Marina and the Diamonds’ “Sex Yeah” is from their 2012 debut album “Electra Heart”. The album as a whole addresses love and identity—sexually and personally—from a modern female perspective. “Sex Yeah” specifically addresses gender and sexualization and the taboo surrounding sex. Marina Diamandis, singer and songwriter for Marina and the Diamonds, focuses on proactivity, and the desensitization of sexual images in younger generations, which stems from the hypersexualization of men and women in media today. She argues that throughout history this model has been shaped, it is not the advent of media that produced these expectations. In fact, the lack of religious recognition of women began was the true foundation of inequality between genders in terms of sexuality—“If women were religiously recognized sexually/We wouldn’t have to feel the need to show our ass-ets to feel free”. It is this frame of hypersexualization in media, which is ever-present, that establishes the model for the next generations—as stated in the song “if sex in our society didn’t tell a girl who she should be” and “if sex in our society didn’t tell a guy who he should be”.
From the introduction of this song, it is clear that this song is supposed to make people pay attention, to make people think about the lyrics and the argument it is making. By beginning by loudly and repeatedly singing “sex, sex, sex, sex”, she demands the attention of the audience. On the surface this is just a word being repeated in the beginning of the song, on the surface such a method is not particularly attention grabbing, unless the word is a “bad word”. Implicitly, this is the foundation of the argument for the entire song, that sex is a taboo subject, that sex is a “bad word”, and no one wants to talk about it or its effect on society as a whole.
In infusing her own personal experiences of sexualization in media, she uses word play to give the song a more personal and powerful note. Diamandis states “If women were religiously recognized sexually/We wouldn’t have to feel the need to show our ass-ets to feel free”. This can be interpreted in two ways. It can be interpreted as “we wouldn’t have to feel the need to show our assets to feel free”, and as “we wouldn’t have to feel the need to show our ass its too feel free”. This is a powerful use of word play, it connects two claims from her argument in one phrase, and adds a level of complexity to the lyrics, forcing the audience to pause and think critically about the song she wrote. On one hand, she argues that women, both in the media and in general, show their assets to feel free because the chains of the lack of religious recognition gives them no other option. Furthering this claim, she argues that it is the formation of this mold over time that began this behavior, that women showing “[their] ass is too feel free”. As a gender, women are tethered to this standard of sexualization that has been created. In the same verse she sings “tired image of a star, acting naughtier than we really are”, furthering the argument that the image created by media is a reflection of society’s expectations, it is not mirroring their own desired actions, much less the desired actions of the entire female population.
Diamandis also connects the effects of sex, history, and media to men as well. Throughout the song the phrases “if history could set you free from who you were supposed to be/if sex in our society didn’t tell a girl who she should be” and “if history could set you free from who you were supposed to be/if sex in our society didn’t tell a guy who he should be” multiple times. When addressing objectification, the objectification of men often fails to be mentioned. However, “Sex Yeah” argues that viewing all humans as sex objects is poisonous as a whole to societies, but also to individuals and their journey in finding themselves and their purpose. That history has created a script for men and women—who we are supposed to be—and in order to truly find oneself, one must fight against history and this script.