Robyn Brings Back (Phone) Sex Positivity With “Talk to Me”

Bringing a slight dash of hope and jubilance to a new year that has thus far been filled with a lack of promise, Robyn offers her second single and video from Sexistential, “Talk to Me.” And, considering the title of what will be her ninth album, it’s expected that the track is all about “sex stuff.” Though Robyn isn’t so prosaic as to be “on the nose” (or is it “on the dick” in this case?) regarding her ruminations on “the act.” Which is why she opts to keep it slightly “retro” by bringing phone sex back into the conversation for this particular song. One that opens with “phone-like” talking that finds Robyn shyly saying, “Hey, so this is a little awkward, but…” (it has a very early 00s Britney Spears feel to it—think: her intro to “Early Mornin’” that goes, “Alright, I was a little late last night/Got a little messy” or the fact that she included a phone “interlude” between “What U See [Is What U Get]” and “Lucky”).

Robyn then kicks off the first verse with a double entendre, telling whoever is on the other side of the line (or perhaps even right next to her, depending on one’s interpretation), “Yeah, I’m so close, I’m almost there.” At first, one might think she’s referring to being close to a physical place, but no, she’s talking about, what else, being close to orgasm. And, in the accompanying video, her writhing and rhythmic movements make that sentiment abundantly clear. As for the visuals, like “Dopamine,” “Talk to Me” is directed by someone with a photography background: Casper Wackerhausen-Sejersen. And she uses that skill to frame Robyn at her best, to accentuate her look as the ostensible “missing band member” of Duran Duran. Because, yes, it’s a very 80s aura that Robyn is exuding (both sartorially and hair and makeup-wise). An aesthetic that perfectly matches the exuberant beats provided by Robyn’s go-to producers, Klas Åhlund and Oscar Holter. So exuberant, in fact, that it could lead to a spontaneous “dance-gasm,” which Robyn invites six other dancers (Chester Hayes, Elisabeth Mulenga, Hannah Joseph, JJ James, TJ Firmin and Willow Fenner) to join her in having around the video’s thirty-second mark. Indeed, they conveniently appear just as Robyn declares, “‘Cause sometimes I need an audience/(For you)/Just to feel like I’m making sense.”

This applies both in terms of her theatrical onstage performances and, apparently, her sexual ones. And as she summons this, er, sextet of dancers like a pied piper of sexual liberation, the documentary-meets-fashion photoshoot effect is heightened when Wackerhausen-Sejersen continuously cuts between grainy-looking footage of Robyn and high-saturation, high-quality images. As for the latter visual style, it makes sense that there arrives a moment during one of these instances that there’s a slight nod to “vogueing,” as casual and unpolished as it might be.

Apart from Madonna, it’s Janet Jackson that Robyn seems to take inspiration from when she admits, “Sometimes I get so lonely” (something Janet ruminated on with her 1998 hit [from 1997’s The Velvet Rope], “I Get Lonely”), making the phrase a bit more her own by adding, “So baby, won’t you talk to me till I’ve arrived?” Again with the double entendres. Which, in addition to phone sex, Robyn is single-handedly (no masturbation pun intended) bringing back. And while some might say Robyn isn’t advocating for “phone sex” so much as “talking dirty” in general in the boudoir (a truly lost art, and one that definitely shouldn’t be studied based on the “The Awful Truth” episode of Sex and the City), it’s, um, hard not to read the lyrics that way (not to mention the phone voice-sounding intro of the single). This further emphasized by the lines, “Want you to tell me how to do it/It’s not as good by myself/So baby, will you talk me through it?” Instructionally, over the phone. Though, again, however one interprets the nature of the song—phone sex anthem or talking dirty homage—the point is that Robyn wants to bring back verbal foreplay into the sexual repertoire (though that would probably be Miranda Hobbes’ [Cynthia Nixon] worst nightmare, for as she said in “The Awful Truth,” “Sex is not a time to chat”). Something she’s not afraid to advocate for with such urgings as, “I’m coming fast, so guide me in/Just hit me up and talk to me, work up a vibe.”

Ideally, the kind of vibe that Robyn works up throughout the “Talk to Me” video, which finds her wielding movements both violent and visceral to corporeally convey the passions emanating from within. And yes, like Madonna, Robyn is proving with her latest batch of complex choreo that, for some female pop stars, age really ain’t nothin’ but a number. Or maybe she just made a Faustian pact like most people in the spotlight (hence, the way she keeps frequently making devil horn gestures placed against either side of her head throughout the video). Including her mentee, Charli XCX (see: the “Beg for You” video).

“Devil woman” or not, while some might still associate the phrase “Talk to Me” with a certain A24 horror movie, Robyn is making that command sexy (rather than scary) again. Along with the notion of phone sex itself, a practice that, at this juncture, seems quaint to the generations that have come after Robyn. But maybe now, it won’t. Dare to dream. Or, in this case, fantasize.