“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” — it’s about romantic seduction, not rape

"Baby, It's Cold Outside," premiered in 1949, in "Neptune's Daughter."
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” premiered in 1949, in “Neptune’s Daughter.”

The SJW’s have finally gotten around to turning their evil, gimlet eye on Frank Loesser’s delightful Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which they are now characterizing as a date rape song. It’s terribly sad, really, that in this day and age of hookups, we have a generation that’s unable to recognize the romance (and dance) of seduction.

Fortunately for me, I don’t need to write about this today, because I already wrote about it over three years ago, when I used Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines as a way to measure the degradation in romance over the past seventy years. Here’s how that old post of mine began:

It’s time for me to take a break from trying to save the world by using my infinitesimally small corner of the blogosphere to talk some sense into the Left (although, somehow, I don’t think they’re listening to me) and, instead, to leap to the defense of an unlikely pop culture figure:  Robin Thicke.  My thesis is that his song is not about rape.  It is, instead, both the lineal descendent of classic (and respected) American seduction songs and a depressingly insightful look into the schizophrenic nature of sex among American young people, a brave new world that treats women as whores, but allows them to cry foul like delicate Victorian maidens.

One could say that Robin Thicke, riding high on the wave of one of the biggest hits of the year, a song called “Blurred Lines,” doesn’t need my help.  He’s raking money in hand over fist.  If I earn in my lifetime a tenth of what he’s earning on this song, I’d be a very rich woman.

Nevertheless, Thicke has incurred feminist ire because, the feminists claim, Blurred Lines is about rape or, at least, it’s “rapey”:

Having already clinched the number 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100, Robin Thicke’s catchy single “Blurred Lines” is on the path to being the party anthem of the summer.

However, despite its popularity, the hit song — which also features Pharrell and T.I. — and its accompanying music video haven’t been sitting too well with some critics who say the tune is not just disparaging to women, but could be seen as “rape-y.”

Has anyone heard Robin Thicke’s new rape song?” blogger Lisa Huyne wrote in a post in April. “Basically, the majority of the song…has the R&B singer murmuring ‘I know you want it’ over and over into a girl’s ear. Call me a cynic, but that phrase does not exactly encompass the notion of consent in sexual activity … Seriously, this song is disgusting — though admittedly very catchy.”

Before I get any further into examining the claim, let me note that the people who are claiming the song is “rapey” overlap to a significant degree with the women who advocate something called “gray rape.”  Gray rape is consensual sex right up until the woman says it isn’t.  The catch with gray rape is that the woman doesn’t have to say “no” before or even during the actual sex act for it to be rape.  She can decide hours or days later that, despite her drunken “yeses” and gropings, in retrospect she really didn’t want to have sex with that guy, so it must have been rape.  Talk about “blurred lines.”

Both because you’re a classy crowd, my dear readers, and because I suspect many of you don’t have children in their teens and twenties, I’m willing to bet that many of you, even if you’ve heard of Thicke’s song, haven’t actually heard the song itself or, if you heard it, it was in the context of Miley Cyrus’ twerking and tonguing.  (I have to admit that the twerking was indistinguishable to me from the vulgar dancing that characterizes all modern popular music performances.  It was that tongue . . . that loathsome, snake-like tongue, that seemed to have an independent life force.  Ick.)

You might also have heard about the song because of the unrated video with the topless women (and don’t forget the repeated boasts about the size of Thicke’s  . . . er.  Never mind).  Or maybe you just heard about the yucky allusions to all sorts of perverted sexual practices in the mainstream video (the one your kids and grand-kids watch), which is filled with nudge, nudge, wink, winks about everything from bestiality to bondage.  Both videos are nasty enough I don’t want them at my blog.

But I don’t want to talk about the videos.  I want to talk about the song’s lyrics, which are now called “rapey.”  Just to be clear, truly “rapey” things are bad.   Drugging and sodomizing a protesting 13-year-old girl, as Roman Polanksi did, isn’t bad because it’s not “rape-rape.”  It’s bad because it’s actual “rape.” Presumably, if Polanksi had sung to the protesting teen while he had his wicked way with her, that song would also have been “rapey” and therefore bad.  It”s important to keep these details straight….

My first point about Thicke’s song is that it’s just the latest in a long line of American seduction songs.  Let’s do a little time travel . . . back to 1949 when Frank Loesser wrote the classic Baby, It’s Cold Outside.  It is such a great song.  My favorite version is the one with Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting, and I have no fear about sharing it with you here:

(Read the rest here.)