Here in the U.S., every year in December, we listen to the same carols and winter holiday music. And every year for the last decade or so, there has been a cacophonous controversy around the tune, “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”
As a staunch feminist, I’m told I am supposed to hate this song. That it is a song that epitomizes rape culture, or at the very least, a culture of coercive sex.
But as a staunch feminist, I feel exactly the opposite. I love this song. I don’t hear a ditty about date rape, or a poor, defenseless woman fending off the advances of an unwanted suitor. To the contrary. I hear a sexy song about a couple who desperately want to spend the night together.
This is a song about a woman who wants to get fucked. Hard.
But she can’t because it’s the 1940s and women aren’t allowed to want sex. Or much of anything outside of a Hoover vacuum cleaner, a washer/dryer, and a handful of Valium. Women have no sexual agency. Or, really any agency at all.
She knows if she stays, she will be branded a slut. She talks endlessly about what others will think – “My mother will start to worry…My father will be pacing the floor…” The lyrics get darker as the song carries on – “My brother will be there at the door… My maiden aunt's mind is vicious…”
Of course her brother is policing her body and her sexual choices. Not creepy at all… Does anyone believe he hasn’t played hide the salami any chance he gets? But boys and men are allowed to want and to have sex. Women who want sex are dirty whores. Especially in the 1940s.
Of herself, she says, “I wish I knew how to break this spell,” and, “I OUGHT to say no.” Not, “I want to say no.”
She is enamored. She is having the time of her overly-protected and controlled life.
Then she goes on to say, “There's bound to be talk tomorrow… At least there will be plenty implied…”
She knows there are consequences for her giving into her sexual desire, and that those consequences don’t exist for her male partner. Her reputation will suffer. She will be a “dirty girl.” Her partner will be high-fived by all his friends. No vicious aunt is peering around the corner for him. No sister is scrutinizing his sexual choices.
She wants to hike up her pencil skirt, rip open her pussy bow blouse, and ride that man til her pin curls are all a muss.
But she is not allowed to want any of that. This is a song about women’s lack of sexual agency at the time. She must be the brakes on their sexual relationship. She must make him (and herself!) wait.
But in the end, after rounds of their call-and-response duet, together, in unison, they crescendo, “Baby it’s cold outside!” – Signifying they are on the same page.
This is a song about a woman bucking the norms and expectations of women in her day. This is a song about a woman wanting to get laid during a time in which women weren’t allowed to want anything more than a peck on the cheek and maybe, maybe some light hand-holding. Sex was for men to enjoy and for women to gift. And only in holy matrimony. To make babies.
But in the end, she does say “No.” She says “No” to societal pressures, to denying herself what she desires, to spending another lonely evening with her creepy brother who can’t stop thinking about the sex his sister is having, and her catty, prying aunt. No, this evening she will spend in the arms of her lover, curled up in front of a roaring fireplace, smoking cigarettes, knocking back drinks, and knocking boots.
It may be cold outside. But holy hot damn, it’s pretty steamy inside! This is a sexy feminist anthem about a woman taking control of her life for one evening and saying yes to what she wants for one sinful, decadent, rocking good time.
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