Usher's latest single, "Lil' Freak," is an ode to arranging a ménage à trois. Helping to schedule the girl-on-boy-on-girl arrangement is hip-hop artist Nicki Minaj. In the song, Usher informs Minaj of a prerequisite to sleeping with him: "You go get some girls, bring them to me." She does.

This is not the first track to employ Minaj as threesome facilitator to the stars. In "Girls Kissing Girls," a track off Minaj's mixtape, Minaj aids Gucci Mane's request for participation in the song's titular activity. And in each song, Minaj readily indulges the man's sexual interest. From Minaj's contribution to "Lil' Freak":

Excuse me lil mama, but you could say I'm on duty
I'm lookin' for a cutie with a big old ghetto booty
I really like your kitty cat and if you let me touch her
I know you're not a bluffer, I'll take you to go see Usher

And from Minaj's verse in "Girls Kissing Girls":

Puh puh pop a beer, I'm a need some honey
Chew it like a gummy, stupid juicy oozy runny
Listen Gucci mane I got what u need
Keisha and Alisha and a million packs of weed
Girls everywhere Gucci go and get the camera
White girls too ohh Julie Annie Amber

There's reason to believe that Minaj is just as into this type of action as Gucci Mane and Usher are. Natalie Stein, writing for Bitch Magazine, notes that Minaj's music has consistently reinforced the popular assumption that Minaj is "a rumored lesbian (or bisexual, depending on who you ask)"—but that Minaj herself has stopped short of officially coming out of the closet. In the hip-hop world, Minaj's sexuality has been employed to fulfill the lesbian fantasies of heterosexual guys, but hip-hop hasn't yet give Minaj the space to truly own her identity.

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As Nicki Escuerdo, who wrote on "Lil Freak" for feminist blog Heartless Doll, writes:

Who cares if the girl isn't into hooking up with other girls? If you want to hook up with Usher, he makes it clear that it's a requirement to bring another lady friend around. To prove not all women are opposed to Usher's message, the song features Young Money rapper Nicki Minaj, who conveniently happens to be bisexual (it's not a marketing ploy at all!) . . . Everybody should have the right to get their freak on and have threesomes if they want. But the way the Usher goes about getting two ladies in his bed, by using his celebrity to coerce girls to sleep with him, is sleazy.

But as Escuerdo goes on to note, the songs that situate Minaj's sexuality as a tool for heterosexual men also give Minaj some room to define herself. This is where things start to get interesting. In "Lil Freak," Minaj announces:

If i'm in yo city, I'm signin' them tig 'ol bitties
I'm plotting on how I can take Cassie away from Diddy
The girls want a Minaj yeah they wetter than the rain then
Usher buzz me in, everybody loves Raymond

I never thought I'd be commenting on the transgressive function of the phrase "tig 'ol bitties." Here, Minaj clues her listeners into the fact that her own sexual interests are hardly confined to pleasing Usher. In this verse, she's not looking to hook up with Cassie to help P. Diddy get off; she's looking to remove Diddy from the situation entirely. But after that little detour, Minaj brings the focus of her sexual interests back to Usher. At the moment the songs start to get gay, Minaj brings it back to a more acceptable sexual expression she converts her erotic energy to heterosexual fantasy.

"Girls Kissing Girls," interestingly, contains no such final caveat. Yes, the song gets its wide appeal by accessing the "Girls Gone Wild" version of faux-lesbianism, but it also refuses to end with heterosexual bliss. Though the beginning of the song has Gucci Man getting hot by observing Minaj's sexual relationships with women, in the end he loses the Minaj character to another girl: "Then I lost her number, never seen again / The best brain in the world, do her thing with a girl / But don't call her yo girl, or let her hang with yo girl."

In these songs, Minaj's interest in other women is quarantined to a specific context (the threesome) that allows men to retain control over Minaj's sexuality in public, even while Minaj winkingly suggests that these guys are hardly owning her in the bedroom. As Minaj gains more industry power as an independent artist, here's to hoping she'll be able to take lyrical control of her own sexuality—without the watchful eye of a big-named guy.

