Shakira and Rihanna's new lesbian music video: A viewer's guide.

Music videos can be confusing these days. Almost frightening. If it isn’t a nonsensical abstract hipster concept that nobody understands, it’s a bunch of naked girls humping furniture. Or lots of people dressed as stuffed animals. Or emotions being represented through construction equipment.

It can be hard to get your head around.

But don’t panic! I’m here to help.

The latest perplexing music video to grace our screens is Shakira and Rihanna’s Can’t Remember to Forget You, and I’m going to take your hand and walk you through it, step by step. I think you’ll find once I break down the action and peel back the artistic layers behind the commplex narrative, you’ll be much more comfortable with the whole concept of the clip.

Just stick with me; we can get through this together.

Watch it here, and follow my second by second breakdown below.

00:00: We open on some cliffs by the ocean. Oh that’s nice.

00:04: Oh ok. Shakira is doing some ‘sexy-leaning’ against a wall. Oh, and Rihanna’s there doing some sexy-leaning against a different wall. Is sexy-leaning a thing now? Should I be doing more sexy-leaning? Is this why I don’t have a boyfriend?

00:10: Shakira is minus pants, singing on a bed. Lots of sexy crawling/rolling around, because that’s what all ladies do when in bed alone. The bed is in between two staircases just because. She keeps using her hands to pull her mesh top in towards her vagina for some reason. Maybe she forgot to wear undies?

00:34: And we’ve cut to a different bed. Except this time Shakira is wearing… Swimmers? Not sure – but still no pants.

00:37: Now she’s just doing some more rolling around on this new bed.

00:42: Woah ok. Now she’s topless in a pool.

00:43: Back to sexy-leaning on the wall.

00:44: Fun splashing in the topless pool.

00:45: Sexy rolling on Bed Number 2

0:47: Sexy jumping on Bed Number 1

0:48 – 1:03: Topless pool, sexy wall, Bed Number 1, Bed Number 2. Repeat.

1:04: Rihanna has stopped sexy-leaning on her wall and started sexy walking down a hallway. Lots of moving her hair around with her hands.

1:05 – 1:17: Shakira: sexy wall, topless pool, Bed Number 2, topless pool, Bed Number 2, sexy wall.

1:18: More Rihanna sexy walking down the sexy hallway. Also sans pants.

1:29: Wow. Um, ok. Both girls are now on Bed Number 2. Rihanna is putting her sexy head in Shakira’s lap and Shakira is stroking her hair and smoking a cigar. Because SEXY.

1:32: Rihanna sexy hallway walking.

1:35: Both now smoking sexy cigars on Bed Number 2. (What happened to Bed Number 1?)

1:36 – 1:44: Rihanna sexy hallway walking. Sexy cigar smoking on Bed Number 2. Sexy Rihanna head being stroked in sexy Shakira lap.

1:45: Yikes, we’re really upping the sexy now. Shakira has gone from sexy-leaning against her wall to sexy bum shaking on her wall.

1:47: Rihanna takes Shakira’s sexy bum shaking and raises her one sexy wall humping. She puts one leg in the air to get her vag as close as possible to the wallpaper.

1:48 – 2:11: Both give their walls competing lap dances. Shakira starts humping the floor, and Rihanna must think that is an awesome idea because she also starts humping the floor.

2:12: Shakira singing on Bed Number 2. Rihanna must be tired from giving the floor a lap dance because she looks like she’s asleep in the background. Oh wait, no she isn’t – she’s lying on the bed motionless except for her left hand, which is suggestively rubbing the mattress.

2:30: Now Rihanna is singing and it’s Shakira’s turn to rub the mattress.

2:36: Wow. Ok. They’ve both stopped rubbing the mattress and started rubbing each other. But don’t worry – just outside of the upper thigh. (Hey – they just want to look like sexy lesbians, not actually be them.)

2:40: Finally! A new place that isn’t a sexy wall/floor/bed. It looks like a… flooded basement? Shakira is playing guitar to remind us that she can do more than simulating sex with housing foundations.

2:43: Shakira playing drums in the flooded basement. Shakira playing guitar in the flooded basement. Repeat.

2:45: That upper-thigh rubbing must have gone well, because now Shakira and Rihanna are both topless with their arms around each other. Just sitting in a room, hangin’:

2:46 – 3:25: Shakira dancing in sexy flooded basement. Both girls on bed sexy rolling on Bed Number 2. Sitting topless together in the living room. Shakira playing drums in flooded basement. Rihanna humping her wall. Shakira humping her wall. Bed no. 2. Flooded basement. Sexy wall humping. Sexy wall humping. Bed Number 2. Flooded basement. Sexy wall humping. Topless in living room. Sexy wall humping. Sexy head on sexy lap. Kicking sexy water in flooded basement. Sexy rolling on Bed Number 2. Topless in living room.

3:26 – End: Shakira on her knees in the flooded basement, doing a sexy hair flip.

And that’s it. You made it. We got through it together.

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