we need to chat about kissing girls.

found via Dear Jane Sample. click to view source and Katy Perry's obnoxious video.

i am not even going to get into the religious aspect of this. no. instead i'm going to bitch about the song. i'll grant you it's catchy. but i'll tell you why the church is afraid for your daughter's heterosexuality. it has nothing to do with 'catching lesbianism' and everything to do with going to an all girls' school. don't believe me? clearly you've never dated, or had a friend date, a Catholic school girl. sucks for you.

this song is not about reveling in the awesomeness of kissing some femme wonder. it's about getting "rebel cred." even if you don't know any other words to the song, you know the chorus: i kissed a girl and i liked it / the taste of her cherry chap stick / i kissed a girl just to try it / hope my boyfriend don't mind it.

a) it assumes that kissing a girl is just some fun thing to do on the side--while you are busy being respectable and having a boyfriend. no boyfriend?! OMG. you're such a LEZZIE. having the boyfriend element in the song makes kissing a girl "okay." especially when she's unimportant--after all, you're drunk and just met her, you "don't even know [her] name."

b) so we've already got heterosexuality down while remaining cool by dismissing people who are actually homosexual. after all, it doesn't mean you're "in love tonight"--it's just something to do. "it's no big deal, it's innocent." we'll just go back to being hetero in 5 mins. that okay with you honey? oh good. go get me a coca cola.

c) "it's not what good girls do." OOOOOH REBEL! that's right. mommy and daddy will hate you, the church will condemn you, your boyfriend will think it's hot, and tomorrow you can pull an Anne Heche about how 'crazy' you went. it'll all be okay by 3pm and you can laugh about the Facebook pictures and talk about Lindsay Lohan.

in short i think that contrary to opening up possibilities of alternate sexuality in mainstream pop culture, it instead reinforces the fact that alternate sexualities are just a 'game' that can be elected to be acted on--or not--and that we should all return to our regularly scheduled hetero programming.

this does not lift up homosexual--or hell, even bisexual--women as a theme song. even if it were a man singing about kissing a girl, it's terrible. it's too derogatory to the rest of the situation, especially the girl the narrator is kissing. it's certainly not enticing you, or your daughter, to go date girls. if anything, it's trained on the "male gaze" and acting out for it, emphasizing that "oh shit did i just make out with that girl in front of you--oops!" moment that drunk chicks get. so congrats to them. they get one more hit to fall down on the floor to. so rest assured. you have nothing to fear for her heterosexuality. you may want to watch that socolime intake, though.

and if i have to hear that girls are MAGICAL one more time i will fucking vomit. what is that word. seriously. magical? that's for unicorns and My Little Ponies and movies like Legend.