“Honey, I wanna break you” : BDSM aesthetics as a transgressive and reparative concept in popular music

Abstract

In this thesis, I approach and analyze sadomasochistic aesthetics that are manifest in the field of popular multimodal culture and specifically popular music culture. The aim is to analyze, through the employment of cultural close reading, the BDSM fantasy as a transgressive aesthetic that crosses cultural, social and temporal boundaries. My methodological and theoretical cornerstones are cultural musicology, Lacanian psychoanalysis, gender performance theory, literature studies and media studies. The overall approach is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, relying on multiple different methodologies to produce a close reading. The case studies for this thesis are located within the sphere of American popular culture. The first case study is the song “Desire” (2015) by American singer-songwriter Meg Myers. The second is the music video “Haunted” (2013) by Beyoncé. Both of the case studies comment, expand upon and utilize the BDSM aesthetic in ways that I consider to be reparative and transgressive in a culturally significant context. I place more emphasis on literature studies when I am discussing “Desire” (2015), and I utilize multimodality more in my reading of “Haunted” (2013). This study endeavors to introduce a new concept into the sphere of cultural musicology, which I have coined “kink-tangibility”. While in its current form, it cannot be utilized as an independent concept, but it offers a way to approach the BDSM fantasy in music through a embodied framework that contests the normative positions of artist, listener and audience.