Rihanna was at Rolling Loud supporting A$AP Rocky the other day and hung out with him backstage. At one point, someone comes up and puts his arm around her. She did not want his arm around her. And she made that very clear – NSFW language (source: Buzzfeed) 

Pretty sure he got the message. 

Yes, it’s Rihanna. And you don’t f-ck around with Rihanna – she will tell you that she is not be f-cked with. But for many women, this experience resonates because there are times in our lives where we do not want our personal space invaded, and some jackass will disrespect that, and because women are conditioned to be obliging and accommodating, we sometimes feel like we have to politely get our personal space back – in other words, we are afraid of insulting the violator of our personal space even though they were the ones who insulted us in the first place. 

Rihanna is having none of that. Rihanna isn’t playing by those standards. As it should be. It’s just, as we all know, not easy to execute. And, for sure, she has to the power to execute it without retribution because she is who she is, unlike most of us, if we pushed some asshole away and dragged him in front of a crowd, we might lose our jobs or the promotion or risk getting bullied in other ways – so, of course, I appreciate that she has power and privilege in this situation but my point is that there’s almost a sense of relief in seeing it happen, see a woman reacting this way. Like it’s a fantasy, a fantasy you may have played out in your own mind. 

In other Rihanna news, back in September at her Diamond Ball, Rihanna wore a tight black dress and was having a good time and people started speculating that she might be pregnant because…this is how we mess with ourselves. She was not pregnant and she is not pregnant but Anna Wintour asked her that for Vogue’s “Go Ask Anna” segment and then Rihanna was asked about being asked about being pregnant the other night at her book launch. The pregnancy rumouring is exhausting – but I do love her response: 

 

She’s SO smart, isn’t she so f-cking smart? Rihanna acknowledges why some people might get defensive about the question and then explains why the question doesn’t offend her – and she doesn’t make the answer about her body…which is where the question originated in the first place. Because of body scrutiny. Because out of one side of our mouths we talk about body positivity and on the other side we accuse people of being pregnant when they might not have concave stomachs and then we get pissed when someone accuses us of being pregnant because we should be allowed to eat without being accused of being pregnant. I’m guilty of it, just like you, and there’s no winning, unless you’re Rihanna and you shrug it off and you just matter-of-factly state that, yes, one day you want to be pregnant and leave it at that. And she will. The pregnancy rumours won’t bother her. She won’t be worried about “looking pregnant”. She’ll just go about being Rihanna, talking about how sometimes her body feels this way and she’s a little thicker and she’ll want to wear this outfit and sometimes her body might be leaner and she’ll wear something else and nobody has to be mad at anybody because it’s nothing to be mad about.

Unless you’re a member of the Navy and you’re waiting on that new album.