King Princess Continues to be Ostentatiously Gay in ‘Pussy is God’

“Your pussy is god and I love it” is the tagline for King Princess’ new single, “Pussy is God.” On Friday, the openly gay singer-songwriter released a new music video for the single, which is overtly queer — from the vaginal lyrics to the androgynous fashion and the topless female keyboard player. Over the course of the last year, King Princess showed us that she’s gay and here to stay — and the new song is exactly the kind of music queer women need from female pop stars.

Though it’s easy to compare the two lesbian pop singers, Hayley Kiyoko and King Princess are nothing alike. Where Kiyoko offers upbeat, Top 40-leaning bops, King Princess has a softer appeal with her mellow beats and droning guitars. But while Kiyoko has been praised — by myself and dozens of other LGBTQ critics — for her brazenly gay lyrics, King Princess has seemingly doubled down.

On her debut EP, titled Make My Bed, the 19-year old sang of love lost on “Talia” (“I can taste your lipstick, I can lay down next to you, but it’s all in my head”), and of dated gender roles in “1950” (“I hate it when dudes try to chase me, but I love it when you try to save me”). Like Kiyoko, the Brooklyn-native spoke openly about her experiences with women, something that other out pop stars have strayed from or danced around in the past. But now, King Princess has brought something new to the table: graphic sexual desire.

Kiyoko dabbled in this on her debut album, Expectations, like on “He’ll Never Love You (HLNY)” when she sings, “I left a mark on her neck, I know that you won’t forget.” However, she focused on the visuals when it came to expressing sexual desire. In her “Curious” music video, she depicted herself draped in scantily clad women, like we typically see from heterosexual male artists in hip-hop videos. On her album cover, we see the artist staring lustfully at a naked woman, seemingly being seduced by her faceless form in a way that we don’t usually see from female artists. But lyrically, she generally keeps it pretty tame when it comes to sex.

King Princess, also known as Mikaela Straus, upped the ante last week when she released “Pussy is God.” It’s rare that we hear female pop artists be so brazen in their expressions of sexual desire, but hearing a female artist talk so flagrantly about another woman’s body almost never happens. It’s raw, it’s explicit, it’s groundbreaking.

In this song, Straus literally sings of “praying” for pussy. In a traditional sense, the desire she expresses is extremely male in nature—as in, historically, we’ve only been able to bear witness to male artists indicating and owning their explicit admiration for the female form. So, to see King Princess bask in her own lesbian libido, without shame, and without needing permission to do so, is breathtaking.

The first time I listened to the song, I sat mouth agape in my car, listening to her repeat the phrase “Your pussy is god” over and over again, because it felt so shocking. But it’s not shocking. It’s normal — or it should be. The way King Princess sings about lusting over a woman is the way men have always been afforded the opportunity to do in film, TV, music, or just in conversation with each other. But thanks to the ever-simmering patriarchal silencing of women, especially queer women, women who love women don’t get to speak this way about their sexual desires, for fear of being—well, dubbed as gross as men.

But there’s a difference between being “gross” and conveying desire for the female form, and that difference is marked starkly by the inclusion of respect. In “Pussy is God,” Straus never crosses any lines of consent, nor does she reduce the female form to an object. In fact, it’s a love song. “Been knocked down for some other love, but their best wasn’t good enough, and you’re number one to me,” she sings. “Your pussy is god and I’m falling.” She’s admiring a woman. She’s in love with her. She’s not objectifying her.

Queer women need more songs like this from mainstream pop singers. Admittedly, I find myself sacrificing word choices in my own conversation with friends—especially straight friends—so as not to sound predatory or “gross.” But it’s unfair — I’ve already been repressed and stifled for a lifetime, hiding my queerness from the world due to homophobia and fear of retaliation. Now that I’m out, I deserve to talk about sex the way that everyone else does. If I, and other queer women, can hear and see more songs and videos like “Pussy is God,” we’ll feel significantly more empowered to use such language in our own lives. Queer women deserve to feel comfortable craving women—and to say “Pussy” as much as we damn want.