Posts Tagged ‘I kissed a girl’

Today on CNN Headline News at 5 pm, I’ll be talking about the Katy Perry song, “I Kissed a Girl (and I liked it)”, and whether the song could pressure teenage girls and college women to be interested in same-sex kissing. Preview…

Most often when a teen girl or college women identifies herself as heterosexual, but chooses to kiss another girl or women, it is because she feels attracted to the other person, because she is striving to define her sexual orientation for herself, because she is curious, or because of any number of other personal reasons. Could they be pressured by a pop song? It’s possible, but unlikely. Possibly, and stereotypically, IF a woman feels any pressure to kiss someone of the same gender, then that pressure could be coming from a guy and alcohol could be involved – as depicted in Katy Perry’s song. Her catchy besong is not so troubling to me, but it’s the video that I find offensive. It’s anti-woman and anti-feminist. Katy Perry’s album is called “One of the Boys,” and that’s exactly what the “I Kissed a Girl” video is about. She is pandering to a male heterosexual fantasy to sell CDs. The video is not all bad. Some of it is sexy and sensual, and some images simply allude to sex, including Katy on a bed stroking a pussy cat. But the disturbing images are those in which her harem of black-lace clad women are depicted not as whole people, but rather in pieces – a shoulder, a leg, a neck — seemingly dismembered women. The still shot below is taken from the video.  The image is shown in the video just as it is here, with no context. She is not seen going under the couch, nor does she leave the couch. Is it a sexual joke that I’m missing? Are they just trying to come up with something “edgy” and unusual? Or is it solely intended to degrade women? Drop me a note if you have any thoughts on this image.