Christina Aguilera lyric clarification (plus possible exasperated picking on a critic).

i interpreted the lyric exactly as you did, nabisco.

Like James Joyce, C. Aguilera's works are absolutely littered with meaning.

I feel like calling a pop song an "exhortation to date rape" due to such a vast misreading verges on slander.

come ON, at least part of the appeal of that song (though the date-rape thing might be taking it a little far, I CAN think of a few songs that go a lot further in that direction) was that invitation from Lil Ms. A. to rub her.
If you're not willing to accept that "rub me the right way" was not at least partially intended as quasi-sexual dominance play, then you're just as bone-headed as the crit we're all here to bash.

come ON, at least part of the appeal of that song (though the date-rape thing might be taking it a little far, I CAN think of a few songs that go a lot further in that direction) was that invitation from Lil Ms. A. to rub her.
If you're not willing to accept that "rub me the right way" was at least partially intended as quasi-sexual dominance play, then you're just as bone-headed as the crit we're all here to bash.

shit.

(Mim U. wz a writer I generally liked in the Voice in the 80s, and the piece she wrote on Buffy for the Stone in the late 90s wasn't too bad given the intellectual constraints of that forum)

her interviews are usually pretty good too.

good god.

I always liked that song, and several bullets down on the list of reasons why was that it seemed to be somewhat sexually empowering for the female protagonist (i.e. approach me properly and take my needs--in whatever sense you want to take that--into account, and we may get somewhere). But, uh, whatever.

Isn't that second sentence just a really, really bad sentence?

plus, what's up with bringing that up NOW?
I mean, that was what? 4 years ago?

Yeah, but it is Slate, after all. That's a relatively current reference point for them.

''Isn't that second sentence just a really, really bad sentence?''

haha all the editors that post to this bitch to thread!

Well DUH Horace, obviously there's a double-entendre to "rub me the right way" -- it's not particularly complex and it's in that cliche/metaphor from the beginning. You gotta rub her, obviously, but you gotta rub her the right way. That's pretty much the opposite of an "exhortation to date-rape" -- it's a warning that if you want to get anywhere with her, you're going to have to do it her way and keep her happy.

I think there's a deeper thing here, actually. Songs for the teen-girl demographic spend a lot of time trying to capture the push/pull wariness of teen-girl sexuality, which is exactly what this song is about: body says yes, heart says maybe not; assertion to guy that basically says "respect me" and "I'm into it but I want to be treated like it's magic"; all the normal wariness of wanting to be a part of a sexual world but being daunted by the danger of winding up feeling heartbroken or disrespected or used, but since song can be fantasy this one's about taking control of all that wariness. This totally sells to plenty of early-teen girls, and it totally should: it's basically a picture of the hero who's confidently confronting all of your hesitations about the sexuality you're about to encounter.

And that's, like, a big lesson to be giving -- I mean, painting a picture for impressionable young people of how love and sex are going to work? -- so I understand the desire to be hyper-critical, to always poke holes in the always-insufficient picture that's being drawn. But there comes a point where it's not even about criticism anymore -- it's about critics or parents or whomever trying to blow up the singer's authority to even draw that picture in the first place, accurate or inaccurate as it may be. I was sort of put off by this song interpretation because it struck me as a cheap-shot of exactly that sort -- stop Aguilera from telling the kids what life's like because surely she's wrong (and yet in this instance I'd say she's hit the nail pretty much right on the head).

Call me naive, but I *never* thought of "rub" as having the kind of sexual connotations, and even now, it doesn't seem to suit the song at all.

*If* you want to be with me, *then* you have to pay the price, rub me the right way, make a big impression, etc. --> the paying and the rubbing and the big impression are prior temporally and causally to the state of "being with me" --> the paying and the rubbing and the big impression != being with the Christina character --> paying/rubbing/impression != sex w/Christina character unless you think someone can have sex (or sexplay) with the Christina character and yet not be with her (perhaps via sexual ESP or action-at-a-distance).

In other words, she's saying "yeah, I'm horny and lonely, but nobody round here has that broad appeal, and I'm not going to have sex until I find someone who does."

She's a bottle that has to be rubbed to release what's inside; but the other person is licking their lips -- genderwise, this song is confused, maybe.

Maybe I'm just a dirty old man, but the "rub" was always sexual to me. I mean, it's all about a teenage girl making sure her bf knows that a woman's sexual organ is slightly more complicated than its male counterpart.

I don't think the Xtina song is all that complex or shocking. It's saying, let's see.. hmm... verse, chorus, verse.. Oh, wait, I got the message! It's "d00d, if you wanna be w/me don't be a jerk." I suppose what strikes me as out of the ordinary is that sounds like she is singing to herself as much as to the guy.

An "exhortation to date rape," though? How peculiar. I thought I'd heard every version possible of the old "she was asking for it" but this one has an interesting way of trying to add some new shades of gray to what I'd thought was a rather black and white issue. The girl's actually, like, involved w/this guy (date) and then somehow saying she wants this to happen without going so far as to say it.. but basically, she IS saying it? I feel like I've taken too much trouble in attempting overanalyze one sentence of an article, but my point is, um, rape is serious, so casual references to it kind of exasperate me.

Michael, this gets into massive overanalysis of a simple thing, but anyway: I don't think the "rub" thing is in the overall arc of the song, it's just that there's a moment where the ostensibly hot chick says "rub me" and you go ooooo, etc. Anyway it still fits: want to be with her, then rub her the right way, as opposed to the wrong way; be nice, treat her special, etc etc.

Daria, that "singing to herself" is like even more the teenaginess of it -- you know there was a young sector of her listeners at that point who were like "yeah, you gotta rub me the right way!" even though they were years from anyone trying to rub them, period. I.e. it's a pre-emptive bedroom declaration -- to the girl in the mirror -- of what it's gonna be like, how her standards are gonna work, etc. This is why I find the date-rape line so weird, cause at bottom the song really is a pretty parent-friendly line about sexuality: "despite bodily temptation I'm not going anywhere unless you treat me right."

hey, just to take this overanalysis of a way-past-relevant song to a whole new level, did Aladdin have to rub his lamp "the right way" or just "rub it" for the Genie to come out?

Also, another way to look at this song is that it's a penis singing to the dude that it's attached to.

That's one high-maintenance penis, dude.

Horace dude, SEE A DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY. One's johnson should not resemble a pop star with awful hair.

And that's not even taking the makeup into account.

so you're saying that if Colonol Pumpernickel looks like this, I should go down to the free clinic?
http://www.usatoday.com/life/gallery/christina/moulin.jpg

yeah, that line made me cringe, too. which is too bad, since it's probably, otherwise, the most evenhanded critique of the Liz Phair album I've yet read.

by the way, am I the only one noticing that she's calling the record Liz Phair and maybe seeing a parallel to Bob Dylan calling his 1970 piss-off-the-faithful album Self Portrait?

actually, strike "evenhanded," since there's nothing remotely evenhanded about Udovitch even at the best of times (which is not a complaint). "accurate by me" is probably what I wanna sub there.

More "Genie" analysis: http://www.smug.com/38/3.html

Am I the only one to be both frightened and confused by "Colonol Pumpernickel"?

thank you hammy.

(TMFTML-I don't really have a name for Sgt. Preston of the Yukon)

Stop doing that!

Doing what?
Refering to my Willy Loman as General MacArthur?

AHHHH! MY EYES!!

http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auction/Jun/20036305507074908049884.jpg

this article also refers to whitechocolatespacegg as "superlative." WTF?! not even the most hardcore of Liz Phair fans thinks that.

bullshit they don't--I know several folks who do. (me, I think it's good but not great)