You’ve likely seen R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet, the 33-part rap opera opus with classic lines like, “Not only is there a man in his cabinet, but the man is a midget,” and “I’m sorry, girl, but that ho was me.”
You likely remember that Kelly married Aaliyah when she 15.
You’d like to forget his affinity for peeing on women.
You, however, may not know his hit, “Down Low (Nobody Has to Know).”
Consider this a public service announcement: we should all look it up, learn the hook, and, en masse, holler out, “Keep it on the down low…nobody has to know.”
I woke up this morning, got dressed for work, got in the car, and turned on my favorite morning show only to hear about how Vivica A. Fox used to, um, use her tongue to attend to 50 Cent’s, um, posterior when they dated years ago. There’s a whole celebrity beef behind it. It all started when Fox, while appearing on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, suggested that 50 Cent is gay.
Couldn’t care less about the beef. I care about the fact that the DJs were all up in this business at 7 a.m. Way too early to talk about ass-licking. It’s still too early to talk about ass-licking.
Times are hard when people need to listen to R. Kelly.
But we clearly need to. The other day, a friend enlightened me on the subject of revenge porn. I’d never heard the term.
He explained it: when someone breaks up with you and you post all their naked pics on Instagram or Facebook, that’s revenge porn. I thought he was talking shit.
It’s legit. Last March, Governor Scott signed legislation making it illegal to post nude pictures of someone on the internet (if the image contains anything that could identify the person) without his/her consent. The first offense is a misdemeanor. Each repeat offense is a felony. You could go to prison for up to five years.
Times are hard when Rick Scott does something right.
Couples usually have a kind of couple code: we do what we do, no one needs to know; and, if you do tell someone, make sure that someone acts like they don’t know.
That’s not enough anymore. We need nondisclosure agreements. Like legal documents on that blue paper only lawyers use. Like whatever Tom Cruise made Katie Holmes sign when they got married.
This isn’t really for the couple. It’s to protect me from what happened this morning. As an American with all rights afforded thereunto, I should be protected under a booty bill of rights freeing me from having to hear about booty when I don’t want to hear about booty.
It’s almost my birthday. I always play 50’s “In da Club” on my birthday. I always shout out the last line when the song’s almost over: “Don’t try to act like you ain’t know where we been either.” I wish I could, 50. I wish I could.
This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2015.