Bowie said in a 2002 interview that bisexuality made things "a lot tougher" in the "puritanical" US and "stood in the way of so much wanted to do". He regarded coming out gay in 1972, then bisexual in 1976 (before re-assigning himself as a "closet heterosexual" later on) as one of the biggest mistakes of his career.
David Bowie – who traded on an androgynous aesthetic and a hedonistic public persona – had found this out the hard way. As critic Alfred Soto wrote in a 2016 tribute to Michael following his death, fans back then were "fine with queerness so long as the artists didn't ask or tell". But as the Aids pandemic worsened in the 1980s, gay men became tabloid targets, and while speculation over stars' sexuality was rife, they remained in the closet, prevented from expressing their sexuality in their work in any overt ways. When these musicians first hit it big, it was a very different era: in the 1970s, disco had allowed queerness in pop to flourish for a brief moment with US acts such as Sylvester and The Village People, while in the UK punk group Tom Robinson Band released the seminal gay protest anthem Glad to be Gay in 1978. Of course, the LGBTQ+ stars of today are part of a long lineage of gay pop icons, stretching back to the likes of Elton John, George Michael and Freddie Mercury. More recently, bisexual rapper Cardi B's record-breaking, joyfully lascivious WAP, contained the most-googled lyrics of 2020. When it comes to female artists, meanwhile, Hayley Kiyoko has been described by fans as a " lesbian Jesus" for her sexy pop bops, while pansexual singer and actor Janelle Monáe's hyper-sexual, vagina-themed video for 2018 PYNK catapulted her to queer icon status. Australian pop star Troye Sivan's 2018 album Bloom featured numerous references to sex with men. He also subverted the homophobic association between homosexuality and sin in the lyrics and video of his 2018 single Sanctify, a song about sex with a man who is still in the closet. Other younger pop stars who have put their sexuality front and centre in their work recently include Olly Alexander, the former frontman and now sole member of British band Years & Years. The rise of Lil Nas X is representative of an era where gay sex is taking up more space in music than ever. "But this will open doors for many other queer people to simply exist".
"I know we promised to never be 'that' type of gay person, I know we promised to die with the secret," he wrote. This is clearly about more than just provocation, though: just before Montero dropped, he posted a letter to his 14-year-old self on social media, saying that he’d made the song to help normalise queerness, and queer sexuality. Then after the BET awards, he responded on Twitter to complaints about his kiss by joking that he would have sex on stage next time. The devilish video for Montero was, above all, his way of turning homophobic rhetoric – which has long described gay people as sinners who are destined for hell – on its head, while the lyrics practically drip with arousal. – How pop culture embraced ‘sexuality without labels’Īs for those who might take issue with such displays of queerness? Lil Nas X has positively revelled in provoking them. – One of the world’s misunderstood love songs?
Warning: this article contains strong language that some readers may find offensive
Then, in another appearance at the BET awards a couple of weeks ago, he went one step further, giving a passionate kiss to one of his backing dancers while dressed as a pharaoh. Performing the song on Saturday Night Live in May, he was clad in a leather two-piece painted with red flames, with his oiled-up torso on display, as half-naked men danced behind him, and one of them even licked him. Released in March, the video for the album's lead single Montero (Call Me By Your Name) saw him pole-dance into the fiery depths of hell, before giving the devil a lap-dance, while wearing thigh high boots. As he gears up for the release of his debut album Montero this summer, the singer and rapper, who first hit the big time with the 2019 hit single Old Town Road, has put his sexuality front and centre of his campaign. Lil Nas X is the most homoerotic man in music right now.