In a 2019 essay for The New Inquiry titled “On Heteropessimism,” scholar Asa Seresin described a “straight pleasure parade” that had lately taken place in Boston. A throng of largely queer individuals confirmed as much as heckle the occasion, poking enjoyable at black-and-white striped straight pleasure flags that seemed like carceral jumpsuits with chants of “Heterosexuality is a jail!” “In comparison with the heady prospects of the queer world to come back,” Seresin wrote, “heterosexuality seems unbearably drab and predictable.”
So go away it to Woman Gaga, famously neither drab nor predictable, to make being straight sound enjoyable once more. “I may very well be your girlfriend for the weekend/You could possibly be my boyfriend for the night time,” she sings on “Backyard of Eden,” a standout from her newly launched seventh studio album, Mayhem. It’s removed from her smuttiest come-on (exhausting to beat “I wanna take a trip in your disco stick”) or cheekiest play on gender (“I wanna be the lady below you/I wanna be your G.U.Y.” involves thoughts); fortunately, the remainder of the monitor isn’t afraid to reveal its fangs. Over peak Ed Banger electroclash, Gaga invokes MDMA, nine-inch stilettos, and a few good old school blasphemy, envisioning the positioning of authentic sin as a warehouse rave with God within the DJ sales space. However “Backyard of Eden” saves its greatest trick for final: a mechanized, squelching breakdown—courtesy of co-producers Cirkut and Gesaffelstein—that’s precision-engineered to unite IDM bros and profession Little Monsters. Even Adam and Eve deserve their shot at leaving all of it on the ground.
