A professor at Indiana University dedicated an entire academic journal article to examining Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s marital analingus.
Why exactly does it matter what celebrities do behind closed doors? Well, according to Indiana University professor Dinah Holtzman, it can highlight important trends in cultural feminism.
In an academic journal article entitled “Ass You Lick It: Bey and Jay Eat Cake,” Holtzman argues that Beyoncé’s marital practice of “cake eating,” also known as analingus, is culturally significant and worthy of study for those entrenched in debates on the pop star’s relationship with feminism.
“The Carters’ down-low affirmation of reciprocal analingus is notable because of the larger cultural debates around Beyoncé’s embrace of feminism in late 2013 in the midst of her ‘Mrs. Carter Tour,'” Holtzman wrote.
According to a summary of Holtzman’s work, the article focuses on the marital analingus that Beyoncé and her husband, rapper Jay-Z, engaged in between 2010 and 2014.
“This essay investigates a period from 2010 to 2014 in which Beyoncé covertly celebrates mutual marital analingus with her husband rapper Jay-Z,” the abstract reads. “The couple’s subtle promotion of cake eating suggests the key to commensurate male-female coupling is to queer and black(en) heterosex.”
According to the Indiana University website, Holtzman is a lecturer in the school’s American Studies department. Her research interests include sexuality studies, “queer of color critique as well as critical race, feminist, psychoanalytic and queer theory.”