I want a SLUT for president
THE RADICAL RAUNCH OF XKYLAR’S “SLUT”
Visual artist and independent pop star XKYLAR blends sexual empowerment with political satire in her X-RATED music video.
CONTENT NOTE: This article contains sensitive language that may be offensive to some. This includes misogynistic and homophic slurs used in a reappropriative and artistic context.
Is America ready for a SLUT president? That’s the question DJ, visual artist and independent musician XKYLAR raises with the music video for her 2024 single “SLUT”. It’s a generally bold question, but it was especially relevant when the song was released, about three months before the U.S. presidential election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. With direct references to Trump’s campaign, a gritty vibe and fast-paced energy, the video is very much the embodiment of America’s chaotic political landscape. And the context of a tumultuous election — largely defined by misogynistic attacks on the female candidate and American women as a whole, as well as policies targeting other marginalized groups — makes the video all the more resonant and suggests meaningful subtext to XKYLAR’s brazen brand of dance pop.
The “SLUT” video stars XKYLAR as the first presidential candidate to run on the slut platform, demanding “slut rights.” She wears a variety of revealing outfits that look like they could be Sexy President costumes from Spirit Halloween — a mini skirt and vest with a tie; hot pants and a matching bra with a dress collar around her neck, lingerie and a blazer — while writhing seductively at the podium during a press conference, crawling on a conference table at her campaign headquarters and rallying groups of other SLUTs on the streets. It’s scandalous fun — even XKYLAR has often said her music is “not that serious” — but in our current context, I can’t help but find it incredibly evocative.
XKYLAR’s “SLUT” president embodies both Trump’s unorthodox (to put it lightly) approach to politics and Kamala’s neoliberal girl boss energy. As U.S. politics continue to veer away from outdated notions like respectability, tradition, diplomacy and the law, XKYLAR’s video unfortunately doesn’t feel especially shocking, even as she aggressively rejects established norms for our country’s highest office. Still, seeing a woman take on such a role while boldly expressing her sexuality is, in many ways, empowering — especially at a time when increasingly conservative views about sexuality are regaining popularity and being deployed against women, including those in positions of power. This perspective on female empowerment seems to be a key element of XKYLAR’s artistic identity.
XKYLAR first made a name for herself as a photographer and creative director for acts like Kim Petras. Her imagery is bright, bold and brash; campy and nostalgic yet fresh and meaningful. Influences from 80s and 90s fashion, tech and advertising (portions of the “SLUT” video even have a 90s camcorder aesthetic), as well as visual references to underground rave culture, are present throughout her work. But it doesn’t feel like a ham-fisted appeal to nostalgia, nor does her sexual expression feel like a regressive appeal to the male gaze. Together, the retro references and bold sexuality serve to recontextualize each other, revealing the radical creative vision XKYLAR brings to all her work.
“I feel like society paints women in a one-dimensional way and sexualizes them on their terms. I want to reclaim that sexuality and talk about all the sides of womanhood,” she told Paper magazine in early 2024. “I want to show that women can be taken seriously even if their music isn't ‘serious’ … I can be empowered and strong, while also being hot and delusional.”
Whether she’s incorporating archival video clips into a performance backdrop or flipping the script on a buzzy dance track, much of XKYLAR’s work is actively in conversation with pop culture past and present. In being unafraid to reference or not reference, she comments on the social norms that shape and are shaped by pop culture. The “SLUT” video is the epitome of her ethos, taking her cultural commentary to new heights with some of her most direct statements on current events. She even cops the style of Trump’s campaign materials, replacing his signature slogan with her own, like “Sluts for America” and “Make America Slutty Again.” In one scene featuring XKYLAR in a faux news broadcast, the lower third and news ticker display an array of headlines and captions that are both hilarious and biting. Two of them are especially striking — “Conservatives afraid of a nation under sluts” and “Are we ready for a SLUT president?”
The results of the 2024 election suggest the answer to the latter question is no (and the former statement is true). Trump, after all, won the election with a platform that would rollback reproductive rights and bodily autonomy for people across the country. His constituents attacked Harris’ character based on her perceived promiscuity, labeling her a slut for simply having a dating history, for simply being a woman. Such blatant misogyny wasn’t simply acceptable to conservative voters, but it’s the very thing that attracted many of Trump’s supporters. It’s a sad situation — but it’s part of what makes the “SLUT” video so powerful.
It feels both pretentiously overwrought and so obvious it’s not even worth mentioning, but watching the video for “SLUT”, I can’t help but think of Zoe Leonard’s seminal poem “I Want a President.” Described by Vice contributor Beckett Mufson as a “protest of overly-sanitized American politicians”, Leonard’s poem expresses a desire for leaders who, in Mufson’s words, have “qualities she sees in her peers, but never the political elite.” Leonard wants “a president who has stood in line at the clinic, at the DMV, at the welfare office, and has been unemployed and laid off and sexually harassed and gaybashed and deported”; “I want a person with AIDS for president and I want a fag for vice president.”
Despite its more cheeky, lighthearted tone, to me, XKYLAR’s video expresses a similar sentiment. The references to queerness and AIDS are especially relevant, both to Leonard’s artistry (much of her work at the time focused on the AIDS epidemic) and to my interpretation of “SLUT”. At the height of the epidemic, the disease was highly stigmatized and gay men faced especially harsh scrutiny, with the media pushing a narrative that HIV-positive gay men “brought HIV infection upon themselves” with promiscuous sexual behavior. President Ronald Regan’s administration initially refused to respond to the public health crisis “partly because they didn’t care much about those who were sick, and partly because they believed that as long as they were straight, they themselves would never have to worry about it” — his press secretary responded to questions about the disease with “snickering, homophobic jokes and a disturbing air of uninterest”.
Leonard’s poem is a direct challenge to such callousness. It’s not an appeal to identity politics — she doesn’t necessarily want a candidate that literally has all the qualities she lists. The core of her message is that she wants a president who understands the realities of everyday American people and, most importantly, cares about them — even the ones on the margins; even the poor ones, the disabled ones, the fags and, yes, the SLUTS. Like Leonard, XKYLAR doesn’t believe being a slut should preclude someone from being president, because she doesn’t believe “sluts” are any less valuable or human. Leonard’s poem is a demand for leaders who share that perspective. XKYLAR expresses that idea in a more splashy and irreverent way, but the idea is no less powerful. In fact, XKYLAR’s approach adds its own layer of meaning.
XKYLAR says she wants to embrace all aspects of the female experience, even the parts that are devalued (or commodified) by others, which mirrors Leonard’s desire to empower marginalized communities. But injecting that idea into a video for a silly pop song embodies the message in a uniquely powerful way — if a raunchy music video can have a radical subtext, maybe there’s something deeper going on below the bassline of a club track. Maybe there is meaning and purpose enough in creating fun music for the club, in going out dancing, in having sex. America may not be ready for a promiscuous girl to be president, but maybe there is still meaning and beauty and purpose and power in being nothing more than a SLUT.
This article was originally published on January 13,2025. Written by America's Decline. Opinions and analyses expressed here are mine alone.