Interviews with Rihanna

Earlier this year Rihanna gave a much-talked about interview in Rolling Stone magazine. But did you know that in the same month she was also interviewed by and featured on the cover of Vogue? As you might expect, the two interviews were very different. Here for your enjoyment are the specific parts of each interview that pertain to her interest in TTWD.

First, the Rolling Stone interview. It was mainly about her music, but also explored quite a bit of her personal life and background - Rihanna means "sweet basil" in Arabic, and is her middle name - and she tells it like it is about spanking.

"I like to take charge, but I love to be submissive, she says. "Being submissive in the bedroom is really fun. You get to be a little lady, to have somebody be macho and in charge of (you). That's sexy to me. I work a lot, and I have to make a lot of executive decisions, so when it comes to being intimate, I like to feel I'm somebody's girl."

What else does she like? "I like to be spanked. Being tied up is fun. I like to keep it spontaneous. Sometimes whips and chains can be overly planned -- you gotta stop, get the whip from the drawer downstairs... I'd rather have him use his hands." She goes on to recount a recent trip to a sex shop in Sydney called The Toolshed, where she left with two full bags of whips, blindfolds and dildos. "The takeaway? "Don't go to a sex store tipsy."

In part, all this talk about pain and domination is about pushing buttons, and the transgressive thrill she gets from being bad. But it's also largely defensive. Because If there's one thing someone knows about Rihanna, it's probably (that she was beaten by her boyfriend.)

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And now comes Loud, full of lyrics about the blurry line between sex and violence. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me." "I like it rough." "The pain is my pleasure." And perhaps most tellingly, "Maybe I'm a masochist."

"I do think I'm a bit of a masochist," she says this evening. "It's not something I'm proud of, and it's not something I noticed until recently. I think it's common for people who witness abuse in their household. They can never smell how beautiful a rose is unless they get pricked by a thorn."

Now then, let's compare this frank and open interview with the one given to Vogue.

There was quite a lot of detain about her wardrobe, and the various outfits she wore each day she met with the journalist. But the subject that interested me most was dealt with in a very different way from the previous interview:

Though Rihanna has the kind of Amazon body some women would kill for, she says she has only recently become content with her shape. "Over the holidays, and even during filming, I realized that I actually like my body, even if it's not perfect according to the book. I just feel sexy. For the first time, I don't want to get rid of the curves. I just want to tone it up. My body is comfortable, and it's not unhealthy, so I'm going to rock with it."

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Rihanna feels that she now has a much stronger connection with her fans. "I feel like they understand me now, which is something that I had been struggling with my entire career, having the fans really know who I am."

That said, they don't always get it. Consider her recent S&M video, a campy, over-the-top take on her relationship to the press that has been wildly misconstrued. "The song can be taken very literally, but it's actually a very metaphorical song. It's about the love-hate relationship with the media and how sometimes the pain is pleasurable. We feed off it, you know -- or I do. And it was a very personal message that I was trying to get across. I wanted the video to say that but still play off of the theme of S&M. And I mean, wow, people went crazy. They just saw sex. And when I see that video, I don't see that at all. I wanted it to be cheeky. There's no other way to take it."

So does she or doesn't she? It depends on which magazine you read.


Finally, if you want to have a bottom like hers, instructions are here at Huffington Post.