In a new interview, the 32-year-old songstress also wishes that her new album can help society accept people for who they are.
- Apr 30, 2018
AceShowbiz - Janelle Monae wants more women to be empowered by their sexuality. Earlier this week, the singer-actress came out as pansexual, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in her attraction to others, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
Just days later, Monae has gone on to explain how her new album "Dirty Computer" helped her express the issues she has with society accepting people for who they are.
"It's a conversation that I want to have with us as a society, as human beings, about what it means to tell somebody that the way they're programmed - their existence - whether they're queer, LGBTQ, IA (intersex or asexual), in that community - whether they are minorities, whether they're bugs or viruses, whether being a woman, whether being poor, makes you have bugs and viruses," she told Ebro Darden on the Apple Music radio show, Beats 1.
She continued, "What is it like to live in a society that is constantly trying to cleanse you, and tell you that you need to conform, you need to be reprogrammed... deprogrammed? And so, I just wanted to talk about my own bugs and viruses, and how I'm choosing to deal with it."
The "Hidden Figures" star added that she feels as if her sexuality and desires are "one with God" and hopes that other women will soon "feel more free, feel more empowered." Monae also discussed the Time's Up movement sweeping the film industry in response to several sex scandals and talked about how the campaign doesn't just apply to women in Hollywood.
"I remember being, you know, a little nervous going on the Grammys and speaking on behalf of Time's Up, and just letting people know that sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual assault - all that is not just a Hollywood thing," the 32-year-old said. "It's going on in the music industry, it's going on in... we're talking about the abuse of power. That's what we should know, and men should know that women's rights are human rights."
