Baby It's Cold Outside - date rapey?

Or people could just get over themselves and listen to the nice song with the catchy melody and the flirtatious lyrics that a guy wrote for his wife so she could sing along with him at parties.

Not every-fucking-thing has to be a dialogue about “changing social conventions”. We can just enjoy the damn song or change the station rather than over-analyzing the hell out of everything.

And everyone says “No, it isn’t”, with some pointing out that it does have an uncomfortable context in that the perfectly innocent and consensual flirting portrayed in the song is an easily misunderstood behaviour that has led some men to think a woman being coy always means yes, regardless of the words she is actually saying.

No, not every-fucking-thing has to. But some do, and I don’t know why you (“you” meaning people who think the song is nuthin’ but charm) are the one who gets to decide which is which. As I asked WOOKINAPUB, do you think nothing needs to be re-examined as society becomes less of an asshole than it was when straight white men could do whatever they wanted? You don’t - you know that some stuff that used to be cool is really awful and it’s good that we are appalled by it now. But people who first questioned those things were told to get over themselves too, and I genuinely don’t know why you think it’s any different now.

If we’re going to have that discussion, the question in my mind then becomes whether it’s date-rapey (it’s not) or whether the woman is sending mixed signals.

I mean, the guy is making his intentions clear. The woman needs to fish or cut bait, and decide if she’s staying or going.

It takes two to tango, and in this case, I’d say the woman is the one at fault for any confusion, not the man.

To go a little further, if no always meant no, then there wouldn’t have been nearly the level of “no means yes” type BS that’s gone on. Instead, there’s a lot of ambiguity, and men have been conditioned that continuing to apply pressure until a firm answer is reached, is a winning tactic.

I mean, I know a guy who managed to get a BJ out of a girl in college by making out with her and just essentially telling her that he knew she wanted to. No physical aggression, no anger, not even any real pressure- it just took extended convincing.

What did he learn? That no means no? Not so much…

Because we know, for fact, what the song is about and if you want to make it into a banner against its intent then it’s for you to defend why that should be happening.

In this case, it’s a straight man and a straight female both mutually doing what they want so there’s probably better songs to raise a fuss about and “re-examine as a society”.

She is sending mixed signals, because she had to. In the song, she wants to stay but has been conditioned to know that she can’t actively admit that. Then there are far too many cases where a woman wants to leave, but has been conditioned to know that they cannot actively say no. That’s something people who decide to try pressure have to keep in mind - you might end up pushing someone to do something they don’t actually want to do, and it might not end well for you.

^^^^ This.

Boy, am I glad I went to college 30+ years ago, and have been married for 31 yrs! :smack:

My personal opinion was that the newspaper article and the folk updating the lyrics were unreasonable in suggesting this was anything close to date rape.

Also my personal opinion - folk advancing such a position do a disservice to women who actually ARE sexually assaulted, and diminish each woman’s ability to individually react to whatever situation she encounters in the manner she feels appropriate.

Sure, “No means no” - at least for that specific request/invitation, at that specific moment in time. But infinite factors - including even simply repeating the request, could well lead any individual woman to change her mind. I think it a horrible development to suggest that every instance of “persistence” during dating is rape, or prevents the other person from reacting as they wish.

I’m not sure how the debate would go, if people wanted to contend that society makes it so that women feel uncomfortable expressing and acting upon their desires. But I think it insulting to women to make a blanket assertion that all women are not capable of making choices and clearly expressing their preferences through words and/or deeds. Sure, it can be uncomfortable to say, “I said ‘No,’ and since you are not respecting that, I’m going to leave.” But this old male doesn’t quite get why there should not be some presumption that, absent other factors, women shouldn’t be capable of making that decision for themselves. If the guy is too pushy, get up and leave. If he prevents her from doing so, if she is too drunk to express consent, or other possible factors, no question that is rape, and the fucker should be punished accordingly.

This came in while I was posting. I’m not entirely clear what this conditioning is? Why are women not capable of saying no? And how is the rest of the world supposed to distinguish whether a woman can or can’t?

Which is exactly what I’m doing. I know what it is about too, and I’ve been clear about that. It’s about flirting. Innocent flirting. There are lots and lots of women who have flirted in this coy way and it has been fully understood by the man she was flirting with that she wants him to continue.

But there are lots and lots of women who have said no (and meant it) in this same coy way and the man didn’t understand and continued despite her protests, then later said, “Aw, she didn’t really mean no” and “oh, I could tell she actually wanted it”. That is a thing that happens a lot. All of the campaigns you’ve seen drilling it into people’s heads that “No means no” are actively fighting back against this exact phenomenon. Would it be great if women didn’t feel societal pressures to be coy (often both in accepting and declining sex)? Yes, it would. Is it the way things are? It isn’t. Not yet. So until it is – until all men can totally tell the difference between a woman coyly flirting and a woman trying to reject his advances without seeming rude, and/or until all women feel comfortable giving a frank “no” when faced with unwanted propositions, then we have a problem.

