130 Biblical Interpretation 27 (2019) 130-149 Van Horn

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Promiscuous πόρναι, Bad Bitches, and Misogynistic

Masculinities: A Queer, Imperial-Critical Analysis
of Revelation and Rap
O’neil Van Horn
Drew University, USA
ovanhorn@drew.edu

Abstract

If the Book of Revelation is anti-imperial resistance literature of the first order, hip-hop
music is its contemporary equivalent – with Kendrick Lamar as one of its most politi-
cally sensitized “prophets.” I will explore the intersections, commonalities, and diver-
gences between Revelation 17-18 and rapper Kendrick’s “For Sale? (Interlude),” especially
regarding notions of empire, gender, and sexuality. I will draw connections between the
characters of “For Sale” – Kendrick and Lucy – and those of Revelation 17-18 – John of
Patmos and Babylon. This analysis will reveal the relationship between anti-imperial
rhetoric and the troubling “effemination” of empire. I contend that Babylon and Lucy
are both figures “in drag,” dis/closing the prevailing imperial and misogynistic forces of
their respective cultures. This queer interpretation, playing off Catherine Keller’s and
Stephen D. Moore’s reading of the text and J. Jack Halberstam’s study of drag kings, seeks
to unveil the hypermasculine performances in both Revelation and contemporary hip-
hop culture.

Keywords

Revelation – hip-hop – queer theory – gender studies – empire – Kendrick Lamar

Revelation and Rap: An Introduction

If the Book of Revelation is anti-imperial resistance literature of the first order,

hip-hop music is its contemporary equivalent. John of Patmos, the self-identi-
fied author of Revelation, writes scathing critiques against the Roman Empire

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Promiscuous πόρναι, Bad Bitches, and Misogynistic Masculinities 131

and attacks its practices. Socially conscious hip-hop artists today share a simi-
lar outspoken, condemnatory spirit.
In this article, I will explore the intersections between Revelation 17-18 and
rapper Kendrick Lamar’s song “For Sale? (Interlude),” especially regarding no-
tions of empire, gender, and sexuality. I will draw connections between the
characters of “For Sale” and those of Revelation 17-18, arguing that there are
intricate parallels between John and Kendrick, as well as the woman, Babylon,
and Lucy, Kendrick’s female personification of Lucifer in “For Sale.” Through a
careful examination of these characters, I argue that the John-Kendrick and
Babylon-Lucy parallels present a noteworthy relationship between anti-impe-
rial rhetoric and the troubling “effemination” of empire. I contend that Baby-
lon and Lucy are both figures “in drag,” disclosing the prevailing imperial and
misogynistic forces of their respective cultures. This queer interpretation, play-
ing off Catherine Keller’s and Stephen D. Moore’s reading of Revelation, seeks
to unveil the hypermasculine performances in both Revelation and contempo-
rary hip-hop culture. One must consider the role of hypermasculine misogyny
in the violent fates of Babylon and Lucy, who are the πόρναι of ancient Rome, as
defined by Jennifer Glancy and Stephen D. Moore, and the “bad bitches” of hip-
hop today.

Methodological Madness: the Possibility of Discerning Impulse?

To assess the ways in which Kendrick and Revelation 17-18 open up one to the
other, I must first define the framework for doing so. I will begin by briefly
drawing upon the work of Brian K. Blount on African American music and
Revelation as a preliminary interpretive lens for this essay. With this frame-
work established, it is my hope that the reader will see how Kendrick and Rev-
elation 17-18 open up one to the other in order to affirm the texts’ anti-imperial
impulses and reject their misogynistic modes, in turn revealing their implicit
gender-constructs and gender-bending aspects.
In Blount’s chapter, “The Rap against Rome: The Spiritual-Blues Impulse
and the Hymns of Revelation,” he argues that both the hymns of Revelation
and historically Afro-American music genres (such as spirituals, blues, and
rap) create a similar religio-political message of subversion.1 Blount is particu-
larly effective in the distinction he draws between the musical genres them-
selves and the impulse from which they are derived. That is, Blount differentiates

1 Brian K. Blount, Can I Get a Witness? Reading Revelation through African American Culture
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), pp. 94-96.

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132 Van Horn

between the music of blues and rap, for example, and the spiritual-blues im-
pulse from which they are derived. This separation of entity and impulse is
critical to the appreciation of the mode (i.e., rap) through which the impulse
(i.e., spiritual-blues impulse) manifests itself, while still exposing the mode to
criticism.2 Blount applies this understanding of entity and impulse specifically
to Revelation. In doing so, Blount generates an interpretive framework – to
which I will return with the assistance of Lynn Huber and Erin Runions – for
understanding both rap and Revelation, distinguishing mode and impulse. I
now turn to Kendrick Lamar to examine the ways in which his characters oper-
ate in relation to their Revelation counterparts.

Paradigmatic Personalities: A Literary Character Analysis of

John-Kendrick and Babylon-Lucy

In 2015, Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp a Butterfly, an album in which he

contemplates life within the American Empire and wrestles with matters of
race and religion. In this article, I will primarily focus on one song – “For Sale?
(Interlude)” – in which Kendrick deals most obviously with empire.3
“For Sale” is strangely, if not purposefully, reminiscent of Revelation 17-18.4
Kendrick, simultaneously the narrator and writer, guides the listener through

2 This is a dangerous and tenuous task, especially for the confessional reader. I recognize the
fine line between seeking the “authentic”/“integral” and creating false norms, if any such
norms existed to begin with. Thus, how does one discern that which is true to the impulse
from that which is a perversion of that very impulse? And, who or what determines that which
pertains to the impulse (and that which is extraneous)? I will attempt to walk this proverbial
line to argue that anti-imperial rhetoric is an inherent, authentic element of these texts, while
rejecting their misogyny as perversions of the impulse. Misogyny, here, is suggested as a “per-
version” in a broad sense. That is, I seek to reject misogyny, regardless of whether it is a perver-
sion of political resistance in itself, or whether it is a symptom of imperial discourse that has
become a part of the act of resistance (à la Homi Bhabha’s mimicry). I must be clear that this
reading does not seek any sort of “essence,” much less a “pure essence;” I seek not to reintro-
duce and reify such neocolonial impositions through any sort of bifurcated dualisms. Rather,
it is this study’s hope that through Blount’s lens the reader might dis/cover a means by which
she can wrestle with difficult texts, particularly those of the biblical canon. In support of
Blount’s interpretation of Afro-American music, I look to Cornel West for additional support.
West writes, “Afro-American music is first and foremost, though not exclusively or universally,
a countercultural practice with deep roots in modes of religious transcendence and political
opposition.” See Cornel West, “On Afro-American Popular Music: From Bebop to Rap,” Black
Sacred Music: A Journal of Theomusicology 6.1 (1992), pp. 282-94 (282).
3 See Kendrick Lamar, “For Sale? (Interlude),” To Pimp a Butterfly (Top Dawg Entertainment,
2015).
4 While I do not wish to make the argument that Kendrick’s “For Sale? (Interlude)” is necessarily
predicated on Revelation, it is true that elsewhere Kendrick draws readily on Christian meta-

