The dancehall has long been a platform for the unapologetic expressions of one’s sexual desires, but only within the boundaries set by a culture that plays an influential role in enforcing Jamaican society’s moral codes which traditionally frowned upon homosexual and oral sexual activities. However, one of these sexual practices has over the years pushed the limits toward acceptance and is arguably no longer considered taboo.

Indeed, the dancehall once stood resolute in its position of ‘nah bow’, and attempting a song in favour of oral sex could have been considered career suicide.

“Dancehall was about not ‘bowing’. Nobody wanted you to ‘bow’. A man didn’t want to accept oral sex or give it. It was just a huge no-no in dancehall and it was taboo because Jamaicans had not got to that stage with sexual practices yet where they were willing to think about the mouth being connected to the sexual organ,” said Donna Hope, Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. “There were a lot of songs in dancehall condemning the act so nobody should receive it and nobody should give it.”

“But if you listen to the way dancehall music changes, it became OK for men to receive it. If you listen to Baby Cham’s Boom from the 90s where he talks about women ‘sucking’ (even though Mr Vegas was saying ‘heads high’), there was a conversation around men receiving. Them giving was a whole other conversation,” she continued.

Hope recalled one of the first instances a female dancehall artiste attempted the ‘equal rights’ conversation and how it “killed” her career.

“CeCile had done a song in about 2003 talking about ‘do it to me baby’, that song killed CeCile’s career. She can say what she want to say but they blacklisted her on sound systems; the (selectors) refused to play her music, she was not booked for shows because the people who were running the industry were men and they felt that she had breached a law, a sexual law,” Hope said.

Arguably, the relaxation of dancehall’s oral sex ‘law’ began in the late 1990s with ‘Boom’, when then rising star Cham declared: “A which gal a jump and a say she naa suck/Right ya now a that run the cut.. yeah!”

Hope acknowledged that “there was a conversation about men receiving that was accepted but not them giving and it was that way for a long time.”

That conversation allowed for acts such as Vybz Kartel to proclaim ‘freaky gyals’ as his preferred type and Gage to boldly express what he wanted in his partner’s ‘throat’.

Still, it took time for women in the dancehall to enjoy the same liberation. But, as noted by the cultural studies professor, as time progressed, more and more female artistes dared to challenge the discussion, paving the way for Ishawna to demand ‘Equal Rights’ and for Shenseea to boldly declare her love for ‘Licks’.

“On the ground women will tell you that it (oral sex) has been a part of their lives for some time. But then we came to Ishawna in 2017. She was asking for equal rights in the bedroom and it was a conversation that people needed to have with each other because people were saying one thing in public but doing the opposite in private,” Professor Hope shared. “Ishawna took the conversation to the public domain and now here comes Shenseea and Megan Thee Stallion, with Lick (and the video even more than the song) to dash it all out in front of us.”

Hope says the evolution of the sexual conversation in the dancehall reflects Jamaica becoming more in line with what is happening globally.

 “Jamaica does not live in an isolated world and things have been evolving around the globe; for better or for worst, for good or for evil and the artistes have to evolve with it,” she continued.

Dancehall selector Bishop Escobar agreed with the professor. Highlighting that oral sex has always been a part of global music conversations, Escobar shared that artistes in the local industry are simply following the conversations being had in the overseas market.

“Memba say Lil Wayne, Ludacris and all dem international artistes have songs about the same topic innu.  Kelise have song about her milkshake bringing all the boys to the yaads so the fact that there is no border in music, people have a free mind to sing about what they want to sing about,” he said. “I grow up in a spiritual home so mi have a certain level of reference so mi nuh uphold wid certain things but Shenseea and all other artistes talking about this in today’s entertainment space are young and they’re gonna do songs that will reach the wider society. People ago bash but others will work with it because these conversations are being embraced elsewhere.”

Bishop Escobar, who is signed to Romeich Entertainment, the camp which introduced Shenseea, refused to say whether he would play Shenseea’s Lick in a dancehall session. Still, he remained firm in his argument that artistes should have leeway to sing about whatever they want without the watchful eyes of society’s moral police.

One entertainer who has felt the wrath of those so-called moral police, actor Bad Boy Trevor argued that the critics will soon have very little to ‘lash out’ at when it comes to the topic of oral sex. The actor who was photographed performing the forbidden act in the early 2000s told OBSERVER ONLINE that based on the trend, dancehall will soon give rise to a male artiste who is unafraid to admit that he enjoys giving as much as he receives.

“People are singing about stuff they like. I am happy that there are so many openly freaky people in Jamaica. Male deejays are singing about threesomes, getting head and so on. Dem time deh when so much artiste a bun out dis and dat, we never as educated as we are now,” Trevor said.

“Today we liberated and we love it. I am the first person to come out and say I enjoy this (oral sex) and this is what I do and soon, more men will too,” he continued. “It is gonna come to a stage where di man dem soon start singing about going down on women. It is getting there. By next year in dancehall, we have that.

“Yuh see where Shenseea bring this thing go, if you look on her page, she has an international appeal and the influence is going to be great. For the art of entertainment, we use to bun out certain things and for the art of entertainment, we will embrace it,” he said.

However, while oral sex has partly been embrace in the dancehall, Hope suggested that homosexuality is a far way from being accepted in a genre once infamous for its violent anti-gay lyrics.

Likening a male artiste coming out to say he enjoys giving oral sex to “the second to last bastion of male heterosexuality”, Hope said “The last facet would be acknowledging publicly that you’re a homosexual male as an artiste and that is some time away.”