I do not in any way think that this song caused the problem. However, I do think that for any man who has or will be confused by whether a woman’s “no” means “oh tee hee, yes” or “no, I need to go home”, this song is yet one more thing that will push him towards the assumption that it’s the former. As I have said, I don’t think it should be banned or rewritten or that formal protests and marches and picketing needs to happen. I just think that having a conversation about that increases the likelihood of balancing the “see? No means yes” influence that that song perpetuates.

Certainly not all women, but yeah, a lot of them (and especially young ones) feel like they need to be seen as nice, and certainly not all men, but yeah, a lot of them (especially young ones) can be nasty as hell when they get rejected. So as fun as it would be for all woman to be able to say “No thank you” and be sure the response be “Okay, cool”, that is just plain not the way it is all the time, at least not yet. So some women (more than you realize, I think) feel the need to “let them down gently”, which often (gasp) looks EXACTLY LIKE the “coy flirting” in this song.

That has nothing to do with what I meant. When I talked about a time when straight white men could do whatever they wanted, I was alluding to the racism, sexism, and homophobia that used to be considered totally okay by most of society that (I hope) even the anti-PC bunch in this thread would be appalled by. My point was that for all of you who feel like “PC” people are oversensitive and need to “lighten up”, I guarantee you there’s been an issue at some point in history that would have seemed to you worth questioning that would have had people telling you to “lighten up”.

Sure, but if you’re defending it and not convincing people then that’s the way it goes. You don’t need to start accusing everyone else of being the Gatekeeper of Social Norms just because your argument isn’t especially compelling.

The conditioning is the result of generations of girls being raised to believe that it wasn’t nice to give firm refusals to requests and that it was better to give a softer response - a “Maybe” or “I’d like to, but I really shouldn’t.” What the rest of the world has to do is raise their kids to know that it’s not bitchy or wrong to just say no and that the answer should be accepted. Modern society has made some strides in that area, but since we’re not completely there yet, people should keep in mind that sometimes reluctance is really reluctance (or not even hesitance, but a strong desire not to do whatever the activity is at all) and not part of a flirtatious game.

Or it might end up very well for you. It’s part of the young single males job to pressure women into having sex. Of course not every male is like that, but enough of us are to suggest it is fairly normal behaviour. If only we were more sensible in our testosterone filled randy youth.

Very good post. I agree with most of it. I just think context is always key and I do think there is an unfortunate trend of a subset of people who go out of their way to seek offense. And if I’m going to err with regards to advocating freedom of expression it’s going to be in the direction of more. Regardless of offense.

And that includes burning flags, displaying offensive flag, refusing to be pressured into patriotic or religious ceremonies. I respect people’s freedom of expression and I’ve been pretty consistent. But, yes, you are correct. Debating and discussions of what is and isn’t offensive in an honest manner and not in a thought controlling manner is very helpful.

Okay, I guess. Some people agree with me and some people don’t. I’m not alone in the way I see the issue, just as you aren’t. However, no one who’s saying “hmm, maybe this isn’t a super healthy attitude being portrayed as cute and charming in this song” is demanding that the people who don’t agree “lighten up” or “get over themselves”, which is the only thing in this entire thread I find offensive. Not the song, not the differing views, only the vitriol against those darn fun-stealers who don’t want to mindlessly perpetuate things that can be damaging and thus think it’s okay to spend a couple of minutes thinking about it. As I keep saying, I don’t want to take your song away from you, I’m not trying to change the lyrics or ban it from airwaves. I just think it’s not going to hurt anyone if part of this classic song’s legacy is the conversation people have about its undertones. Just like Tom Sawyer is a great book, and it’s great for kids to read it, but it’s probably best that most new readers of it are aware that some of the content isn’t necessarily something to emulate.

My response was(mostly) in jest, as I found the question to be a bit dramatic and kind of stupid. We’re not trying to solve society’s ills here, we’re just talking about a song that is not and never has been “date rapey”.

But that’s exactly my point. Your eye-rolling, dismissive attitude is exactly like the one faced by everyone who has ever pondered the appropriateness of any potentially offensive thing, ever. Don’t like the blackface in “The Jazz Singer”? Ugh, lighten up. It’s just a movie that is not and never has been about racism.

On the bold section - you could say that about lots of things and be correct, but in spite of that, those things aren’t considered acceptable anymore.