Sexuality of the Lyrics in Janet Jackson's Music

Over the evolution of Janet Jackson's entertainment career, the sexual overtones in the lyrics of Janet Jackson's music have aggressively intensified. After initially entering the pop music world as a performer whose lyrical focus was centered on youthful innocent topics, Janet Jackson has shifted her focus to more sexually overt lyrical content.

This bait-and-switch phenomenon is difficult to analyze without a concomitant examination of how Ms. Jackson's music relates to her personal life. Clearly, the changes evident in Ms. Jackson's music have much to do with a redefinition of her inner self.

Her first album, recorded in 1982 when she was 16 years old, was "Janet Jackson." In "Forever Yours" on that album, her lyrics were the romantic, starry-eyed declarations of an innocent high-school girl with a crush:

Two years later, she married against her family's wishes. Her next album, "Dream Street," was less successful than the first, and her career already seemed to be failing. Before long, the marriage was annulled, and Janet submitted herself to her father's guidance again. This appears to be the turning point where her personality and values began to change.

Her father put her into the hands of his friend John McClain, a record executive, who was tasked with remakin