{"id":21982,"date":"2010-09-29T11:00:18","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T15:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/?p=21982"},"modified":"2017-03-09T22:13:15","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T22:13:15","slug":"pimping-the-kid-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2010\/09\/29\/pimping-the-kid-sex\/","title":{"rendered":"Pimping the Kid Sex – UPDATED"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

I rarely write on this sort of thing,<\/strong> and until the Elmo\/Cleavage matter, I wasn\u2019t sure who Katy Perry was, but this tweet<\/a> brought me to this post applauding Ace O\u2019 Spades<\/a>, which brought me to this piece by Ace<\/a>, wherein he (who has always<\/em> differentiated between adult and kid material), gets tough with the sexpot singer for her choice of market target.<\/p>\n

Katy Perry appeared on Saturday Night Live doing the tiresome Abbreviated-Catholic-School-Uniform-Singing-About-Sex thing that has been done by Britney Spears and others. Perry\u2019s overt calculation<\/em> though, steps it up an offensive notch. Writes Ace:<\/p>\n

. . .the basics of the lyrics is that she\u2019s super-hot to have sex with a guy she loves, and thus proposes:<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go all the way tonight
\nno regrets, just love
\nWe can dance until we die
\nyou and I will be young forever<\/em><\/p>\n

You make me feel like
\nI\u2019m livin\u2019 a
\nTeenage Dream
\nthe way you turn me on
\nI can\u2019t sleep
\nLet\u2019s run away and
\nnever look back, never look back<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She is plainly attempting to mimic the basics of Like a Virgin<\/em> here, lyrically. Like a Virgin<\/em> was also a metaphor \u2014 kinda \u2014 about very young people having sex and how awesome it is. I say metaphor, because Madonna said \u201clike<\/em> a virgin;\u201d that is, she wasn\u2019t actually saying she was a virgin, but was so hot for this guy she felt like one.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Katy Perry isn\u2019t saying she is a Teenage Dream, but she feels like one, because she\u2019s so horned-up and stuff.<\/p>\n

But I do not think her legions of tweener girl fans are going to get this very thin distinction (and Katy Perry doesn\u2019t really mean them to). They are not going to take from it that this is an adult woman saying she feels so hot \u2018n horny she feels like a Teenage Dream, but is in fact not a Teenage Dream at all; they are going to make this their anthem, and become someone\u2019s Teenage Dream.<\/em><\/p>\n

And she\u2019s telling them how awesome that is. And how teenage sex is just so awesome that even when adults want to discuss awesome sex, they talk about it terms of teenage sex, the most awesomest awesome sex of all.
\n[\u2026]
\nAnd yeah, for that reason, the song will sell well, and it will be proposed as theme for junior proms across the country (and will mostly be rejected by faculty\u2026 mostly).<\/p>\n

None of this was necessary, of course, even if her motive was money. As an attractive woman with some ability to write catchy bubblegum pop, her career is failry secure. It\u2019s not like she was a Britney Spears desperately needing a comeback hit and thus resorting to the tried and true method of selling sex to younger and younger tweener girls.<\/p>\n

This was just evil for evil\u2019s sake. She wanted to be even more famous than she is . . . and she decided to grab at that on the backs of tweener girls, already immersed in a culture that tells them virgins are weird and having sex is what the cool, popular kids do, with almost no pushback against this message at all.
\n\u2026
\nIt\u2019s in this context that I would advise all those people who think Christine O\u2019Donnell is \u201cweird\u201d and \u201cjudgmental\u201d and \u201ctoo religious\u201d<\/a> for expressing her take-it-slow views on sexuality. Young girls \u2014 really young; tweens \u2014 are being sold this crap day and night by an insidious, viciously cynical pop culture that says it\u2019s never too young to be someone\u2019s Teenage Dream. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can\u2019t say I disagree with a word<\/strong>. There\u2019s more, so you\u2019ll want to go read it all.<\/a><\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> Meanwhile, Danielle Bean notes<\/a> that dozens of Mesquite, Texas high school girls were sent home from a recent dance because their dresses were too immodest<\/a>. The girls (and Salon) say the dresses were \u201ctame,\u201d and so the social tension continues to stretch.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I rarely write on this sort of thing, and until the Elmo\/Cleavage matter, I wasn\u2019t sure who Katy Perry was, but this tweet brought me to this post applauding Ace O\u2019 Spades, which brought me to this piece by Ace, wherein he (who has always differentiated between adult and kid material), gets tough with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197,208],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nPimping the Kid Sex - UPDATED<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I rarely write on this sort of thing, and until the Elmo\/Cleavage matter, I wasn't sure who Katy Perry was, but this tweet brought me to this post\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2010\/09\/29\/pimping-the-kid-sex\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pimping the Kid Sex - 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