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Promiscuous πόρναι, Bad Bitches, and Misogynistic Masculinities 133

his conversation with a figure named Lucy. Lucy, throughout the entire album,5
is an adversarial figure whose name serves as an abbreviated version of Lucifer.
Resembling Siegfried Wenzel’s notion of the mediaeval “three enemies of
man,”6 I contend that Lucy is a threefold figure: (1) the embodied supernatural
adversary or opponent; (2) the representative character of a failing, immoral
capitalistic empire; and (3) a feminine character who attempts to seduce Ken-
drick. I contend that Lucy parallels the depiction of the woman called Babylon
in Revelation: a supernatural adversary or opponent, a figure representing em-
pire, and a female temptress.
Concurrently, Kendrick is also a threefold character who is: (1) a mortal sub-
ject to the demonic figure of Lucy; (2) resistant to a failing, immoral capitalistic
empire; and (3) a masculine character who wishes to refuse the temptation of
intimacy with Lucy. John of Patmos, like Kendrick, is also threefold: a mortal
subject to the demonic πόρνη, resistant to a culture of imperial accommoda-
tion, and a masculine character who wishes to refuse the temptation of inti-
macy with Babylon.7 Though I will primarily focus on the third role of these
characters, I must begin with a brief assessment of the Babylon-Lucy and John-
Kendrick parallels and their respective, threefold natures.8
The epigraphical poem that develops throughout the course of To Pimp a
Butterfly identifies Lucy as a maleficent, divine persona. Kendrick laments, “I
didn’t wanna self destruct / (But) The evils of Lucy was all around me.” In one
of the most powerful lines of “For Sale,” Lucy makes her divine influence
obvious; she exclaims, “Kendrick, Lucy don’t slack a minute / Lucy work harder

phors generally, and imagery from Revelation specifically. Consider the following from a demo
initially intended for To Pimp a Butterfly (but eventually released in a later project): “Ocean
water dried out, fire burning more tires out / Tabernacle and city capital turned inside out /
Public bathroom, college classroom’s been deserted / Another trumpet has sounded off and
everyone heard it” and “Always camaraderie, I can see, our days been numbered / Revelation
greatest as we hearing the last trumpet / All man, child, woman, life completely went in reverse
/ I guess I’m running in place trying to make it to church.” Kendrick Lamar, “untitled 01 |
08.19.2014.,” untitled unmastered (Top Dawg Entertainment, 2016).
5 Kendrick Lamar, “Alright,” To Pimp a Butterfly (Top Dawg Entertainment, 2016), verse 2; and
Kendrick Lamar, “Mortal Man,” To Pimp a Butterfly (Top Dawg Entertainment, 2016), outro.
6 Wenzel’s analysis treats the medieval commonplace: “Man has three spiritual enemies: the
word, the flesh, and the devil.” See Siegfried Wenzel, “The Three Enemies of Man,” Mediaeval
Studies 29 (1967), pp. 47-66.
7 Omitted for the sake of brevity, it is also interesting to note the further connection between
John of Patmos and Kendrick as both being exiled in some sense. That is, if one reads
Revelation as a document written from a figure in political exile and also views Kendrick as
an isolated prophet speaking out against the travails of empire, this would be a further con-
textual parallel to explore.
8 It is essential to note that these facets are interdependent and entangled in ways difficult to
separate; still, for the sake of a cogent argument, I will strive to elucidate each individually as
if they were not interconnected.

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/ Lucy gone call you even when Lucy know you love your Father.” She demon-
strates her ability to divert Kendrick’s attention from God, his divine “Father.”
She lures him at all times and in all places, despite Kendrick’s commitment to
God. Her omnipresence and omniscience haunts across spatio-temporal bor-
ders: “I’m Lucy / I loosely heard prayers on your first album truly.” That is, Lucy,
however hidden, lurked in the shadows of Kendrick’s life even in years past
while producing previous records.9 Still, she allows Kendrick to live under his
own will because she knows, “at the end of the day you’ll pursue me.” Thus
Kendrick articulates a sense of resignation before the powerful adversary.
Not only does Kendrick narrate the threefold nature of Lucy lyrically, but
also musically. Kendrick and the producers of this track utilized a vocal distor-
tion effect in several instances and for multiple purposes. The vocal distortion
elicits a few prudent points for the present exploration. First, the distortion
simply signals a shift in who is speaking. As Kendrick raps through his first-
person encounter with Lucy, the distortion helps distinguish the narrator “I”
from the “I” subject of Lucy’s self-referential dialogue. Second, the distortion
plays with the speaker’s tone. Initially, the intro features techniques often used
in personifications of divine (namely, satanic) voices. This is particularly
prominent in the lines, “They say if you scared, go to church / But remember,
he knows the bible too.” Kendrick here is clearly playing with the familiar trope
of “demonic” voices in popular culture – deep, echoic, powerful.10 The “he”
here refers to the divine adversary (namely, Lucifer) which points toward a
fluidity in Kendrick’s personification of Lucy. Accompanying the gender flux at
play here is a respective vocal distortion. A later distortion on the repeated re-
frain “I (want you)” is higher, feminine, and echoic. I argue that the vocal dis-
tortion – only utilized with Lucy (as well as the brief intro about Lucy’s
omniscience) – signals a fluidity of gender performance. The relentlessly se-
ductive Lucy is pitched with a high distortion in her lines: “Now baby when I
get you get you get you get you / Ima go hit the throttle with you.” The flux of

9 It is important to reiterate here that Kendrick is both writer and narrator, subject and
composer. This is true of previous records such as his narrative masterpiece good kid,
m.A.A.d. city (Top Dawg Entertainment, 2012).
10 The deep, demonic voice trope – sometimes referred to as “voice of the legion” – appears
often in popular culture, providing an additional tool for an audience to identify the role
of a particular character. Some examples of this include the character Regan in The Exor-
cist (1971), the demonic characters in The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), Freddy Kreuger of
the A Nightmare on Elm Street series (1984, 2010), and Tom Waits’ “Oily Night” from his play
(and respective album) The Black Rider (1993), which, in the play, is performed during a
Satanic ritual, etc. This trope is similar in purpose to the archetypal high-pitched cackle of
evil characters, despite being radically different in form.

