“I love how that pussy talk”: Black women, subversive reclamation, and the rhetorical power of Black pussy talk.

As a contested site of struggle, Black women rappers’ use of hip-hop and rap music provides them with a platform to affirm their sexual autonomy amid gratuitous sexual violence. Sexual agency is central to Black abolition. To imagine futures beyond violence necessitates that we view Black women’s sexual rebellion as an abolitionist praxis amidst precarity. In this essay, I introduce <italic>subversive reclamation</italic>—a critical reading posture and experimental approach—to explore the imaginative potential of <italic>Black pussy talk</italic> as a rhetorical strategy employed in Black women’s contemporary stripper rap. I situate this exploration of Black women’s pussy talk within and in conversation with Black queer feminist (BQF) theories of sex and sexuality as well as pleasure and joy to consider how Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s hip-hop song, “<italic>WAP</italic>” queers hegemonic inscriptions of Black women’s sexualities. Ultimately, I argue that subversive reclamation offers a disruptive reading of Black women’s pleasure, fundamentally shifting how rhetorical scholars should talk about Black women’s bodies, sexualities, and futures in popular media and public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]