"Eat A Dick": Comedic Critiques of Female Sexuality Aren't Hard to Swallow

by Sarah Libby, Staff Writer

Illustrated by Brooke Ripley

“Women are offered dick every day.” The crowd roars, confirming the statement’s truth. “Every woman in here is offered dick at least three times a week, three times a day…nobody offers us shit,” Chris Rock exclaims emphatically. He paces back and forth exasperatedly on the stage, explaining the reason why women always turn down sex.

“Just suck his dick, play with his balls,” Dave Chappelle wiggles the fingers of one hand in front of his face while holding a microphone to his mouth with the other. “Fix him a sandwich, and don’t talk so much, and he’ll be happy!” Resounding applause ensues.

It seems simple enough, right, ladies? If you want a healthy relationship all you need to do is give your man’s dick a little attention. Then presto, you’ve got it—it’s not like relationships are two-sided or anything, right? Women have no sexual desires whatsoever. Or at least that’s how comedy has portrayed women, as if they were inherently non-sexual, or only sexual when it’s advantageous to men. Up until somewhat recently, maybe around the time Amy Schumer rose to global prominence in the 2015 comedy film Trainwreck, or perhaps a little before that, was when we saw any comedy sketches that contradicted that opinion.

Standups like those of Chris Rock— “Differences Between Men and Women” and Dave Chappelle— “Men and Women Psychology” are just a couple examples of a large body of comedy that use social issues such as gender norms, gender roles, gender expectations and sexuality as platforms on which to build their performances. The problem in these famous works is that even if they are critiquing social issues such as gender roles, they are not necessarily challenging them.

There are some comedy routines however, that are helping progress social issues in a positive way. In Tiffany Haddish’s standup routine, “My Body is Like an Expensive House”, she transforms herself into a symbol of female sexuality that goes against the expectation that women are non-sexual beings. Haddish starts off by describing advice her grandmother once gave her: if a woman wants to keep a man, she “gonna have to kiss that banana everyday”. Almost echoing the words of Rock and Chappelle in their earlier standups, Haddish asks the male portion of the audience, “If you could receive oral satisfaction every day… would you be a happier man?” Soon after, she says, “If you want to get your dick sucked tonight make some noise!” Her comment is met by roaring, cheering, and whistling from the male portion of her audience.

However, Haddish then flips this paradigm on its head: “You hear that ladies? That some bullshit, ain’t it?” Haddish continues to surprise the audience, by stating that guys “don’t realize how hard it is to suck dick every fucking day.” Then she asks a man in the audience, “Have you ever sucked a dick before, sir… You’ve got to have hand and eye coordination, you got to watch the teeth and shit… I got carpal tunnel in my throat, right now, bitch”. Even before this, when she had the male part of the audience hooting and hollering, she still departed from the traditional idea of women as non-sexual beings by meeting the word “dick” head on (no pun intended).

Instead of using niceties like “banana” or cutesy phrases like “kissing it” as her grandmother did, Haddish is unafraid to challenge social confines. She makes a point of saying the words that could seem more vulgar, and not within society’s expectations of female sexuality. The fact that she, as a female is saying, “suck a dick” while making jerking hand-motions and gagging noises is what makes her comedy so effective. Haddish also offers herself as a spokesperson for women. Her confidence and unapologetic stage presence proves the existence of female sexuality, and can inspire courage in women who haven’t yet claimed their sexuality as their own.

Oral sex is also the topic around which Bo Burnham’s song “Eat a Dick” revolves. In this sketch, Burnham is singing about him and his girlfriends’ break up. Burnham takes on two different personas, the first being the ex-girlfriend and the second, himself. Illustration, piano and violin instrumentals play in the background as Burnham’s female persona (his ex) begins the song with a ballad about how she needs some space. She eventually leaves off with, “I hope we can still be friends”, to which Burnham’s male persona (Bo himself) responds: “Eat a dick.” At this moment, the music automatically shifts from its lighthearted, singsong quality to hard base and rap instrumentals. What used to be a soft white light illuminating the stage is replaced with pulsing, red lights that show Burnham’s now crouched figure who continues to sing, “Eat a dick. Eat a fucking dick, like this” mimicking how someone might, perhaps, eat their corn on the cob.

Both of Burnham’s personas make general impressions on the audience within their first few lines of the song. The audience understands Burnham’s female persona as an accommodating, compassionate, and emotional, yet level-headed character. These are traits that satisfy society’s expectations for women. They come to understand Burnham’s male persona as one that is sexually-orientated (a trait most definitely associated with societal expectations for men). So when Burnham’s male persona starts to show his emotions by saying, “I’ve got my father’s temper and I’m emotionally inarticulate…I’m hurt inside and trying to hide it, so eat a dick bitch,” the audience expects the female persona to take the male persona back.

Yet just as Haddish does, Burnham flips this paradigm—of men as inherently sexual and women inherently nonsexual—on its head with a reversal of gender. Instead of what the audience expects—which is another calm and sympathetic monologue from Burnham’s female persona, the ending delivers an unabashedly crude and sexual dig directed at Burnham’s male persona. This is typical of what one would expect from his male persona, yet the female says, “Lick my clit…you think three lousy tears, offsets three years of shit… you’re not what I need hon, so lick this clit then leave son.”

Although Burnham is not female himself, his female persona does a great job of challenging societal expectations of sexuality for females. This is because his sketch places women on the same level as men with regards to sexuality. While Burnham is playing both a female and male persona, the audience is only really surprised when the female persona challenges social expectations. It didn’t seem as though anyone was as startled by his male persona’s use of vulgar or sexual language. So even though both of Burnham’s personas in this song undergo a shift in character, it is not the change within the male persona but the woman’s that surprises us. Just the fact that the song concludes with Burnham’s female persona saying, “lick my clit,” similarly to how the male persona would say “eat a dick,” shows women that they belong just as much in the world of sexuality as men.

So why does it matter that these critiques give women a place in the sphere of sexuality? Maybe because I have always struggled to accept my own sexuality as a woman, as if accepting it would be to cross some unspoken line and make myself less feminine and desirable. I still feel embarrassed in situations where I talk about or even partake in sexual encounters. And God forbid I acknowledge that I might actually want to engage in any sort of sexual activity, even though it is totally normal to do so. I even had some trouble writing this essay. For example when I was asked by friends or family what I was writing about, I answered with something vague like, “oh, uh, just gender norms.”

I believe that if we as a society had more conversation surrounding the positivity of women’s sexuality, I myself might feel okay to display myself as just as sexual as any teenage guy.

Then again, you might not think these critiques are effective. Maybe you find them vulgar and offensive. You also might think that women shouldn’t be regarded as sexual beings, which in any of the preceding cases, I suggest that you go suck a dick. Or perhaps, a clit—your choice.