Derec
Contributor
So when Ygritte seduced Jon Snow in Game of Thrones and he, at one point, said "we shouldn't", does that make it "rapey" too?
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'Baby, It's Cold Outside,' Seen As Sexist, Frozen Out By Radio Stations
- Thread starter Axulus
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Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
Right....because that's exactly the same thing as stating no several times while being fed alcohol. You have a point of course, but you've over-simplified the analogy and used the wrong word: "should," which only applies to a handful of the pushing back.
My thoughts on this are nuanced, unlike yours which are predictable and over-simplified.
1. The song is a fiction, not a real event, but as such it is a communication of a scenario with a strong musical refrain.
1a. As a communication there is a message and intent. The intent might be innocent but stupid. Is it innocent or is it from a time that is man-centric in thinking in a way that as a society we ought not condone? I am personally not sure, but I don't think it matters.
1b. As a communication, there is a message received that may not be the original message intended. A theoretical miscommunication is a non-issue but rather what likely miscommunications of the message could there be. This is an academic discussion that some wish to have but others would rather discuss 1a: the intent of the lyrical author through an argument from authority by someone's daughter OR by pretending any miscommunication is irrelevant. Good communication means you send a clear message, though, to the recipients.
1c. As a practical matter, virtually no one is listening to and focusing on the song's lyrics. Certainly anyone who is doing so is not going to go out and rape someone or think it is okay to pressure a woman into having sex after feeding her alcohol and telling her it's cold outside. As a real, concrete issue, everyone just thinks about the refrain of the song in their memories and not the full lyrics or any messages from it. They just think "Baby it's cold outside." This makes the discussion academic (as far as I am concerned), but that does not mean the discussion ought not be had.
2. There is a real issue here about consent and relationships.1b. As a communication, there is a message received that may not be the original message intended. A theoretical miscommunication is a non-issue but rather what likely miscommunications of the message could there be. This is an academic discussion that some wish to have but others would rather discuss 1a: the intent of the lyrical author through an argument from authority by someone's daughter OR by pretending any miscommunication is irrelevant. Good communication means you send a clear message, though, to the recipients.
1c. As a practical matter, virtually no one is listening to and focusing on the song's lyrics. Certainly anyone who is doing so is not going to go out and rape someone or think it is okay to pressure a woman into having sex after feeding her alcohol and telling her it's cold outside. As a real, concrete issue, everyone just thinks about the refrain of the song in their memories and not the full lyrics or any messages from it. They just think "Baby it's cold outside." This makes the discussion academic (as far as I am concerned), but that does not mean the discussion ought not be had.
2a. Person A and Person B can have a discussion about something that Person B wants Person A to do. It can be a rational discussion. Person B can use persuasion.
2b. Using alcohol to lower inhibitions may not be acceptable. But when Person A and Person B know each other well and drink together, it's more of an assumed consent to lower inhibitions, maybe.
2c. There's a boundary and a continuum. When does "here's what I think you should do" become inappropriate pressure and when does pressure become coercion. Certainly, someone saying no multiple times at a minimum moves things along the continuum from appropriate influence of two people in a healthy relationship to inappropriate pressure.
2d. Going back to communication and this is important: there is a message intended and a message received, even if likely miscommunicated. It is important not to be perceived as engaging in coercion by Person A when you are merely engaging in inappropriate pressure. Think of yourself as Person B. Would you as Person B really want to have sex with Person A, if they perceived you to be coercing them?
3. People have a right to not want to hear the song on their favorite radio station. There is not a real issue here.2b. Using alcohol to lower inhibitions may not be acceptable. But when Person A and Person B know each other well and drink together, it's more of an assumed consent to lower inhibitions, maybe.
2c. There's a boundary and a continuum. When does "here's what I think you should do" become inappropriate pressure and when does pressure become coercion. Certainly, someone saying no multiple times at a minimum moves things along the continuum from appropriate influence of two people in a healthy relationship to inappropriate pressure.
2d. Going back to communication and this is important: there is a message intended and a message received, even if likely miscommunicated. It is important not to be perceived as engaging in coercion by Person A when you are merely engaging in inappropriate pressure. Think of yourself as Person B. Would you as Person B really want to have sex with Person A, if they perceived you to be coercing them?
