Controversial song an anthem for rape

IT was the picture which grabbed my attention before I read Saturday Opinion (December 8). The picture shows a man, dressed as if for business, grabbing and holding the arm of a woman who is wearing a sleeveless dress. Her body language clearlydemonstratesthat she is frightened. He is clearlyunawareof,oris ignoring, her attempts to reject his advances.

Thepictureisastillfrom the film Neptune’s Daughter, from which the now-controversial song Baby, It’s Cold Outside is taken.

My interest was heightenedwhenIsawthatthe writer of the article was Michael Kelly, editor of The Irish Catholic. He was obviously contributing to the debate as to whether the banning of this song by some radio stations was justified. I was curious to read Michael’s view, so I read the piece, headed ‘Of course, people shouldn’t go out of their way to give offence, but it was only a festive song’.

I was somewhat bewildered to find that the article indirectly compares the efforts of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to stop the depersonalisation of animals, through phrases like ‘let sleeping dogs lie’, to the efforts of women to ban a song which makes light of rape.

Read the song’s lyrics and you find the woman says: “The answer is no.” The ‘no’ is ignored and the man continues his seduction. Maybe he thinks she’s asking for it with those bare arms, not forgetting he has already removed her hat and coat.

Even putting it in the context of the film, this is a rape song. The fact it is meant to be funny does not nullify the underlying assumption that when a woman says no, she means yes.

If you have never been a lone woman in a lift, late in the evening, with a colleague who stands too close to you, you have no idea of that feeling of vulnerability. If you have never been a young actor, who has gone to her director’s hotel to collect a script, only to be directed to his bedroom, you will not imagine the feeling of humiliation that invokes.

If, on the other hand, you have experienced the fear of being in a situation where the threat of rape is real, you will know that ‘festive’ is not a word you would use to describe that feeling of spine-chilling terror and helplessness.

NAME AND ADDRESS WITH EDITOR

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