22 Most Lesbosexiest Music Videos of 2016

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by riese & mey

Music videos have long been a bastion of lesbosexy representation, going back to the olden days when many women of my generation were swooning over those Aerosmith videos starring Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler. You know the ones. So obviously as the world gets gayer, music videos get gayer, which says a lot, because they were already very gay to begin with. Let’s look at this year’s crop of suggestive imagery, shall we?

1. Hayley Kiyoko – Gravel To Tempo

Mey: I have such a big freaking crush on Hayley Kiyoko you guys. And in this video when she’s dancing around trying to impress other girls I can’t look away. I wish Hayley Kiyoko would dance on a table in front of me and steal the gum out of my hand.

2. The Veronicas – On Your Side (Written & Directed by Ruby Rose)

Riese: Just your average everyday girl-meets-girl, girl defends girl from homophobic assholes, girl gets punched in the face, girl gets addicted to painkillers love story!

3. Zolita – Holy

Riese: The description of this music video is “A young girl explores a lesbian relationship in a patriarchal schoolhouse and starts a secret feminist girl cult.” Like… WHERE’S THE SITCOM SPIN-OFF OF THIS CONCEPT, LADIES?

4. Julia Nunes – Make Out

Riese: Autostraddle Co-Founder Alex Vega engages in heavy petting with her fiancée in this music video, a devotional to that giddy feeling you get at the start of a thing where all you ever wanna do, like ALL YOU EVER WANNA DO, is make out. You can’t do anything else, not one thing! It’s so fucking cute.

5. Britney Spears – Slumber Party ft. Tinashe

Riese: This quaint music video sends me on a trip down memory lane, recalling the teenage slumber parties of my wayward youth in all their splendor: gothic mansions, models in cat-ears, Britney Spears writhing on a vinyl sectional in an extravagant tulle skirt-fountain and an aggressively turquoise bra situation, men in fitted suits with tattoos on their eyes, Britney Spears shoving her vagina in Tinashe’s face, girls in fishnets and heels dipping it low in a high-ceilinged room, etc. etc. I mean, throw in some Crystal Clear Pepsi, Dirty Dancing on VHS, and a few bags of Cool Ranch Doritos and you’ve got 7th grade in a nutshell.

6. The Internet – “Special Affair/Curse”

Riese: Why yes that Patron DOES make me feel nice and comfortable! I would love to come over there and sit on that throne, thank you so much for asking. This night has really taken a turn for the better.

7. Nina Sky – Champion Lover

Mey: Nina Sky are so freaking cute and so is this song and this video!!! Look at all the cute couples including a lot of super cute queer couples!

8. Nanok – Lay You Down ft. Ray Dee

Riese: This video starts Monica Dogra and Anushka Manchada, who GQ India says are “the sort of artists always pushing the envelope” by doing things like “starring in feminist films about wrathful goddesses.” SIGN ME UP.

9. Kehlani – CRZY

Riese: This particular video was suggested to me via A+ priority inbox with the following message, “she is bi and has new v gay haircut, may be of interest to the readership :)”

10. Courtney Act – Kaleidoscope

Riese: This song feels like it was designed to get blasted from scratchy speakers on a gay cruise ship as we leave the Chelsea Piers headed towards the Caribbean and everybody’s had three mimosas too many and really can only hear the beat and is sort of trying to work with that. Regardless, I’m not surprised it was chosen as the official theme song of Sydney’s Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. Also this music video is just a cute bleached summer surfer’s paradise situation sweet as sherbet.

11. Tegan & Sara – Faint of Heart

Mey: The video for “Faint of Heart” was filmed right after the Orlando massacre and it is a terrific healing salve. We get to watch a bunch of trans and gender non-comforming youth dress up as their icons and lipsync their hearts out all while we listen to Tegan and Sarah sing about how strong love is. If that doesn’t warm your queer heart, I don’t know what will.

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Riese

Riese is the 40-year-old Co-Founder and CEO of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in California. Her work has appeared in nine books including "The Bigger the Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards Of Being Female," magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3018 articles for us.

27 Comments

  7. This is a good list. I particularly like how in the past couple of years we’ve started to see more narrative arcs in lesbian music videos so that the kind of stereotypical storylines that used to warrant a three hour Nicole Conn cringe-fest can now get played out in two minutes to a pleasant synthpop soundtrack. Like, that Zolita video is just a raptor short of Lost and Delirious.

    Overall, I think is a boon for efficiency in this time-starved age of mass lesbian media consumption.

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  13. It doesn’t quite fit into this list, being uploaded to YouTube on Dec 24 2015, but.. if anyone hasn’t seen Studio Killers’ “Jenny” yet, I’ll happily put forward a recommendation for it:

    (The entire album’s superb work, too)

    As for the list, well.. Make Out remains one of my daily plays – such a wonderful track, let alone that video. If I’m ever feeling a bit lacking in sparkle, I just need to watch that, and I’m reminded of just what life /can/ be like.

    I’ve also downloaded the vids from Carly Way Jepsen, Tancred, Peaches, and Kygo. ^_^ (And the recommendation above for Tove Lo’s short looks well worth coming back to)

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