3a. No, this is not about burning books like Nazis or the Regressive The Left. This is about the free market. Consumers give feedback to companies offering goods and services. Companies decide what to do with that feedback.
3b. It's a rare view that the song ought to be removed so that persons don't hear it. We expect in a democracy of free people that there will be some rare people with extreme views. This extreme view is only slightly off because it identifies some issues with the lyrics but the vast majority of those people in the same high-level ideological grouping (liberals or the left) are not advocating removal of the song from anywhere. So this ideological grouping remains a group with views having a normal distribution about a rational center with some extremists. That's exactly where we expect it to be.
3c. Anecdotes about such persons having such views may reinforce confirmation bias of rightists and so we should point out 2b above that there's nothing significant here. What ought to be more troubling is all the Nazis coming out of the Right wing...and just how wrong the Right is about things that allows such extremist views to fester and boil over all over the Republican Party. So of course they want to distract us with issues like this. Let your enemies fight each other, you know, instead of exposing your own corrupt, hypocritical, nonsense.
3b. It's a rare view that the song ought to be removed so that persons don't hear it. We expect in a democracy of free people that there will be some rare people with extreme views. This extreme view is only slightly off because it identifies some issues with the lyrics but the vast majority of those people in the same high-level ideological grouping (liberals or the left) are not advocating removal of the song from anywhere. So this ideological grouping remains a group with views having a normal distribution about a rational center with some extremists. That's exactly where we expect it to be.
3c. Anecdotes about such persons having such views may reinforce confirmation bias of rightists and so we should point out 2b above that there's nothing significant here. What ought to be more troubling is all the Nazis coming out of the Right wing...and just how wrong the Right is about things that allows such extremist views to fester and boil over all over the Republican Party. So of course they want to distract us with issues like this. Let your enemies fight each other, you know, instead of exposing your own corrupt, hypocritical, nonsense.
That's quaint.
You think women who have unwanted sex don't face "talk."
That it isn't an additional level of injury that maybe will persuade the guy to stop - the guy who thinks having sex with him is just "harmless fun" and therefore he's entitled to get it from her because she has no good reason to say "no," which she said, but no one will believe her and she'll be blamed no matter what.
An interesting thing to watch in this thread is the two different take-aways, which are really exactly the same take-away:
1. "This song just shows how common it is that women say "no," when they really mean "yes." It's not a big deal, this song demonstrates that historically. It's all harmless."
2. "A real problem for women is that sexual assaults happen because men think that 'no' means 'yes,' no matter how much we try to tell them it really really doesn't. That men call it harmless to ignore a 'no'."
Indeed yes. The problem is the thinking that overriding lack of consent is harmless, and yes this song shows how many people still think that's true and the arguments here show how they use social cues like this song to think so.
JohnG
Senior Member
The whole Austin Powers franchise was based on the premise that pre 70's culture was offensive by today's standards. If you laughed at that movie you either A) got the joke as it was intended, or B) had no clue that was a thing but laughed because it is funny to be offensive.
Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
It's obvious that she is in conflict between going or staying. He takes the position that she is holding out against the temptation to stay, which is what he wants her to do. Nowhere in the song is there any suggestion that he is forcing her to do anything at all, let alone have sex with him. In the end, she doesn't hold out. She agrees to stay. That doesn't necessarily mean that she ends up having sex with him. The concern she expresses in the song is over how staying appears to others, not over whether she will actually have to engage in sex. The subsequent behavior of these two love birds is purely in the imagination of those here who want to protect her from the creepy manipulative male chauvinist pig.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
It's almost as if you didn't read my post explaining my nuanced position.
ruby sparks
Contributor
I'm caught in the middle here. I agree that in some ways the song and scene are a little bit rapey, as zorq defined it, etc etc.
But I think it's also the case that the woman was, it seems reasonable to say, offering token resistance and/or that she was ambivalent. In other words, it was not a definite no. Had it been a definite no I'd agree with you. And crucially, in the end, she changes her mind apparently voluntarily. Therefore, if she stayed, it was consensual and there is arguably no issue in the actual song or scene itself, as written and/or acted.
Although as I said before, the song/scene does imo still raise issues on the topic of real-world dating which could be discussed. But that is a slightly different thing and involves moving away from the actual song/scene itself, which is a fictional, scripted, 'Hollywood' representation of a date.
