My Lumpy Milkshake Made Me Kiss a Girl

It seems I am not alone in my hatred of the latest annoying, constantly playing song of the summer, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl”.  It’s not just the cloying rhythm and melodic cadences which cling to the brain and spread slowly through the regions, disintegrating brain cells slowly and painfully.

There’s something else that really bothers me. 

It offends me as a woman.  This song is not a song of self-discovery, a declaration of interest in the same-sex.  No, this song is the pure objectification of women in a manner as bad as or perhaps worse than the rap lyrics that get all the media attention.  And it is merely one in a long line of recent songs in a similar vein.  Songs like “Milkshake” by Kelis and “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas.

These songs portray women as mere sexual objects…objects that should aspire to be desirable by embodying whatever sexual fantasy men come up with.  Including kissing other girls when drunk.  And why are these more offensive than scantily clad women grinding on men in rap videos?  Because while neither is exactly positive imagery, the rap videos in most instances come across like a male fantasy.  This is what these men have dreamt up in their fantasy worlds.  But when a woman is singing about how much they embody these ridiculous fantasies and how that makes them so desirable, it sends the message that a woman’s worth is determined by how well she fits the male sexual fantasy and how much money a man is willing to spend on her.  Well the last time I checked, that was prostitution.  

And as all these girls and young women are singing along with these incessantly played tunes, I wonder what impression they are taking away.  And I wonder why these are the most dominant messages about women out in the pop music world today.