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Wednesday, May 1, 2013 11:30 PM UTC

Was a rapper sexually assaulted onstage?

Rumors have spread of an artist receiving oral sex during a show, but now a friend says it was non-consensual

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Topics: Sexual abuse, Sex, rapper, hip-hop,

Was a rapper sexually assaulted onstage? (Credit: AlienNation via Shutterstock)

The rumor was retweeted ad infinitum: Last week, a popular rapper got a blow job onstage from a female fan during a show in Minneapolis. When someone tweeted at the artist in question to ask if the rumor was true, he — or someone using his Twitter handle – responded, “and didn’t miss one bar.” As the tale jumped from Twitter to various music blogs, the boastful tweet was deleted, but the buzz continued. Some virtually high-fived the rapper, while others found it just another story about misogyny and objectification of women in hip-hop. But today, rapper Kitty Pryde, who is currently on tour with the rapper in question and witnessed the incident in person, wrote a blog post reframing it as sexual assault. “It was an actual sexual assault, and somehow nobody gives a fuck about that but me,” wrote Pryde, who refers to the rapper as her “best friend.”

As you can probably tell, I’ve decided to not name the rapper. It isn’t difficult to figure out who he is, of course, but it seems a matter of principle to keep his name out of this article. After all, we’re talking about an incident that at least one person is calling a sexual assault, and which Pryde argues involved reverse sexism and double standards when it comes to sexual assault.

Someone claiming on Reddit to have witnessed the incident says that beforehand the rapper “had been going up to the crowd and having random girls touch his dick through his pants.” By Pryde’s account, though, that isn’t true and she argues that “to blame someone for their own molestation is a shitty thing to do.” She says the female fan in question was the aggressor: “I’m mad that a person thought it was okay to pull another person’s pants down during their performance in front of about 700 other people,” she wrote. “I’m mad that a person thought it was a good idea to perform a sex act on another person without their consent.”

Pryde, who has herself had her pants unwittingly pulled down onstage by fans, believes that there’s some reverse sexism at play here. “I’m mad that when two dudes pulled my pants down onstage, other people got mad too, but when it happened to [him] the initial reaction was like one big high-five,” she writes. “I’m mad that people are treating [this] like it’s some legendary event.” She says the reason no one is outraged in this case is “because a girl did it to a boy.” She also blames sexism, and homophobia, for the rapper’s limited range of choices in the moment:

He would’ve had to either pushed her face or kicked her, and even the most gentle of either motion would immediately be labeled ‘abuse’ by anyone watching. Guys pushing girls is not a good look when people are taking photos. … And if he had figured out a way to gently push the girl off him immediately without looking like he was smacking her in the face, he’s faced with attacks on his masculinity by every douchebro in the building. Yo dude, you don’t want your dick sucked, bro? Are you gay? Haha you’re gay you don’t want girls to suck your dick haha gay dude bro man swag! And that’s a rapper’s literal nightmare.

I’ve contacted the rapper in question for his version of events, but have yet to hear back. Even for those who witnessed the incident firsthand, it’s hard to clearly pin down — as is clear from the fact that Pryde just days ago, shortly after the incident, posted the following message on Tumblr: “excuse me i think i deserve some credit for this as opener i warmed up that crowd i got the chickenheads cluckin.” It’s also true that a blurry cellphone photo is circulating alleging to show the incident — and the rapper’s hand on the back of the woman’s head, which certainly helped add to the perception that it was consensual, as did his now-deleted “didn’t miss one bar” tweet. But none of this is conclusive, and the important point remains that it’s possible for a man — and, yes, even a rapper – to be sexually assaulted.

Tracy Clark-Flory

Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter and Facebook. More Tracy Clark-Flory.

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