Posted by Sappho on December 16th, 2018 filed in Feminism, Music, Sexuality

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

‘Tis the season for arguing about whether “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” should be appreciated as a romantic period piece or rejected as a date rape song. Let’s look at the lyrics

First, let’s look at how the song lyrics tell you that the “mouse” really does want to stay with the “wolf,” and how it makes the “wolf’s” pursuit gentle. Then, I’ll look at the two lines that make the song creepy as all get out in a #MeToo era.

First (because it’s the more straightforward role), the “wolf”: Most of his pleas are either compliments to the “mouse” (“Your eyes are like starlight now”) or references to how very cold it is outside (“Look out the window at the storm”). There’s only one “What’s the sense in hurting my pride?” Imagine if the frequency of these lines were reversed (as they actually sometimes are, when someone is badgering someone to change a “no” to “yes”). There would be nothing romantic about that (and “How could you do this thing to me” would turn from what’s probably meant to be a compliment to an angry demand that the mouse stop rejecting the wolf).

Now, here are all the cues that the “mouse” supplies that her heart isn’t in her rejection:

“I really can’t stay”: Here “really” isn’t an intensifier, but the opposite. If you want to eat another holiday cookie, you say, “I really shouldn’t,” and the person offering says, “Go ahead, it’s Christmas.” Unless the words are “no, I really mean it,” we don’t usually use the word “really” when we really mean it (paradoxical though that may be).

“The neighbors might think”: All of the mouse’s reasons for wanting to go are phrased in terms of concern for her 1940s reputation. Not only isn’t this the way a woman talks who really doesn’t want to have sex; it’s not even the way a woman talks who does on some level want to have sex, but who has reasons of her own (whether doubt about the man, or convictions about when it’s appropriate to have sex) for waiting.

“But maybe just a half a drink more”/”I wish I knew how to break the spell”: At the same time that the mouse tells us that other people would want her to leave, she also drops suggestions that she does want to stay.

“Baby, it’s cold outside”: The dead give away that she’s actually persuaded, and wanted to be persuaded, comes when she joins in on the chorus.

So, with all these cues that show that the song is, yes, of course a 1940s period piece in which a woman who wants to have sex puts up a token resistance for respectability’s sake, what’s the problem?

“The answer is no”: If someone’s saying “I ought to say no, no, no sir,” that’s a sign that the answer may not be “no.” But when she flat out says “the answer is no,” you should take no for an answer, not a negotiating position.

“Say, what’s in that drink?” Obviously the creepiest line in the song, in a #MeToo era. I’m told that, in the time period in question, it’s supposed to mean that there’s nothing in the drink, but the woman is pretending there is, to justify staying. Honestly, that doesn’t make the line less creepy to me. If the signal for “I really do want sex” (I’m drunk! I’m drunk!) is that close to the signal that I really should be left alone (I’m too drunk to take care of myself), then that’s a problem. When I listen to the song as a period piece, I like to imagine “Say, what’s in that drink?” as the mouse saying, “Say, that looks like a really tasty drink, maybe I’ll stay and have some more,” because it’s the only way I can make the line non-creepy to my own sensibilities.

Affirmative consent: The song lyrics do a lot of work both to show you that the mouse’s protests aren’t about her own desires and that she actually does want to stay. In real life, though, when you start interpreting every ambiguous sounding “no” as a “yes,” you wind up pressuring a lot of people who did mean “no” but were trying to phrase their “no” to sound nice. A social convention that treats “no” as a bargaining position harms a lot more people than it helps. (And, as Professor Khachaturian used to say, in the Human Sexuality class at Stanford, “When I came to this country, I had grown up with a custom that you always say no to an extra helping of food, and get talked into taking it. When I saw the plate moving away when I said no, I changed.” If there really are still women who say no when they mean yes, they’ll change their practice if their no is taken seriously, and everyone will be happy, since the women who really mean no will get their no taken seriously.)

Bottom line: Enjoy the song as a period piece if you like, or change the radio when it comes on if you’re in the “this song is creepy” camp, but either way, don’t take it as a template for how to behave on a date.