I'd also like to ask this question; should the woman in the second scene in the film where the roles were reversed also have walked away, rather than persisting with her persuasions/seductions until the man consented?
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Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
Don, I wasn't referring to you specifically in my snarky generalization. My impression of your lengthy post was that you put an awful lot of thought into not answering Derec's rather simple question. If you were trying to say that there is sometimes a very thin boundary between seduction and a manipulative attempt to have a sexual encounter, I can agree with that. I just don't think that all of that nuance applies to this traditional duet.
RavenSky
The Doctor's Wife
There has been a shit ton of "little but rapey" to out-&-out horrifically violent rape in GoT
RavenSky
The Doctor's Wife
What part of the word "no" is so hard for everyone to understand?
RavenSky
The Doctor's Wife
"No" is "no" is "no" is "no".
It doesn't matter if you *think* she *really* means "yes".
It doesn't even matter if she really is "offering token resistance".
She said "no" so that should have been the end it. Call her a cab and send her on her way post-haste.
Geez, if I let a woman go every time they said no, I would have zero hitchhikers chained up in my basement, and that’s just not viable.
ruby sparks
Contributor
I think there is a slight difference in our opinions on this.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Your female rescue fantasises sound a lot like mine, but just be careful; you could leave yourself wide open to accusations of benevolent sexism, especially if you feed and look after them well.
Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
Raven, it isn't about not understanding what "no" means. It is about understanding what it means in a specific context. Like any word, it can mean very different things in different contexts.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Normally, if someone asked you the question "Are you a man?", the response "No" would be equivalent to saying that you are female. However, in a role-playing situation--say you are playing a character in a play--a man could legitimately respond "No" truthfully, if the question were understood to refer to the man's role in the play and not IRL.
The problem here is that "No means 'No'" is a cliche that doesn't always describe real situations accurately. The song lyrics we are debating mean different things in different contexts. So some of us are imagining a context in which the woman really does mean to reject the man's request. The man is just being insensitive--a situation that happens to women a lot IRL. Others are imagining one in which the woman doesn't want to reject him, but she also doesn't want to suffer the social consequences of acceptance. The latter is actually the intended context of the song as it has been construed by most people historically. I think we can all agree on that. There is no real world in which language is always clear and unambiguous. There is just a world in which people like to believe that it is, because that makes life sound so much simpler.
The one where she would like to have sex if the world were different, but the world is not different so the answer is no.
The answer is still no.
Some folks appear to think that not wanting sex because you don't like the person is valid but not wanting sex because you don't want the consequences of sex is overridable.
(Some folks think not wanting sex because you don't like the person becomes invalidated if you are dressed in a way that the unwanted person finds hot, because obviously "you don't mean it.")
In all cases, if you take no as no, and she did not, in fact, actually mean it, don't you think she'll let you know that?
"Oh, I was just kidding, it's yes!"
laughing dog
Contributor
I really do not understand my fellow males on this. No means no. If adopting that easy to use mantra means you might be foregoing a "yes", then that is the cost to you of
1) respecting women at the word, and
2) not raping someone due to your libido overriding your reason.
1) respecting women at the word, and
2) not raping someone due to your libido overriding your reason.
ruby sparks
Contributor
I think the point, as regards the song/scene, is that he didn't rape her, that she consented, changed her own mind. Nobody raped anybody in the song, or scene, any version of it, including the ones where the gender roles have been reversed.
Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
I disagree. The answer is entirely up to the individual woman. For some, it could be "no", and for others "yes". It isn't for well-meaning people like you and me to tell her what her answer should be, because we don't know her circumstances. In the case of Loesser's song, the woman's circumstances and context are purely imaginary. It is a fantasy.
I don't know which people you are talking about here, but they should speak for themselves. You may be misrepresenting them. Life is full of goal conflicts, many of which are not easy to resolve. Generally speaking, young people should be cautioned to behave in a more mature fashion, but they probably won't listen to. or follow, the advice any more faithfully than the adviser did in his or her youth.
Actually, no. And I really mean that. It may suit you to always be clear and literal about your intentions, but that won't work for everyone in every situation. Because not everyone is like you.
laughing dog
Contributor
As to the song, we don't know if there was any sex involved. It is about a man trying to induce a woman to change her mind. Attempting to get someone to change her or his mind by persuasion is not rape.
Your response, as written, is interesting because it appears to be based on a straw man.
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