Chickenhead (sexual slang)
American English slang term From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chickenhead is an American English slang term that is typically used in a derogatory manner toward women.[1] The term mocks the motion of the head while performing oral sex on a man, but contains social characteristics and cultural relevance as well, and is frequently heard in popular hip hop music.[2][3] More recent uses of the term have seen it used by hip hop feminists and entertainers as a symbol of sexuality.[2] "Chickenhead" is also a term used in overseas sex trafficking for individuals that facilitate and monitor a person's transition into prostitution.[4]
Etymology
The word, a chiefly American colloquial term, is usually written "chicken head" or "chicken-head", according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which has 1903 for a first recorded use meaning "foolish or stupid person". It cites John Steinbeck's East of Eden (1952) for its earliest use as a "refer[ence] to prostitutes". A secondary meaning, first recorded in 1988, is "U.S. derogatory slang (esp. in African American usage)", used to refer to "a sexually promiscuous woman" or a woman in general.[5]
Dr. R. Flowers Rivera used the term "chickenhead" more recently, in a poem that identifies it as a woman who is impoverished and an alcoholic lacking empathy.[6]
A chickenhead in the transnational sex trade is typically responsible for facilitating transportation, acquiring temporary lodging, and monitoring activities of the new prostitute, similar to the activities of a "pimp".[4]
Disempowering or empowering
Ronald Weitzer and Charis Kubrin note that "A favorite rap term is 'chickenhead,' which reduces a woman to a bobbing head giving oral sex."[7] Bakari Kitwana argues that many rappers refer to women, black women in particular, with demeaning terms names such as "bitches, gold diggers, hoes, hoodrats, chickenheads, pigeons, and so on."[8] Johnnetta B. Cole argues that hip hop's tradition to refer to black women in such terms disrespects and vilifies them.[9]
In Joan Morgan's When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, she notes the derogatory tendency of the term "chickenhead", and further defines it as a woman who uses sex to get the things she wants.[10] As a black, hip-hop feminist, Morgan offers that chickenheads simply use the tools afforded to them when other means are not efficient, and that all women may have something to learn from the use of sex as manipulation.[11]
See also
References
Bibliography
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