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vocal distortion techniques, I contend, aids in queering the Lucy character, as

will become apparent later in this article.
The second facet of Lucy – that is, her representation of the capitalist em-
pire – must now be assessed. Lucy offers Kendrick affluence in the following
bars: “Lucy gone fill your pockets / Lucy gone move your mama out of Comp-
ton / Inside the gi-gantic mansion like I promised.” Lucy tempts Kendrick with
material success and wealth like the other rappers whom she “came after when
they was boring.” This seduction reverberates harmonically with Revelation’s
similar fiscal temptation by the πόρνη in “purple and scarlet, and adorned with
gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup” (Rev. 17:4, NRSV).
The imagery surrounding the πόρνη of Revelation has long been understood as
an allusion to the vastness of the Roman Empire and its global trading prac-
tices. The merchants associated with the πόρνη “have become rich from the
power of her luxury” but then “weep and mourn for her, since no one buys
their cargo anymore” (Rev. 18:3, 11, NRSV). Catherine Keller argues, “The Apoca-
lypse … ‘reveals’ the global sin as less traditionally religious than economic.
The spiritual foulness of the empire emanates from the gross capital accumu-
lation of its elites.”11 In line with my reading of Lucy, Nestor Miguez suggests of
Revelation,

Babylon … stands for whatever system enthrones the marketplace …, for

whatever turns the human body and soul into merchandise for trade.
Within such a system the only need that exists is the need of those who
have the ability to pay; consequently, the basic needs of all human beings
yield to the luxury markets of great merchants and traders.12

The economic parallels between Babylon and Lucy abound.

In “For Sale,” Lucy also attempts to draw Kendrick into the drug culture of
the rap industry – a theme which Kendrick has consistently reflected on, espe-
cially in the episodes of good kid m.A.A.d. city in which the narrator smokes a

11 Catherine Keller, Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World (Bos-
ton: Beacon, 1996), p. 75.
12 Nestor Miguez, “Apocalyptic and the Economy: A Reading of Revelation 18 from the Expe-
rience of Economic Exclusion,” in Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert (eds.), Reading
from this Place. Volume 2: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), p. 261.

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joint laced with PCP.13 Lucy hopes to smoke marijuana with Kendrick as a
means to be close, indeed intimate, with him, stating: “Smoking lokin’ poking
the doja till I’m idle with you.” It is possible that “idle” here does not only refer
to spending time with Lucy, but could also suggest an allusion to the idiom “an
idle mind is the Devil’s playground.”
Kendrick’s quick rise to fame from the streets of Compton has consistently
forced him to struggle with temptation, particularly that of material gain. It is
worth noting that in a track from an earlier project Kendrick makes this clear
yet again, writing: “So just to get a dollar, will I sell my soul? / I look the Devil in
the eye and tell him, hell no.”14 Kendrick draws the connection between ac-
commodating to the rap culture of greed and excess with the notion of selling
his soul to the Devil. In these examples, it is clear that Kendrick demonstrates
a consistent pattern in the personification of fiscal greed as a supernatural ad-
versary, just as John of Patmos does with Babylon. The conclusion of the sec-
ond verse of “For Sale” warns: “I want you to know that Lucy got you / All your
life I watched you / And now you all grown up to sign this contract if that’s pos-
sible.” Lucy’s sweet voice transforms into a more sinister, devilish one as she
tempts Kendrick with a contract. This contract, I argue, is multivalent – refer-
ring to both a record-label contract and a proverbial contract with the divine
adversary. Assimilating to the empire of material greed is synonymous with
assimilating to evil, according to Kendrick.
The third facet of Lucy concerns her sexual temptation of Kendrick. Lucy
offers Kendrick a future relationship with her, stating, “I see you and me, Ken-
drick.” In a way, she is offering intimacy to Kendrick and, consequently, the
listener. Kendrick writes (from his perspective), “You looked me in my eyes
about 4 5 times / Till I was hypnotized then you clarified / That I (want you).”15
The first hook emphasizes the extent to which Lucy desires (and thereby
tempts) Kendrick: “(I want you more than you know).” Lucy is clear in her ef-
forts to seduce Kendrick beyond matters of wealth. According to Lucy, Sherane
– the high school love interest of the protagonist from Kendrick’s previous al-
bum, good kid, m.A.A.d. city – does not even compare with Lucy’s allure and
seduction.16 With the parallels between Lucy and Babylon so obvious at this
point, it is almost redundant to direct the reader to Revelation 17:2, in which

13 For example, “Imagine if your first blunt had you foaming at the mouth / I was straight
tweaking” (Kendrick Lamar, “m.A.A.d. city,” good kid, m.A.A.d. city [Top Dawg Entertain-
ment, 2012]).
14 Kendrick Lamar, “Kendrick Lamar,” Compton State of Mind (Compton City, 2012).
15 To be clear, the “I” of the last two lines (i.e., “That I (want you)”) is Lucy. Again, this is made
explicit by the vocal distortion (indicated above with parentheses).
16 It should be noted that Sherane is simultaneously real and fictional, as is the narrator,

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Babylon seduces the kings of the earth and intoxicates the inhabitants of the
earth with the wine of her fornication. Yet this sexual intimacy, according to
Kendrick, can only lead to death. He raps, “Roses are red violets are blue but me
and you both pushing up daisies if I (want you).”

Gender-Fluid Goddesses: Temptresses in “Drag”

I will now dwell on the nuanced third role of Lucy and Babylon – particularly
their complicity in and subversion of the construct of femininity. I first refer to
the work of Patricia Hill-Collins to employ a critical reading of the texts’ osten-
sible misogyny. Hill-Collins’ lens of masculinity/femininity opens an interpre-
tation of Lucy and Babylon as figures who bend traditional gender constructs.
As Lucy and Babylon move from their (traditionally)17 feminine roles of passiv-
ity and purity into masculine positions of power and influence, they perform
the roles of the opposite gender. Here, the two feminine characters act as and
perform within the space of the masculine, shattering constructs along the
way.
Hill-Collins’ definition of (hegemonic) masculinity assists in the illustration
of a masculinity that operates in both texts. According to her:

“[R]eal” men are primarily defined as not being like women. Real men are
expected to be forceful, analytical, responsible, and willing to exert au-
thority, all qualities that women seemingly lack. The use of women in the
construction of [hegemonic] masculinity is so widespread that [it] seems
hidden in plain sight.18

Hill-Collins’ definition of masculinity acknowledges the traditional gender bi-

nary: male is masculine and is the norm; female is feminine and therefore
the “other.”  Femininity is thus “implicated in the dominant norm because it is
­defined against it.”19 Hegemonic masculinity is the norm against which the

Kendrick (cf. Kendrick Lamar, “Sherane a.k.a Master Splinter’s Daughter,” good kid,
m.A.A.d. city [Top Dawg Entertainment, 2012]).
17 When speaking of gender roles, I must be clear in expressing that these roles are merely
accepted constructs. Thus, when they are referred to as “traditional,” I submit that these
roles are simply the traditionally accepted roles of that particular gender – that is, “mascu-
line” is to male as “feminine” is to female.
18 Patricia Hill-Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism
(New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 188, emphasis mine.
19 Windsor Ludy Jordan Jr., “Emerging Black Masculinities in Hip Hop,” (Master’s Thesis,
Lehigh University, 2013), p. 13.

