Est-ce que tu aimes...
Beyoncé includes her acclaimed song, Partition, in this album to discuss sex and open sexuality. Sex is often a taboo topic when discussed in a feminist context. Feminists are often portrayed as “men-haters.” Beyoncé, however, attempts to shed a different light on this assumption. She points to how you can be a feminist, but also a sexual individual who’s interested in men.
The video begins and ends with Beyoncé as a house wife sitting with, what seems to be, Jay-Z at the breakfast table. Beyoncé is silently sipping her tea, while Jay-Z has a newspaper up and ignores her. The entire video is a sexual fantasy that this house wife is having, and let’s just say Beyoncé’s sexual nature is far from ambiguous.
One of the lyrics in the chorus
Watch Partition
says, “driver roll up the partition please, I don’t need to see you seeing ‘Yoncé on her knees,” which implies that Beyoncé and Jay-Z are going to have sex in the back of the car. She proceeds to sing, “He bucked all my buttons, he ripped my blouse. He Monica Lewinski’d all on my gown.” This lyric is used to further add to the sex scene and reference the notorious sexual relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski.
Towards the end of the song, a voice over sensually says:
"Est-ce que tu aimes le sexe? Le sexe. Je veux dire, l’activité physique. Le coït. Tu aimes ça? Tu ne t’interesses pas au sexe? Les hommes pensent que les féministes détestent le sexe, mais c’est une activité très stimulante et naturelle que les femmes adorent."
Which translates to:
"Do you like sex? Sex. I mean, the physical activity. Coitus. Do you like it? You're not interested in sex? Men think that feminists hate sex, but it's a very stimulating and natural activity that women love."
Throughout this voiceover, Beyoncé performs a silhouette sexual dance on a chair in front of Jay-Z while he smokes a cigar. When I saw Beyoncé a few years ago, she performed the same routine in front of all of Citi Field, and the entire stadium got steamy from her sexual aura. In the video and at Citi Field, this dance communicates to the viewers her desire for sexual gratification. Her dance becomes a strip tease for Jay-Z and it's humorous, in a way, that the voice over is so blunt and not-sexual, but the scene is hyper sexual. Beyoncé uses the bluntness of the voiceover to show that sex does not need to be a hushed-voice topic and can be openly and regularly discussed.
At the end of the video, the video flashes to a scene of Beyoncé and Jay-Z on top of each other in the back of a car. Then, all of a sudden, the fantasy finishes and the video shows Beyoncé back at the breakfast table sipping on tea.
Partition is used to show that women have sexual desires and
needs that need to be met just as much as men. Beyoncé is portrayed as a sexually frustrated house wife whose sexual needs are ignored by her man, Jay-Z. Women’s sexual needs are not talked about enough, and Beyoncé uses Partition in order to bring this topic into conversations.
Partition helps Beyoncé's fans to better articulate which type of feminist Beyoncé is. Beyoncé has told the world she is a feminist, but there is a wide range of feminists. Queen Bey never posted on Facebook or shared on an interview her feminist ideals. Instead, she has used music to show that she is a more reformed feminist that is interested in women's equality, equal pay, open sexuality, and self-love. She supports the empowerment of women, but she also appreciates relationships and men. Beyoncé is not anti-man; Beyoncé is pro-women. Partition shows that women can be feminists and sexual, but not necessarily at the expense of rejecting men all together. Beyoncé’s song tackles women’s sexuality, which has, for far too long, been a topic that people are afraid to discuss.