There’s a bit of knowledge handed down over the years through sexually adventurous communities. It’s not that the anus is elastic, a crucial but entry-level discovery. It’s that, once you slip a few fingers in there, and then consolidate your hand into a supple put powerful fist, you can go even deeper. Take a left, and there’s a second hole, and while it somehow feels dark in there, there’s room. There’s a place for you. And once everyone realizes this, and relaxes about it, something remarkable happens: That far in, past the shock and the abject and the practice of it, your limb experiences the other person’s lungs. You feel the body’s instincts, its mechanisms and magic. Your pulse can feel their heart beat.
From the start, there’s a lot of fisting inside No Lube So Rude, Peaches’ first album in a decade. Before the first of its 31 minutes has passed, she’s already at it. “If you beg/I will fist you… Swear to me/Icon issues,” she promises in “Hanging Titties” while basslines, supported by decent dubsteppy beats, jiggle and swing. This is her bare-bones swagger which, by this point, you probably already love or groan at, though why not do both? Peaches has never been a cunning linguist like CupcakKe; she’s never penned the world-beating wordplay of “WAP” or the sly code-switching of “Bloom.” Instead, she just comes right out and says something, and then says it again in case you were too busy clutching your pearls, dancing your ass off, or on your knees in a backroom to listen. In the early 21st century, her straightforward insistence of queer sensibility proved that circles of fame and influence could expand to make room for women too delighted by each other to worry much about the male gaze. A quarter century later, her same old razzle-dazzle feels a little repetitive, yes. But it’s also an insistence that the room we found can swell even bigger, that even in these dark times there’s humanity and humor at the heart of it all. Can’t hear that enough.
Which is not to say that Peaches has gone soft. No Lube whips up good beats, good politics, and good sex until it’s frothy, like the electro-glitch of “Fuck Your Face,” in which she advices us to “Bump the bass/Duck the mace.” She names names: The very metal “Fuck How You Wanna Fuck” calls out Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court justice accused of sexual assault who is reviled for his attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade, defend racist ICE kidnappings, and erase trans folks from existence; later, she details how intertwined the liberatory project is with Big Pharma, chanting “Mifepristone/Progesterone/Suck on bone/Leave us alone” over an industrial crunch.
Her tough-guy act doesn’t always work. “Take It” flips between chugga-chugga guitars, early-aughts indie-rock horn charts, and electroclash fizz while she shouts, “I’m losing the grip,” and you sort of agree. “No Lube So Rude” itself has much to recommend it, particularly in the centrality of its titular substance when it comes to fisting; some of its synth toms even sound like silicone lube spurting out of the tube, and others sound like water-based squirts. But then those horns return and it’s a reminder that not all Y2K pop (“4 Minutes,” for example) is worth a squeeze.
Like Madonna, Peaches has the nerve to age in public and still be horny. That progesterone call-out, after all, applies not just to trans folks but those in menopause, too. And anyone who finds it unseemly for a woman of a certain age to strut to industrial disco while licking her chops and promising (threatening?), “There’s no guest list here/Take a piss in here,” as Peaches does in “No Lube,” might remember that Peaches is actually younger than Trent Reznor, still promising to fuck you like an animal. What’s fair for the goddamn goose.
This posturing is protective, of course. The digital hardcore “Not in Your Mouth None of Your Business” tosses out slightly tacky bromides like Molotov cocktails. “You will never take away our pride” might sound saccharine. But I shouted along with it walking down the street the other day, and my tongue hit a tooth that was broken when I got pistol-whipped and queer bashed many years ago. I froze as I thought how many other people might shout in the same situation, how likely Peaches’ new young fans might end up in the same boat, and that sadness pushed me through walls into a sweeter mood, one that welcomes tracks like “Panna Cotta Delight,” which swaps the usual Marquis de Sade debauchery for Sade quiet storms. Or “Take It,” a Robyn-ish semisweet rumination on loneliness. “Deep down inside/Yes I feel there’s a place,” she warbles as ribbons of neon synths tangle around her, “Where I’ll find the wow wow wow wow.” She’ll keep fisting on her own.
Or in a room with all of us, if we’ll dare. “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” is an absolute cornball floor-filler, slickened with swooshy trance to help open you up, and closer “Be Love” is fistful of widescreen ’80s pop, sonically nothing new, but then neither is the need for love. “Show up/Go deep,” she asks. At a moment when it’s so tempting to throw up your hands in despair, she’s passing down a new teaches of Peaches: connect and endure. Stick it in, stick around. “Palm to fist, give it torque,” she sings in “You’re Alright,” a mid-tempo grower sticky with pulsating arteries of melody. “I carnivore all this glitter,” she says, “and you’re alright.” And you are. This world is fucked. But you can take it.