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feminine is held. The feminine is connected to the norm as its antonym, its
adversary. According to Hill-Collins’ examination of black culture, men are to
be powerful and physical, wherein they “require control over women (which
takes many forms) in order to know that they are ‘real’ men.”20
When allowing these texts to illuminate each other, one finds fluid, bent no-
tions of gender and sexuality. The space of the masculine is infringed upon by
the female characters of each text. This disruption of order contributes to the
violence they incur. The gender fluidity at play in each text demands further
exploration.
It is already clear that both Lucy and Babylon are, in part, portrayed as fe-
male temptresses in both texts. The nature of their seduction is predicated on
their class and societal status. Working from Jennifer Glancy and Stephen D.
Moore’s understanding of Babylon as illustrated in the fashion of a Roman
sex worker of the lowest class (likely a slave),21 I must also reflect on the con-
text of Lucy. As Jean Kim suggests that Babylon represents “women sexually
involved in colonizing contexts,” so too is Lucy.22 Here, Shanell Smith’s work is
invaluable in highlighting the “dual characterization” of Babylon (and, by ex-
tension, Lucy) as representing “both the colonizer and colonized,” βασίλισσα
and πόρνη.23
Where Babylon is depicted as the πόρνη described by Glancy and Moore,
I assert that Lucy is the “bad bitch” of contemporary hip-hop culture. The com-
pound notion of the “bad bitch” requires linguistic and sociological elucida-
tion. As Windsor Ludy Jordan notes, “In rap lyrics ‘bitch’ is generally used as a
term of derision toward women, but also is used to refer to women who are
considered sexually desirable.”24 The poles of derision and desire are aptly il-
lustrated in Nxworries’ 2016 song “Suede”: “If I call you a bitch / It’s cause you’re
my bitch / And as long as no one else call you a bitch / Then there won’t be no

20 Hill-Collins, Black Sexual Politics, p. 189.

21 Glancy and Moore accentuate the characterization of Babylon as πόρνη (and not ἑταίρα,
as traditionally interpreted) for several compelling reasons: the number of Babylon’s
many sexual partners, the words on her forehead (possibly a tattoo), and the brothel im-
agery associated with the term around the time of Revelation’s composition. See Jennifer
A. Glancy and Stephen D. Moore, “How Typical a Roman Prostitute is Revelation’s ‘Great
Whore’?” JBL 130.3 (2011), pp. 551-69.
22 Jean K. Kim, “‘Uncovering Her Wickedness:’ An Inter(con)textual Reading of Revelation 17
from a Postcolonial Feminist Perspective,” JSNT 73 (1999), pp. 61-81 (69).
23 Shanell T. Smith, The Woman Babylon and the Marks of Empire: Reading Revelation with a
Postcolonial Womanist Hermeneutics of Ambiveilance (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014),
p. 127.
24 Jordan, “Emerging Black Masculinities,” p. 49.

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Promiscuous πόρναι, Bad Bitches, and Misogynistic Masculinities 139

problems.”25 Hip-hop culture, Jordan writes, reduces the “female presence to

[her] ability to please men sexually.”26 The constructed hypersexual role of the
female does not allow her the freedom to define herself, in terms of sexuality
and otherwise. Instead, the bitch, much like the πόρνη, is a slave to her sexual-
ized place within the patriarchal hierarchy. She is further degraded by a quali-
fier of lowliness: “bad.” Yet, “bad” suggests polar connotations concurrently.
That is, while on the surface “bad” connotes “unfaithful” or “unacceptable,” it
also suggests “sexy” or “desirable.”
The skewed projection of women in hip-hop culture, especially in music
videos’ depictions of women as objects for sex, unveils the contradictory space
of a woman as derided but desired. I contend that Lucy resides in that very
space of contradiction, as a lowly deity and a mighty slave. Equally true of
Lucy, Erin Runions argues that, across the biblical canon, “Babylon is an uncer-
tain symbol, alternately fetishized or demonized. Sometimes it is an object of
desire. Frequently it signals dangerous incursions into national sovereignty
and hierarchical authority.”27 As Glancy and Moore suggest in their article, the
πόρνη inhabits a similar paradoxical space; she is “not simply reducible to the
lowest-status Roman sex worker, the tattooed brothel slave” because she also
serves the “kings of the earth” as a paradoxically enthroned πόρνη.28 Runions
elaborates on this same paradox: “the Whore of Babylon abhors empire and
attracts her readers to it; as it turns out, her evil is connected to early Christian
anxiety over and ambivalence toward empire and their own positioning within
it, thus blurring clearcut determinations of who is evil.”29 This disruption of
certainty is likely the cause of the πόρνη’s violent end.
Lucy and Babylon are lauded and lamented concurrently. Kim furthers this
paradox: “The whores who are metaphorically identified with the city thus re-
veal the double jeopardy of the colonized women, who are not only invaded by
foreign men but also abandoned by their own men.”30 This simultaneously
colonized and colonizing body is congenial with Smith’s understanding of
Babylon as an “ambiveilant” figure.31

25 Glen Booth and Brandon Paak Anderson (aka NxWorries), “Suede,” Yes Lawd! (Stones
Throw Records, 2016).
26 Jordan, “Emerging Black Masculinities,” p. 37.
27 Erin Runions, The Babylon Complex: Theopolitical Fantasies of War, Sex, and Sovereignty
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), p. 247.
28 Glancy and Moore, “How Typical a Roman Prostitute,” p. 562.
29 Runions, The Babylon Complex, p. 231.
30 Kim, “‘Uncovering Her Wickedness,’” p. 74.
31 Smith, Woman Babylon and the Marks of Empire, pp. 125-74. “Ambiveilant,” for Smith, sig-
nals the simultaneous dipolarity and irreducible ambivalence of the Babylon figure as
both πόρνη and βασίλισσα.

