{"id":4834,"date":"2008-10-29T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2008-10-29T10:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=4834"},"modified":"2009-01-17T01:24:25","modified_gmt":"2009-01-17T05:24:25","slug":"girls-are-you-hip-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2008\/10\/girls-are-you-hip-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Girls, Are You Hip Enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I kissed a girl and I liked it
\nThe taste of her cherry chapstick
\nI kissed a girl just to try it
\nI hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
\nIt felt so wrong
\nIt felt so right
\nDon’t mean I’m in love tonight<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Not long ago, Reed and I headed to a local hotel for an overnight date. Late that evening, when Reed dozed off and I found myself somewhat awake with nothing to read but the Bible and the Book of Mormon in the nightstand drawer (not my preferred late-night reading material), I reached for the remote.<\/p>\n

I should’ve opted for the scriptures. <\/p>\n

This was never the way I planned
\nNot my intention
\nI got so brave, drink in hand
\nLost my discretion
\nIt’s not what, I’m used to
\nJust wanna try you on
\nI’m curious for you
\nCaught my attention<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We don’t have cable TV at my house (or satellite, or whatever). The only cable I’ve watched in the past decade has been in the hospital, where channel selection is still limited. (TLC, anyone?) If I’d been more aware of today’s cable fare, maybe I wouldn’t have been so shocked when I flipped to Showtime and discovered “The L Word.”<\/a>It only took a few seconds to realize I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. One moment Marlee Matlin was very sad about something-or-other, and the next moment she was writhing on the bed with her girlfriend, with one hand down her own pants to help things along. <\/p>\n

Says Wiki: “The L Word is a television drama series on Showtime that portrays the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women and men and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Los Angeles-area city of West Hollywood.” The Wiki page even includes a helpful chart used on the show to illustrate the tangled web of affairs. <\/p>\n

Of course, this show is hardly the first to have sexual activity as its premise. Even given the homosexual element, I was ready to chalk it up as (trashy) entertainment for consenting adults. But then, not long afterward, I heard the song. <\/p>\n

No, I don’t even know your name
\nIt doesn’t matter,
\nYou’re my experimental game
\nJust human nature,
\nIt’s not what,
\nGood girls do
\nNot how they should behave
\nMy head gets so confused
\nHard to obey<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was driving along in my pimped-out 12-passenger van full o’ kids when I first heard Katy Perry’s catchy little tune about smooching a random girl at a party. Now, I don’t practice much censorship when it comes to music in my home (or my car). I haven’t fully outgrown my adolescent penchant for edgy indie rock, and when I’m in certain moods, I crank the Pixies or Spoon up to eleven and pound the steering wheel (or the kitchen counter). But as soon as the lyrics to “I Kissed a Girl”<\/a> made their way from the airwaves to my brainwaves, my hand lunged for the tuner and my ears started smoking. <\/p>\n

“What was that?” I asked my kids. “What was that??”<\/i><\/p>\n

“It’s just some dumb song,” my fifteen-year-old daughter said. <\/p>\n

Hardly. Turns out, it’s a chart-topping, award-nominated, multi-nation megahit with 24 million views on YouTube. <\/p>\n

Us girls we are so magical
\nSoft skin, red lips, so kissable
\nHard to resist so touchable
\nToo good to deny it
\nAin’t no big deal, it’s innocent<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s my beef: I don’t think homosexuality should be demonized. But I don’t think it should be normalized. And I certainly don’t think it should be glamorized. I’m particularly concerned about the glamorization of lesbian sexual activity, because women’s sexual orientation has been shown to be much more fluid <\/a>than men’s, which means women are more susceptible to sociocultural influence on their sexual behavior. <\/p>\n

I don’t have my head in the sand about the reality of lesbian attraction. Some young women are going to feel significant, spontaneous sexual attraction to other women. But young women kissing each other simply because it’s cool? If they find themselves aroused–and some certainly will–that can add a whole lotta unnecessary<\/i> complexity and confusion to a developmental process already fraught with difficulty and danger. <\/p>\n

But that’s not even the worst part, imo. What sickens me most is the thought of young women kissing each other because it gets the guys hot. <\/p>\n

I kissed a girl and I liked it
\nThe taste of her cherry chap stick
\nI kissed a girl just to try it
\nI hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
\nIt felt so wrong
\nIt felt so right
\nDon’t mean I’m in love tonight
\nI kissed a girl and I liked it
\nI liked it<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I kissed a girl and I liked it The taste of her cherry chapstick I kissed a girl just to try it I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it It felt so wrong It felt so right Don’t mean I’m in love tonight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics","category-parenting"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6120,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions\/6120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}