Unikum desember 2019

behaviour. The joke would not work if there was.
And to be clear, she does want to stay,
she just cannot say so directly:
“This evening has been (…) so very nice”, “but maybe
just half a drink more”, “I wish I knew how (…)
to break this spell” (she’s feeling the sexual tension),
“at least I’m gonna say that I tried”, “Your welcome
has been (…) so nice and warm”, “But maybe just
a cigarette more”, “You’ve really been grand”.
To reiterate the main point. This song was written in
a time were women was not expected or supposed to
have any sexual agency or interest at all. But she obviously
wants to stay and have some nice and consensual
coitus, so she puts up a token effort while still giving
all the culturally understood signals that she does
want to stay but cannot say so directly. She “ought to
say no no no”, but only does so because that is what is
expected of her. And she easily yields when countered,
and she jumps at any excuse to stay a little bit longer
(“half a drink more”, “maybe just a cigarette more”,
until she no longer can get home safely. But at least
she tried. And while most of the song is a back-andforth
between the dude and dudette, in the chorus they
sing in harmony, because they both understand what
is going on and are taking part in the same devious
plan to find valid excuses for her to stay with him.
So, to be again be Frank (heh), they both wanna
bang but need to go through a ridiculous socially
expected ritual to make it happen.
I hope I have definitely and exhaustively proven
that the song is not about rape.
But.
There are still some very problematic elements here.
Because, as I have shown, the dudette cannot actually
say “yes” to shagging the dude. She has to be fake-coerced.
All she is *allowed* to do in order to say “yes”, is to
say “no” in a weakly way that is expected and supposed
to be ignored. This is eerily close to the literal definition
of sexual coercion, at least to our modern ears.
This song is not about rape. But it does illustrate
pretty neatly one of the many aspects of what feminists
and sociologists call “rape culture”. Because in
a culture where you cannot say “yes” in any other
way than half-heartedly saying “no”, there is also no
clear and definitive way of *actually* saying “no”.
Rape Culture
I earlier mentioned that I find “rape culture” to be
an unfortunately named term. That is because the
wording seems to imply a culture where rape is
the norm or at least widely practised and accepted.
While such a society would definitely fall in under
what can and would be called a “rape culture”, it is
not what the term was originally meant to describe.
What the term “Rape culture” actually means is societal
attitudes and behaviours that normalise, enables
and facilitate the existence of rape and sexual assault,
on a both direct and indirect level, as well as both in
blunt ways and subtle ways. Rape culture is all the
little and big ways that make it easier to get a away
with sexual assault, that excuses or denies sexual
misconduct, that makes it harder for victims of sexual
assault to come forward and go to the police, etc..
To give a few examples, the way we joke about
American prison rape is part of rape culture. It is
part of many things that desensitises us to its existence,
to the point where I have seen American cop
shows actually use it against suspects during interrogation:
“Cooperate with us, and we’ll make sure
you’re not sent to state. Because you would not want
that would you. You know what happens there.”
Another example would be how we teach women
to avoid being raped. Such as avoiding dressing
“slutty”, avoiding dark ally-ways, etc. While there
can certainly be a place for something like this in
certain situations, if you do not take steps to avoid
it, it can easily seed the conscious or unconscious
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