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Lucy – the sexual temptress, the bitch, the πόρνη – asserts her dominance
over Kendrick, as previously demonstrated. Lucy is a seductress who is thor-
oughly female, but performs within a hypermasculine space of power and in-
fluence. Similarly, if not identically, the πόρνη Babylon is also a thoroughly
female seductress who wields authority and control, the same characteristics
traditionally regarded as masculine. Lucy’s move toward the masculine norms
of power and violence elucidates a similar move made by Babylon, a πόρνη os-
cillating between lowliness or baseness and a position of authority and wealth.
I contend that the two characters – Babylon and Lucy – are, in a sense, per-
forming “in drag.”32
While Catherine Keller suggests that the πόρνη represents male patriarchy
in drag, I wish to offer a complementary reading, holding it in tension with

This bilateral space that each character is forced to inhabit is supported by an exploration
of Roman prostitution. In the Roman world, prostitution was a legal and accepted prac-
tice, although not a morally upstanding one, as historian Thomas A. McGinn writes.
(Thomas A. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome [New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1998], p. 10.) This practice allowed for free male citizens to engage in
sexual intercourse outside of marriage without it being considered adulterous. (McGinn,
Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome, p. 17.) Lynn R. Huber, drawing from
Roman historian Jane F. Gardner, contends, “While adultery for women consisted of any
sexual relationship outside of marriage, for men adultery consisted of sexual relation-
ships only with married women.” (Lynn R. Huber, “Gazing at the Whore: Reading Revela-
tion Queerly,” in Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone [eds.], Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at
the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship [Atlanta: SBL, 2011), p. 310; cf. Jane F. Gardner, Wom-
en in Roman Law and Society [London: Croom Helm, 1986], p. 127]. Thus the act of a free
male having sex with a prostitute was only a “relatively amoral act, since it did not involve
a violation of anyone’s honor” (Huber, “Gazing at the Whore,” p. 311). Catherine Edwards
notes that, despite the general acceptance of prostitution, being a prostitute was one of
the most shameful occupations that one, male or female, could possess. As Huber states,
this shame “was doubly so for female prostitutes, who were marginalized by virtue of
their gender as well as profession” (Huber, “Gazing at the Whore,” p. 311; cf. Catherine
­Edwards, “Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient
Rome,” in Judith P. Hallet and Marilyn B. Skinner [eds.], Roman Sexualities [Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1997], p. 82; and McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law
in Ancient Rome, p. 15). Yet again, the double-standards against any bodies other than
those appropriately exhibiting hegemonic masculinity flourish. Huber claims, “The dou-
ble standard that presents visiting a prostitute as morally acceptable, yet denigrates the
prostitute her- or himself, certainly plays into the gender hierarchies of heteronormativi-
ty” (Huber, “Gazing at the Whore,” p. 317). This oscillation between reverence and ravag-
ing (or, at least, esteem and exclusion) is never entirely separable for either Lucy or
Babylon.
32 While the term “drag” often connotes an aesthetic, physical break with constructed
norms, I use the term in this case to connote a shift in that figure’s performed role.

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Keller’s assertion.33 Keller’s argument is, without doubt, compelling. Neverthe-

less, I assert that an alternative reading can use her reading of a figure “in drag”
and turn it on its head. That is, I argue that Babylon and Lucy are female figures
that perform “in drag” as masculine entities, that inhabit masculine spaces of
power and authority. These two “drag kings” play as males, crossing over the
constructed boundaries of the traditional, passive, and sexualized female into
the space of the active and capable male.
Judith Butler’s seminal text, Gender Trouble, reflects on the ways in which
“drag” serves to disrupt heteronormativity, sexual dimorphism, respective gen-
der roles, and otherwise. Butler asserts, “Drag is an example that is meant to
establish that ‘reality’ is not as fixed as we generally assume it to be.”34 This task
is both ontological and political. That is, Butler does not only explore what
gender is, but also its political consequences. The ethical remains central to
her meditations, as Butler argues, “The point of this text is not to celebrate drag
as the expression of a true and model gender (even as it is important to resist
the belittling of drag that sometimes takes place), but to show that the natural-
ized knowledge of gender operates as a preemptive and violent circumscrip-
tion of reality.”35 Further, she strives “to expose the tenuousness of gender
‘reality’ in order to counter the violence performed by gender norms.”36 While
this timeless text is well known among a multiplicity of communities, I em-
phasize here the politico-ethical spirit of Butler’s work – that not only should
traditional gender constructs be troubled, ipso facto, but also because of the
associated violences incurred through a binary optic. Any subversion of the
“stylized repetition of acts” that is gender, according to Butler, is often met with
unthinkable violence.37 The present project echoes the political spirit of But-
ler, destabilizing gender such that “drag” can serve as a symbol of subverting
normative constructs.38

33 For more on the notion of the patriarchal empire “in drag,” see Keller, Apocalypse Now and
Then, p. 77. For a differently pitched extension of Keller’s suggestion, see Stephen D.
Moore, “Raping Rome,” Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014),
pp. 144-53.
34 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Rout-
ledge, 1990), pp. xxiii-xxiv.
35 Butler, Gender Trouble p. xxiii.
36 Butler, Gender Trouble, p. xxiv.
37 Butler, Gender Trouble, p. 179.
38 It is important to note here that “drag” is never merely a performance of any essentialized
“other.” That is, I assume Butler’s argument that there is no “originary” gender to imitate,
but rather that drag is the parodying of any “origin” whatsoever. She writes, “The notion of
gender parody defended here does not assume that there is an original which such pa-
rodic identities imitate. Indeed, the parody is of the very notion of an original; just as the

