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tiffanyb:

As a friend asked on Twitter today: Has this song always been about date rape?

I used to think it was more like the woman didn’t really want to leave but was sort of talking herself into it.* Kind of like when you’re lying in bed, and you know you SHOULD go to the gym, but you…

Um, in 1936 it was a lot less common for the spectrum of behaviors we now call “date rape” to actually be thought of as such. It’s not like date rape was invented in 1965.

Another friend points out that it was written by a husband to be sung with his wife at their house parties. I don’t find that to lessen the creep factor. (Though I freely admit my biases about taking the apparent age of the singers as a sign of how equal the relationship is supposed to sound.)

Just because there’s a cute song about it doesn’t make it not predatory. In fact, the entire POINT is that highly questionable behavior like pressuring women into impairment has gotten laughed off as cute for far too long.