'Baby, it's a cold-hearted world that condemns a little flirting' by Robin Abcarian

[Hekate]

https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/latimes/default.aspx?pubid=50435180-e58e-48b5-8e0c-236bf740270e

https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/latimes/default.aspx?pubid=50435180-e58e-48b5-8e0c-236bf740270e

Whole essay at link. Unfortunately I am having my usual iPad trouble trying to copy things from publications. If I can I will add it later -- or if someone else can, if interested. I loved it, myself.

[ismnotwasm]

1. I'm having a hard time finding the article-it links to the newspaper

Then I get hit with a paywall. I can clear my cookies and get past this, but the original problem will remain

[Hekate]

2. Sorry. I'm a subscriber and keep getting ad after ad. It's a great paper, I usually read on paper...

Which is what I was doing when Abcarian's essay struck my eye -- below the fold, B1 California section.

She calls it "a contrapuntal duet, a lovely back and forth between two smitten people who don't really want their evening to end. ... It's a catchy and sly attempt at seduction, a back and forth about the possibility of a cozy encounter. Between consenting adults. What could be better?"

Pretty much how I've experienced it all these years.

[Zorro]

6. Let me help

https://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-christmas-song-20181225-story.html

[Hekate]

8. Thank you Zorro! I hope it works for everyone!

[ismnotwasm]

11. Thank you!

I’m mostly Meh about the seduction in the song song, and it is quite frankly, a little rapey, what with the what’s in the drink line, and plying someone with alcohol to gain consent —-although I never believed that was the intent. Its a catchy and well done. I get an ear worm when I hear it.

[pnwmom]

14. The remark about the drink is a JOKE. The woman's giving an excuse for wanting to do

what she wants to do.

Does this performance also look "rapey"?

[ismnotwasm]

31. Why should a woman need an excuse "to do what she wants to do"

Look I’m not getting into an argument about that fucking song. Jesus fucking Christ. I’m out. I don’t give that much of a shit about it and my stated opinion was fairly fucking mild.

[pnwmom]

33. She should NOT. But in the era when the song was written,

she was more likely to feel that way than today.

[Raine]

17. There's nothing in the drink that the woman doesn't know

about. It's her way of doing what she wants to do (spending the night) but rationalizing and not taking responsibility for doing what she wants.

[tonedevil]

3. I love the song...

the melody is light and fanciful the lyrical interplay is witty it is a well written song. Yet there is no denying there is a strong theme of no means yes running throughout the song. Let us not forget the parts are the woman (mouse) and the man (wolf).
It is a song from a different era. In that era many situations we now correctly call sexual harassment or assault were considered more casually. If you want to think, it is a complicated thing and it shouldn't just be shrugged off as history if the song is going to be played in the future.

[pnwmom]

15. The excuses the woman is giving relate to OTHER PEOPLE and what they'd think

about her. So this isn't about "no means yes." It's about the woman not wanting to be limited by what other people might think about her.

[tonedevil]

16. It is certainly possible to see...

the mouse as wanting to stay the night, with all that implies, as much as the wolf wants her to. That is certainly the most innocent explanation. The mouse offers several objections and the wolf brushes them aside paying absolutely no respect to her objections. At the time the song was written no means yes was a commonly held standard. It doesn't mean it was always innocent. I like the song, but pretending there are is no element of sexual harassment that was acceptable at the time the song was written is just that, pretending.

[pnwmom]

18. It's not about a mouse and a wolf. It's about two people having fun.

[tonedevil]

23. The score disagrees with you...

This duet is a conversation between two people, a host (called "Wolf" in the score) and a guest (called "Mouse&quot , in call and response form.
I took this snipet from the Wikipedia page, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby,_It%27s_Cold_Outside under the lyrics section, but I have seen the parts identified as such in the score previously.
If you assume the mouse has equal agency with the wolf the song can be seen as harmless flirtation. An assumption that the mouse is of lesser agency can lead to a conclusion that they are being unduly pressured and possibly drugged by the wolf to get them to participate in acts they are not comfortable with.
The first view plus the fact it is a very good song are why we are still hearing it seventy years on. The second view is why some people have expressed unease regarding the message of the song. As I have mentioned I like the song, but I fully understand there is a disturbing subtext viewed in how we understand consent now.

[Adrahil]

19. The answer is no (but baby, it's cold outside)

So... no doesn't mean no?