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Lucy and Babylon perform J. Jack Halberstam’s notion of “female masculin-

ity.” Distinct from “male impersonators” who merely attempt “to produce a
plausible performance as the whole of [their] act,” Bablyon and Lucy, like con-
temporary drag kings, perform “masculinity … and [make] the exposure of the
theatricality of masculinity into the mainstay of [their] act.”39 Working from
Esther Newton’s reflections on drag, Halberstam affirms that drag “describes
discontinuities between gender and sex or appearance and reality but refuses
to allow this discontinuity to represent dysfunction.”40 Halberstam labors to
emphasize the vast differences between the performances of drag queens and
drag kings. In agreement with Hill-Collins’ assessment of hegemonic (often
white) masculinity as the operative norm in most societies, Halberstam is clear
that, because masculinity is regarded as “nonperformative” and therefore nor-
mative, any performance outside of heteronormative masculinity – whether
butch, femme, trans, drag, queer, etc. – is ultimately considered derivative.41
The varieties of drag king performances are many, as Halberstam notes.42
Lucy and Babylon perform bilaterally – heterosexual in their attempt to seduce
their (ostensibly) male protagonists and “in drag” as they inhabit the tradition-
ally masculine space of power, wealth, and control. Their performances best
reflect what Halberstam refers to as the “femme pretender” paradigm. The
femme pretender performance “often revolves around a consolidation of femi-
ninity rather than a disruption of dominant masculinity.”43 The femme drag
king is far more theatrical and sexually-suggestive. Of their performances, Hal-
berstam writes, “Whereas a few male drag performers create drag drama by
pulling off their wigs or dropping their voices a register or two, the femme pre-
tender often blows her cover by exposing her breasts or ripping off her suit in
a parody of classic striptease.”44 Perhaps most pertinent to the texts’ queer
characters, Halberstam’s reflections on the experiences of the femme drag
kings illustrate the simultaneity of femininity and masculinity. Halberstam ru-
minates, “Many [femme] drag kings talk about the power they enjoy in access-
ing masculinity through a drag act, but they ultimately return to how confirmed

psychoanalytic notion of gender identification is constituted by a fantasy of a fantasy, the

transfiguration of an Other who is always already a ‘figure’ in that double sense, so gender
parody reveals that the original identity after which gender fashions itself is an imitation
without an origin” (Butler, Gender Trouble, p. 175).
39 J. Jack Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), p. 232.
40 Halberstam, Female Masculinity, p. 236.
41 Halberstam, Female Masculinity, p. 240.
42 For a helpful assessment of a select variety of performance paradigms, see Halberstam,
Female Masculinity, pp. 242-65.
43 Halberstam, Female Masculinity, p. 250.
44 Halberstam, Female Masculinity, p. 249.

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they feel in their femininity. Ultimately, femme drag kings tend to use drag as a
way to, as Buster Hymen puts it, ‘walk both sides of the gender fence.’”45 Lucy
and Babylon indeed dance across this gender fence. Yet, this “drag” reading
must be nuanced by ancient Roman conceptions of gender, congenial with
Halberstam’s femme pretender and pointing to a further element of gender
queering.
In the ancient Roman setting, one could “go beyond” the masculine and
thus be regarded as effeminate due to a lack of self-mastery. The male ought to
be powerful, but never out of control, especially emotionally. The uncontrol-
lability exhibited by Babylon, as Glancy and Moore posit, reflects the excesses
of an out-of-control, chaotic performance46 in which “the topmost reaches of
the social order have toppled into the gutter.”47  This toppling reveals what
might be assumed as a divergence in the constructions of gender between then
and now.
Lucy, a “bitch” of modern rap culture, moves beyond the masculine into a
hypermasculine space. She performs in the highest stratum of masculinity
within late-twentieth-century hip-hop culture – that of the gangsta or pimp.
The pimp, as expressed in “For Sale,” could very well represent a music industry
executive, likely a record-label affiliate. Contemporarily, the masculine has ex-
panded to include the hypermasculine – a volatile and unpredictable space.
Where Babylon performs “in drag” and goes beyond the masculine, toppling
into the depraved space of the feminine due to her lack of control, Lucy ap-
pears to embody the highest role in the spectrum of hegemonic masculinity –
one of wealth, power, and dominance.
However, a shift in the emerging black masculinities of contemporary hip-
hop presents an analogous condemnation of the hypermasculine.48 Rapper J.
Cole’s lyrics from his 2014 hit “No Role Modelz” illustrate this oddly emergent,
indeed perfectly paradoxical, condemnation: “But then I thought back, back to

45 Halberstam, Female Masculinity, p. 250, citing Kimberly Pittman, “Walk like a Man: Inside
the Booming Drag King Scene,” Manhattan Pride, June 1996, p. 4.
46 They are adapting Sandra R. Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire: Tacitus’s
Messalina,” in Hallett and Skinner (eds.), Roman Sexualities, p. 230.
47 Glancy and Moore, “How Typical a Roman Prostitute,” p. 565. For a general discussion of
the role of emotion in the ancient world, see Angelos Chaniotis, (ed.), Unveiling Emotions:
Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World (Leipzig: Franz Steiner
Verlag, 2013). See also Angelos Chaniotis and Pierre Ducrey, (eds.), Unveiling Emotions II:
Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World (Leipzig: Franz Steiner
Verlag, 2013). For a brief reflection, see Ronald De Sousa, “Emotion,” Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (2003); accessible at <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/>.
48 For more on the contemporary move toward new, emerging masculinities, see Jordan,
“Emerging Black Masculinities,” pp. 40-68.

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a better me / Before I was a B-list celebrity / Before I started callin’ bitches ‘bitch-
es’ so heavily.”49 Kendrick Lamar, among others like J. Cole, critiques this space
of hypermasculinity – that of gang violence, obnoxious material passion, and
obsession with a system of sealed contracts and closed minds.50 As has been
noted thus far, Kendrick’s exposition of empire is far-reaching; and now, this
critique encompasses the space of hypermasculinity, rejecting it as extraneous
to the spirit of hip-hop. In a way, Kendrick is incorporating, albeit unintention-
ally, Blount’s framework of “impulse” to reject practices that he sees as accom-
modating to the empire of the music industry. Again, the hypermasculine is
overturned as senseless and out-of-control.
Reading “For Sale” and Revelation 17-18 concurrently, opening up one to the
other, unveils peculiar interpretive arguments. One finds in both a world “in
drag,” unveiled by allowing each text to assess the other. One will discover that
in these texts of anti-imperial resistance there is a unique reflection of the gen-
der constructs of each piece’s context. Babylon reflects the paradoxical place
of the feminine, both damned and desired. Lucy illustrates hip-hop culture’s
bitch of today, honored and objectified. These two are, in a sense, one and the
same. This reality of gender and empire’s intersections are problematic. That
is, as has been noted repeatedly in Revelation scholarship, the critique of em-
pire, in general, occurs through the use of gendered images and, ultimately,
violence.
Avaren Ipsen seeks a resolution to the issue of oppressive language through
the same lens as this project: that of hip-hop. Ipsen acknowledges the misogy-
ny in hip-hop’s rhetoric, yet refuses to cast it aside. She writes, “Hip-Hop and
Rap music were my hermeneutical point of access to Revelation’s whore meta-
phor because this music also is frequently denounced and dismissed for its
language of violence, negative reciprocity, misogyny, and homophobia.”51 Ip-
sen explores the ways in which Revelation, like hip-hop, “has an imperfect lib-
eration message, because oppressed people often don’t have perfect liberation
messages, but they have flaws and gaps in their social theories of change, just

49 Jermaine Lamarr Cole aka J. Cole, “No Role Modelz,” 2014 Forest Hills Drive (DreamVille
Records, 2014), emphasis mine.
50 Another exemplary artist exhibiting an aversion to “hypermasculinity” in hip-hop culture
is Chance the Rapper (given name: Chancelor Bennett). Though he releases all of his mu-
sic for free and refuses to sign to a record label, Chance remains one of the most popular
artists (of any genre) of today. Much of his lyrical content appeals to childhood whimsy,
religious praxis, and social justice over against the emphasis on material wealth and cul-
tural violence that many of his contemporaries assume.
51 Avaren Ipsen, Sex Working and the Bible (Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2009), p.176.