The first time I heard Usher's new gender-bending single, "Trading Places," the D.J. introduced it as a "backseat jam"—a track that's very conducive to fucking. "Trading Places," which follows Usher and his lady-friend as they trade gender roles in the bedroom for an evening, presents gender transgression as a one-off sexual novelty. It's also not very sexy (in one verse, Usher's girlfriend orders Chinese food and demands that Usher not wash his hands before they do it. Thrilling). Needless to say, it wasn't really a jam I was willing to climb into the backseat for—and that was before I knew that the song is also a stealth anal sex anthem!

Let's analyze the male/female dichotomy through the lens of Usher, shall we?

Now we gonna do this thing a lil different tonight
You gonna come over and pick me up in your ride
You gon knock and then you gon wait
Ooo you gon take me on a date
You gonna open my door and I'ma reach over and open yours
Gon pay for dinner take me to see a movie
And whisper in my ear I bet you really wanna do me
Girl now take me home and get up in my Benz
Pour me up a shot and force me to the bed

Things men do: drive cars, take people on dates, open doors, pay for dinner, pay for a movie, voice their desire for sex, pour liquor, force people into bed.

Things women do: ride in cars, go on dates, eat dinner, watch movies, get propositioned, drink liquor, go to bed.

I'm always on the top tonight I'm on the bottom
Cause we trading places
When I cant take no more, tell me you ain't stopping
Cause we trading places
Now put it on me baby till I say "oooo weee"
And tell me to shut up before the neighbors hear me
This is how it feels when you do it like me
We trading places

Things men do: Be on top, not stop, put it on people, tell people to shut up.

Things women do: Be on the bottom, not be able to take things anymore, be loud.

I'll be waking you up to a cup of Folgers
Pancakes and eggs I owe ya breakfast in bed, oh baby
And your orange juice sitting on the coaster
Toast on the side baby strawberry and grape jelly
You finished let me get that drink,
Pull the curtain from the window
Time to get up baby let me make this bed up
Today we going shopping blow 30 on me
Make it 60, spend it like u really love me
Skip dinner and we gon rent a movie
You order chinese food right before u do me
You coming on strong baby let me wash me hands
She said hurry up then get your ass to bed

Things men do: Drink coffee, eat pancakes, drink orange juice, eat toast, get out of bed, spend money, rent movies, order Chinese food, do people, come on strong, tell people to hurry up.

Things women do: Make coffee, make pancakes, pour orange juice, butter toast, make the bed, receive gifts, wash their hands, go to bed.

(yeah) Wash the car
(yeah) I'm gonna walk the dog
(yeah) Take out the trash
(yeah) With nothing but your t-shirt on
(yeah) I'm gonna press your shirt
(yeah) I'm gonna wrinkle mines up
(yeah) In the kitchen girl we crazy we don't give a—
Where you want me?

Things men do: Wash cars.

Things women do: Walk dogs, empty the trash, press shirts, do it wherever they want.

Stay tuned for part two
You been me, I been you
But we gon switch this thing back
I'ma put it on your ass.

Things men do: Force their girlfriends to play out comical male stereotypes while assuming the role of the subservient female. Then, in order to reclaim their masculinity, threaten to insert their dicks into their girlfriends' anuses.

Things women do: Play along with the gender stereotype game at the request of their boyfriends. Prepare hard, phallic objects to force it into their boyfriends' anuses at the height of the gender-bending sex. It's what men do!

Super hard, the Associated Press reports. Though the line-up for this Sunday's Obama inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial includes some of the nation's hottest performers, the notoriously lame "American spirit" promises to dampen each mammoth recording artist's luster. According to the AP, "artists won't be performing their big hits, but will be asked to perform material appropriate to the occasion."

Beyonce! U2! Bruce Springsteen! John Mellencamp! Usher! Stevie Wonder! Shakira! Sheryl Crow! Josh Groban! James Taylor! All stars whose performances will be rendered lame by the American "standards" they will all be forced to perform in honor of Barack Obama. Only John Mellencamp, Sheryl Crow, and Josh Groban will be spared, by virtue of being already pretty lame.*

"The list of stars is impressive," said executive producer George Stevens Jr., who is nevertheless bent on ruining all of them. "[T]his is not a show biz, glitzy occasion. It's going to be rooted in history, remembering the great president (Lincoln) who led us through difficult times."

Ugh, just tell it like it is: No "Single Ladies."

*possibly also James Taylor.