From the title to the lyrics to the sensational music video, Ariana Grande’s new track ‘God is a Woman’ is bursting at the seams with what we are going to call: Powerful Vagina Energy.
Less than a month ago, we were all engulfed by a short-lived fascination with Big Dick Energy, of which Ariana Grande’s fiancé Pete Davidson was the face. We were enamoured – we divided the population by who has it and who doesn’t, ranked every person and inanimate object group by amount of BDE – then 24 hours later we were done with it.
But Powerful Vagina Energy is a force much mightier than BDE and it’s only getting stronger.
In basic terms, having PVE is owning your confidence, warmth, depth, vulnerability and strength in the face of a system that tells you not to.
While there’s nothing subversive about the phallic imagery of Big Dick Energy – Pussy Power, Big Vagina Energy, Cavernous Pussy Energy, Powerful Vagina Energy, or whatever you want to call it, is inherently progressive.
It is not a female equivalent of Big Dick Energy, but a superior power that has the range and resilience that BDE does not. Which is why representations of Powerful Vagina Energy are so much more than just a gimmick.
Between the explicit imagery of vaginas, women’s sexual pleasure and notably non-masculine power, the feminism of Ariana Grande’s ‘God is a Woman’ video is something we feel deeply, and it’s something that is glorious to see on this kind of platform.
The video features a union of religious and feminist imagery to assert the godly power of women and our communities. Ariana is repeatedly featured in the centre of a glorified vulva, and in a particularly explicit scene, she straddles the earth and recreates both masturbation and sexually pleasuring another woman by erotically stroking and fingering the clouds of a hurricane.
It’s epic.
Another glorious interlude in the video features mole rats popping out of their holes and screeching – the perfect representation of man-babies responding to anything with a vaguely feminist sentiment.
From literally smashing through a glass ceiling to reimagining Michelangelo’s iconic Creation Of Adam with herself as God and a black woman as Adam, Ariana Grande’s ‘God is a Woman’ exudes Powerful Vagina Energy.
Of course Ariana didn’t invent Powerful Vagina Energy – it has been channeled by many artists before her, and most recently championed by Janelle Monáe in her explicit music video for ‘Pynk’.
In April this year Monáe shook up the music industry with her song and music video ‘Pynk’ – a bold and visual ode to vaginas, queerness and female pleasure.
Monáe described it as a “celebration of creation, self love, sexuality and pussy power,” explaining that pink unites humanity because it is “found in the deepest and darkest nooks and crannies of humans everywhere.”
Her music video features all women of colour (including actress Tessa Thompson), some iconic vagina-pants, accentuated pubic hair, feminist messages and a whole lot of Powerful Vagina Energy.
As a black, queer, woman, Janelle Monáe’s unapologetic subversion of the standard is especially significant.
While the direct association of the vagina with femininity is a cisgender-centric frame, the vagina itself is an unarguably powerful symbol. It is where all life begins, and it represents something astutely outside the realm of cisgender men.
So it makes absolute sense that vagina imagery is incited to represent a revolutionary power.
While women like Janelle Monáe and Ariana Grande are classically feminine examples who are championing especially heavy-handed representations of Powerful Vagina Energy, you don’t have to fit into that mould to have PVE.
Terry Crews and Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness are examples of men who have the warmth, depth and strength of PVE, and they’re the kind of male role models the world needs.
While BDE tried to assert itself as a confidence that is opposite to toxic masculinity, by virtue of its shallowly masculine descriptor alone it falls short.
The true opposite of toxic masculinity is the feminist empowerment of Powerful Vagina Energy, and it’s a damn beautiful thing to see.