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like academic social theorists.”52 Still, she refuses to allow oppression to be an

excuse.53
Revelation’s critique of Rome is akin to Tupac Shakur’s remarks about the
US, equally scathing and equally complicit in misogynistic metaphor: “The
constitution, yo, it don’t apply to me / And Lady Liberty? Stupid bitch lied to
me.”54 It seems that the toppling of the empire in Revelation is predicated on
its association with femininity and not some inherent immorality. I contend
that this renewed reading of Revelation through the eyes of Kendrick Lamar
(and vice versa) extends this problematic beyond the experience of the cis-
gendered female, to include that of the broader LGBTQ+ community, as well.

Queer Queries: Ethical Concerns for Reading Revelation

How might the critical reader grapple with these texts in light of their elements
of oppression regarding gender and sexuality? It is obvious that the embodied
violence experienced by Babylon, a queer figure, is problematic. This issue aug-
ments as one comprehends the ways in which an “in drag” reading of the text
might expand the experienced violence to not only cis-, female persons but
also those of the queer community. What is the fate of the drag figure in this
text, or any other queer person for that matter? John of Patmos’ text not only
illustrates the slaughter of empire through the image of a slaughtered woman,
but now simultaneously through the image of a slaughtered LGBTQ+ person.
Indeed, the “whore of Babylon,” for contemproray purposes, very well could be
translated “the faggot of Babylon.” Jean Kim’s problematic of female readers
being “placed in a double bind” is thus broadened, with queer readers now also
“forced to betray [one’s] sexual identity in order to share the perspective of the
author/God” lest they “have to identify … with the female object in the text.”55
Huber reflects, “It is not always easy to separate the image of the Whore as a
city from the image of the Whore as a woman.”56 How might impulse be distin-
guished from mode, if at all?
Briefly touching on the Kendrick-John paradigm in relation to their mascu-
line subjectivities, one may discover that elements of homophobia57 are also

52 Ipsen, Sex Working and the Bible, pp. 176-77.

53 Ipsen, Sex Working and the Bible, pp. 188-91.
54 Tupac Shakur aka 2Pac, “Words of Wisdom,” 2Pacalypse Now (Interscope Records, 1991).
55 Kim, “‘Uncovering Her Wickedness,’” pp. 61-62.
56 Huber, “Gazing at the Whore,” p. 317.
57 That is, fear of any queer individual (and not strictly gay or lesbian persons, in the tradi-
tional sense).

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traceable when using Hill-Collins as a lens to read these texts. With a female
performing as male, it is plausible that the figure elicits a homoerotic senti-
ment in the male subject. When encountering a female seductress (in physical
figure) who performs as a male, the narrators may find themselves fearful of
their experienced attraction. “Hegemonic men are not homosexual,” Jordan
tersely explains.58 It is entirely possible that the elicited homoeroticism reveals
Christopher Frilingos’ argument that in Revelation’s visions of “monsters and
martyrs [are] desires that were formed and caught fire in the spectacles of the
Roman Empire,” that domination and subordination as gendered, sexual, and
colonial themes persist across a host of registers.59
This observation about the dominant, necessarily heterosexual male in hip-
hop culture is also reflected in language such as “no homo” (read: not homo-
sexual) within colloquial rap discourse.60 This adds another layer to the
multivalent figures of Lucy and Babylon in that these two “drag kings” expose
prejudices against the queer community; the central characters, John and Ken-
drick, cannot reveal within a heteronormative culture any evidence of attrac-
tion to that which is even remotely masculine.
In performing masculinity, the female receives a punishment of brutal oth-
er-ing to maintain the “order” of the heteronormative patriarchy. One can only
imagine what the fate of Lucy is. It is possible that this “bad bitch” will experi-
ence that same end.61 Tina Pippin engages this problematic of gender-fluid
figures and grotesque, misogynistic violence in her book, Apocalyptic Bodies:
The Biblical End of the World in Text and Image. She maintains that Revelation
is a text of terror, perpetuating a male-dominated vision for the (New) Earth.62
Further, her essay with J. Michael Clark proposes that this text is as trouble-
some for the queer person as it is for the cis-female.63 Pippin elsewhere sug-
gests that the text ought to be rejected, arguing that “women of the past as well
as the present are going to have to be about the business of creating their own

58 Jordan, “Emerging Black Masculinities,” p. 14.

59 Christopher A. Frilingos, Spectacles of Empire: Monsters, Martyrs, and the Book of Revela-
tion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), p. 1.
60 Michael P. Jeffries, “Can a Thug (get some) Love? Sex, Romance, and the Definition of a
Hip Hop ‘Thug,’” Women and Language 32.2 (2009): pp. 35-41 (38).
61 One might imagine an image no less violent than the conclusory scenes in Dr. Dre’s recent
piece titled, “Loose Cannons.” See Andre Romelle Young aka Dr. Dre, “Loose Cannons,”
Compton (Aftermath Entertainment, 2015).
62 Tina Pippin, Apocalyptic Bodies: The Biblical End of the World in Text and Image (London:
Routledge, 1999), p. 125.
63 See Tina Pippin and J. Michael Clark, “Revelation,” in Deryn Guest (ed.), The Queer Bible
Commentary (London: SCM, 2006), pp. 753-68.

