Just watched Ariana Grande’s new music video, “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored,” and I have some THOUGHTS. Long thread coming. Bear with me.

VIDEO RECAP: Ariana is bored. She wants the guy from Riverdale to break up with his girlfriend so he can be with her. All three get in the hot tub. As Ariana is going to kiss the guy, the girl kisses her instead. Seemingly while the guy watches.

Nothing in the video suggests that Ariana is genuinely exploring bisexuality. If she is, more power to her, but the message comes across like kissing other women is a fun distraction for straight women when they’re bored, or a way to get male attention.

The video plays into the persistent, destructive narrative that two women together — specifically two conventionally attractive femme women together — are a spectacle for male entertainment. That has real, harmful consequences, and it is not okay.

My girlfriend and I have been repeatedly grabbed, videotaped, and photographed without our consent by men who've been taught to believe that narrative — men who think that we are somehow here for their entertainment.



I’ll give you a few examples:

At a holiday party, a guy came up and started dancing with us. He grabbed my ass and tried to kiss my girlfriend, in his words, “because we are so sexy.”

Another guy at a Nordstrom in Florida leaned over a skincare display to take photographs of us in the checkout line when my girlfriend had her arm around my waist. He was two feet away from us, trying to snap a picture like we were a roadside attraction.

Or last spring, my girlfriend had her arms around my waist while we were out with friends, and a random guy started filming us from afar. He then walked over to us, still filming, and asked us to make out for the camera. We told him to stop, and he started following us.

What’s most surprising is how brazen they are — shoving cameras right in our faces — as if they think this is totally okay and normal. And why wouldn’t they? Our exploitation is so normalized that even Ariana, a longtime LGBT advocate, plays into it.

What makes the whole thing so scary, and what leaves us shaken every time, is the fact that it goes beyond a picture or video. It crosses into being followed, being grabbed. Men are often upset when we tell them to stop, as if they were entitled to get off on us.

Being treated like entertainment makes us feel unsafe, dehumanized, and marginalized. It’s why we prefer to hang out in queer spaces, and it’s one of the reasons why we have to be vigilant about watching out for ourselves in straight spaces.

To all the men who have learned from our culture that it’s ok to exploit queer women: We are not here for your entertainment. Our love is not your porn.

And to Ariana: Exploitation of queer women as entertainment is real and harmful, and you should not be using your platform to reinforce it. This is not what LGBT advocacy looks like.

You can follow @nadiarawls.

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