[pnwmom]

24. He said that in response to her saying she should go home.

Not in response to a request to have sex.

I really can't stay (but baby, it's cold outside)
I've got to go away (but baby, it's cold outside)
This evening has been (been hoping that you'd drop in)
So very nice (i'll hold your hands, they're just like ice)

[Adrahil]

25. I think you are rationalizing.

I just read the lyrics to the whole song, and think the implication is pretty clear.

Another selection of lines:

There's bound to be talk tomorrow (think of my lifelong sorrow)
At least there will be plenty implied (if you got pnuemonia and died)
I really can't stay (get over that old out)


Dude is CLEARLY trying to get her to stay the night for a little slap and tickle.

She says no, rather clearly, at one point, but dude just bulldozes right on over that.



If you like the song anyway, I'm not here to ruin your fun. But I think the point of the conversation is crystal clear, and the cultural connotations (see post #21), quite destructive.

[pnwmom]

29. "There's bound to be talk tomorrow."

Once again, she's talking about what OTHER people want, not what SHE wants.

The song was written in an era when women weren't supposed to acknowledge their own agency.

Did you see the Glee performance of this song? It's doesn't depict coercion. It all depends on the performance.

[tenderfoot]

4. This whole "controversy" is a ruse to undermine #MeToo

The faux "War on Christmas" failed bigly... this is next on tap. Along with the alleged call for genderless Snowmen and Santas.

[Hekate]

5. You have a point. MeToo is serious, and this is absurd. nt

[Cha]

7. I always liked it too, Hekate.. and didn't

change my mind when all that came out about the radio station not playing it.

I tried to get to the article at the link and couldn't get anywhere, either.

[MrGrieves]

20. Agreed.

[Quemado]

9. I can get to the essay

Open the link and it takes you to the LA Times front page, like if you bought the paper version of the paper.

In the upper right hand corner there is "latimes.com" shaded in grey. Click on that, and it will take you to the LA Times front page on its website.

Middle column, second box down, there is the link to the essay.

[dawg day]

10. I think most of us can tell the difference between fun flirtation --

and harassment. Specifically, if only one person is having fun, it's probably harassment.

But the very same sort of behavior that is flirtatious between two willing people isn't flirtation when only one wants this type of interaction. I'm not sure why anyone has trouble with that distinction.

When your boss makes heavily suggestive "banter" in your direction, and you're afraid to object because he might fire you or punish you, that's not flirtation... but he'll probably say it is: "I was just flirting! It was just a bit of innocent banter!"

Flirtation, like sex, is one of life's great pleasures... but it's only that if it's truly mutual. And that can't really be determined from the outside. (And if anyone is condemning actual two-way flirtation, I haven't heard it.)

[Silver Gaia]

12. Thanks for sharing this with us, Hekate.

My daughter, who is in her 30s, and I both agree. I just sent her this.

[pnwmom]

13. Anyone who still has any doubts should watch this performance by actors in Glee.

[Adrahil]

21. The main issue I have with the song....

Is that it reinforces sexual stereotypes where a man is intended to pursue sexual conquest, regardless of what a woman wants,

and a woman is to resist a man's sexual advances, even if she really WANTS it. Reputation, ya know.

This is the kind of stuff that leads to rape culture, and world where no doesn't mean no. Where sexual assault was just "flirting" and "the bitch led me on," and "she really wanted it." It's something right out of Madmen, and if we want that to change, then we have to do something about it.

[Hekate]

22. Did you read the essay and its reference to the writer and his wife performing it? Hm?

[Adrahil]

26. Yes.... I've known that story for a long time.

But the characters in the song are CLEARLY not man and wife.

[pnwmom]

34. They're not clearly male and female. n/t

[Loki Liesmith]

28. it's not reinforcing any stereotypes

That aren’t part and parcel of the statistical spectrum of human reproductive biology.

That’s not going to change significantly, although it might be restrained or edited a bit. I don’t believe the song will have an appreciable impact on this.

[pnwmom]

30. Like here? Who's your "mouse"? Who's your "wolf"?

[Pholus]

27. This was a masterful "War on Christmas" battle the right waged this year.

So, did you look at the origins of the "ban?" Go check it out -- around December 5.

Count the number of stations that participated in the "ban" and try to tell me that the left didn't get played yet again.

[quickesst]

32. uh-uh-ummm

https://m.