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apocalyptic tales, their own utopian narratives.”64 I maintain, in contrast, that

critical readers might uncover a synthesized resolution65 between the poles of
blind acceptance and utter rejection.
This third way – utterly liminal yet wholly outside of the common dialectic
of acceptance and rejection – might be found in the work of Huber and Run-
ions. Reflecting on the destruction (indeed, razing) of the πόρνη, Huber writes,
“On one hand, I find some satisfaction in the destruction of empire. On the
other hand, I am troubled by the image of violence because of my sense of
identification with the Whore.”66 Huber illuminates Blount’s distinction of im-
pulse and mode in her meditation on the fleshy body destroyed in Revelation,
toiling toward some redemptive element to be found in the text by and for the
queer reader. Against Pippin, I resonate harmonically with Huber who states:

By working through apocalyptic narratives and wrestling with the images

that have been used to oppress, we begin to disarm the elements of texts
that have been used to repress and begin to assign new meanings to
­others. Avoiding interaction with Revelation and other apocalyptic texts
actually creates a sense that they are somehow untouchable or nonnego-
tiable. This takes power from the queer interpreter and places it in the hands
of those who continue to use Revelation and other apocalyptic texts as
weapons.67

For Huber, there is a redemptive kernel in the text to be cultivated, all-the-

while acknowledging the gory fate of the πόρνη. Similarly, Kim, through her
“inter(con)textual” reading of Revelation, reinforces that “the text is not a
source which pours out meaning, but a site where meaning is articulated.” She
reminds readers that to “deconstruct the text, therefore, is to open it, to release
the possible positions of its intelligibility, including those which reveal the par-
tiality of the ideology inscribed in the text.”68 Huber and Kim’s interpretative
strategies reverberate with Runions’ project which strives for:

… a different mode of reading the Babel/Babylon symbol and its queer

cast of associated characters (the antichrist and the Whore), one that

64 Tina Pippin, “The Heroine and the Whore: The Apocalypse of John in Feminist Perspec-
tive,” in David M. Rhoads (ed.), From Every People and Nation: The Book of Revelation in
Intercultural Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), p. 144.
65 Wherein resolution resides between the chasm separating absolution and dissolution.
66 Huber, “Gazing at the Whore,” p. 317.
67 Huber, “Gazing at the Whore,” p. 305, emphasis mine.
68 Kim, “‘Uncovering Her Wickedness,’” p. 80.

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keeps at its center the ungovernable, queer, sublime impossibility of

knowing truth, or evil. I do not want to repeat interpretations that mimic
and secure the violent and hierarchizing dynamics of sovereignty and al-
legory or the horizontal, spreading dynamics of globalized markets and
mobile diversity. Rather, I wish to halt these expansive and expanding
interpretive moves by becoming attuned to a queer opacity – that is, the
sublime, liminal, undecidability of alterity – in the production of what is
taken as transcendent.69

Runions seeks to blur purported ethical certainties by reading the text with
attention to difference and liminality. In insisting upon the blurred impossibil-
ity of ethical certainty, Runions embodies the spirit of an ever open-ended,
ever on the way process of interpretation. Reading the characters of the πόρνη
and the “antichrist” with attention to their literary and aesthetic dimensions,
Runions proffers an alternative to the paradigms of accepting or rejecting a
text, writing, “the liminal alterity of these figures might be read as the sublime
– that thing that is too big for reason to comprehend, producing pain and plea-
sure in the encounter. The sublime operates through a certain opacity; it makes
one aware of the unknown without offering final meanings.”70 This sublime
follows Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s work, far from Kantian connotations. My
reading of Revelation assumes Runions’ hope: namely, that the interpretation
of particularly difficult (biblical) texts might be a space for the reader to “imag-
ine how these [characters] produce the feeling of sublime, both through main-
taining opacity and through opening up new sites of negotiation and agreement.”71
The present article is very much an exercise in this same spirit – an opening up
of texts to one another as sites for negotiation, no matter the conclusion drawn.
In this concurrent reading of ancient and contemporary texts, I seek the
opening up, indeed blossoming, of discursive sites in order to recover anti-­
imperialist energies without succumbing to imperial patriarchy, misogyny,
heteronormativity, and otherwise. I agree with Kim – who proposed that the
“unifying impulse of the masculine nationalist discourse homogenizes the
­nation and normalizes women and women’s chastity so that they properly be-
long to the patriarchal order” – all the while expanding the scope of her charge
to consider how queer readers interact with anti-imperialist texts.72 The se­
duction of assimilating to the norms of the empire – which includes such
temptations as the orienting of queer sexualities and performances within

69 Runions, The Babylon Complex, p. 214, emphasis original.

70 Runions, The Babylon Complex, p. 215.
71 Runions, The Babylon Complex, p. 231, emphasis original.
72 Kim, “‘Uncovering Her Wickedness,’” p. 79.

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­ eteronormative frameworks – cannot be denied. Thus, for Huber, the queer

h
community is vulnerable equally as “potential subjects of imperialistic assimi-
lationist projects.”73 The lesson of anti-imperialist subversion remains the ker-
ygmatic impulse that might be compelling to the reader – including the queer
reader – of both Revelation and “For Sale.” Yet, I insist that this subversion must
refuse to submit to any form of anti-imperialism which assumes even marginal
traces of misogyny, heteronormativity, or any other mode in which oppression
might materialize.

Ongoing Outro: A Brief Conclusion

I suggest that this reading of resolution concludes where the article began:
Brian Blount’s notion of “impulse.” Listening critically to hip-hop reminds the
listener of the many issues of gendered language and oppressive actions, even
when embedded within a system of righteous political resistance. A critical
listener of hip-hop is thus reminded to attend to these matters in other facets
of life, including the interpretation of biblical texts. Utilizing this “impulse”
concept, critical readers can navigate the tenuous texts that confront them,
ever seeking that kernel of (political) resistance while still rejecting elements
that divide, brutalize, colonize. Walking the ridgeline between the chasms of
blind acceptance and utter rejection, critical readers expose themselves to the
dangerous task of striving for an inclusive reading that attempts to make sense
of a text’s difficulties, however those may materialize. Perhaps the threshold of
acceptability in terms of oppressive language, symbols, and themes, has al-
ready been reached, as Pippin argues. It is possible, as Adela Yarbro Collins
writes, that critically reading Revelation can lead “to an awareness of how the
text is flawed by the darker side of the author’s human nature.”74 Still, I con-
tend that we must ever be on the way in our readings. I ally with Huber and
Runions in their effort to not relegate this text of radical importance into the
hands of readers who wish to maintain the auspices of patriarchy, heteronor-
mativity, and otherwise. With the longstanding tradition of cultural conserva-
tives wielding Revelation as a weapon, thereby posing utterly real bodily
threats to those of the LGBTQ+ community, I stand in solidarity with Huber in
claiming that the text ought to be negotiated with as it can contribute to queer
conversations concerning assimilation. It is only with imaginative creativity
and discerning criticism that this will be possible. May it be so.

73 Huber, “Gazing at the Whore,” p. 318.

74 Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1984), p. 172.

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