalized rhetors become the subject of scrutiny, despite the fact that the embodied rhetoric of white male bodies has been instrumental in propping up systems of colonial violence and discrimination within rhetoric and composition since its disciplinary inception.
I see a connection to hip-hop particularly in the way that certain bodies (particularly Black women’s bodies) are sexualized. Though I think it would be foolish to say white men have dominated the hip-hop genre as in the field of rhetoric and composition(despite the fact that Gen X white men seem to chronically think Eminem invented hip-hop), Pough notes a male dominance of the Black public sphere that suppresses and invisiblizes Black women’s input and participation in hip-hop culture (76) I see a parallel in how Black women’s bodies are often a topic of discussion and dissection in hip-hop culture, yet Black men are rarely given such a full sense of corporeality beyond boastings of sexual proclivity and phallic power. To pull on the example of Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-Lot, by my count the only reference to his body is when he says his “anaconda don’t want none,” giving corporeality only to the phallic euphemism, even as he is fleshing out his desire for Black women’s bodies in graphic terms. To his credit, from my understanding, this song did come from an earnest place of wanting to bring wreck to the eurocentric heroin-chic body standards of the 90s and express positive sentiment regarding Black women's bodies. I find it interesting, though, that Sir Mix-a-Lot’s anaconda is one of, if not the most infamous references to the phallus in hip-hop in part because Nicki Minaj sampled that line— the one reference to the rapper’s body in the song— to build her song Anaconda.
Pough, synthesizing scholarship on the matter, asserts that Black women use hip hop culture to “assert agency, claim voice, grapple with and create images, negotiate sexual and body politics, evoke Black feminism, continue lineages, and empower themselves, but also lay claim to the public sphere and subvert stereotypes and domination by bringing wreck” (85). That is just what Salt-N-Pepa do in Shoop, which came out just a year after Baby Got Back. In this song, Salt-N-Pepa bring wreck to dominant narratives of Black women’s sexual desire and agency and male corporeality by airing out an INTENSE thirst for a man that is “real wild” with “b-boy style by the mile/ Smooth Black skin with a smile.” Here, Salt-N-Pepa make the persona of the uncredited male feature (Otwane Roberts) the passive object of desire, forefronting idealized descriptions of a man’s body. They assert a markedly female heterosexual dominance in the Black public sphere, outlining the object of their desire, only letting Roberts get a word in at the very end of the song, once they have asserted their own desires and sexual agency. They invert dominant dialogues regarding Black women’s bodies (see: Sir-Mix-a-Lot) as they describe this man’s ass: “You're packed and you're stacked, 'specially in the back/ Brother, wanna thank your mother for a butt like that” noting this man’s generous assets. To the ultra-straight, hyper-masculine man, nothing is more threatening than the idea that he has an ass or that his ass can be the object of desire and pleasure, thus to an extent Salt N Pepa bring wreck to heteronormative restrictions on sexual activity, even as they express heterosexual desire.
Chávez, Karma R. “The Body: An Abstract and Actual Rhetorical Concept.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 3, May 2018, pp. 242–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2018.1454182.
Pough, Gwendolyn D. Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere. Northeastern UP, 2015.
Salt-n-Pepa, "Shoop." Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vaN01VLYSQ