I watched the newest episode of the TV show "Glee."
There's this scene where the girls are at a Sadie Hawkins dance and they are covering the song by Bruno Mars called "Locked Out of Heaven." The song made me angry.
Here are the lyrics:
Never had much faith in love or miracles
Never wanna put my heart on the line
But swimming in your world is something spiritual
I'm born again every time you spend the night
'Cause your sex takes me to paradise
Yeah, your sex takes me to paradise
And it shows, yeah, yeah, yeah
'Cause you make me feel like, I've been locked out of heaven
For too long, for too long
It bothered me that these girls are conflating sex and love. I know every TV show does that. I know it's a really common theme. On the same episode of "Glee," Tina says to Blaine that Kurt is gone so "you need somewhere to put your love." It sounded to me like she was really saying he needs somewhere to put his dick. And that bothered me.
So here the deal is that this person is saying they are "born again every time you spend the night" and "your sex takes me to paradise." It's not the person- it's just the sex they have with the person.
It bothered me because, of course, I'm not having (penetrative) sex and every time I watch a TV show with this message it just makes me feel inadequate all over again. Our culture really bothers me in terms of its attitudes to sex. Casual sex bothers me, sex in lieu of love bothers me, sex as the same thing as love bothers me. Can't anyone see sex as part of a loving relationship- not the same as it?
I know that I probably shouldn't care what my host culture thinks about me and the fact that I'm not having- and can't have- sex. But I do. It bothers me that my host culture doesn't value me and would think that I'm a freak. Would think that my husband is "locked out of heaven" because he can't have sex with me. It bothers me that these are the values America gets from the TV shows all of our kids watch. It bothers me that we have such a double standard about women- they're supposed to be empowered (like at this Sadie Hawkins dance) but then there they are singing about sex, the only commodity that makes them valuable to men in today's radio songs and TV shows.
