All Comments on 'Censoring Sex in Songs'

Selena,

Well that was an eye opener for me about Oh Micki. I remember the 70's when people would sing about sex but they were a lot more subtle. For instance, Barry Manilow wrote a beautifully sexy song based on a Chopin prelude called Could It Be Magic about making love without being explicit but even at 14 I knew what he was singing about. I mean how could anyone hear "Come, come, come into my arms, let me know the wonder of all of you" or "Now, now, now and hold on fast, could this be the magic at last?" and not understand? I'm not a prude either or I wouldn't be a regular reader on here, but the state of the radio and music today makes me shudder.

I 100% love almost everything you've written, but I was disappointed to see a cheap shot at Al Gore. That joke has had a real life of its own, but he never claimed to "invent" the Internet. He was misquoted and made a laughingstock after (perhaps clumsily) referring to his legislative efforts supporting the creation of the Internet.

Snopes and other debunking sites have pretty thorough explanations. Tipper, on the other hand, should buy a dictionary. lol

You're right about hip-hop, though. It's incredibly explicit, and you'd better believe that kids today are catching a lot more than we were in the 80's. How are kids who grow up hearing this crap going to have healthy relationships and sex lives? A friend of mine who works in child care has her hands full with an 8 year old who says things like, "I don't have to listen to no woman cuz y'all just dumb hoes." Pity the poor girls he's going to date in a few years.

I TOO REMEMBER WHEN IT TOOK SOME THOUGHT TO GET AT WHAT WAS REALLY BEING SAID IN MUSIC. ONCE I FOUGHT AND TOOK A STAND FOR 2 LIVE CREW. I STILL BELIEVE IT WRONG TO CENSOR ART. BUT WHAT WE HEAR AND SEE ON A MASS LEVEL IS NO LONGER THAT. IT WAS SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER AROUND 1989-90. IT STARTED WITH RUSSELL AND HAMMER AND OTHERS MARKETING IT EVERYWHERE. ONCE SALES MEANT NOTHING TO HIP HOP CAUSE WE SPOKE OUR MIND AND LIVED WHAT WE SPOKE. HIP HOP SPOKE OF CHANGE AND TRUTH(P.E. , POOR RIGHTEOUS TEACHERS, TRIBE, AND MORE). ONCE BIG BUSINESS GOT IN THINGS CHANGED. AS I GROW UP YOU COULD SEE ALL KINDS OF MUSIC WITH IN HIP HOP , PLUS YO MOMMAS MUSIC. NOW YOUR MOMMA IS PLAYING DROP IT LIKE ITS HOT TOO. AND UNLESS YOU ARE LIKE ME AND STAY TUNED INTO THE SO CALLED UNDERGROUND YOU THINK ALL HIP HOP IS THIS "GANGSTA" RAP. RAPPERS WILL SAY THEY ARE JUST KEEPING IT REAL , HOOD IS ALL THEY KNOW(DRIVING A BMW NOW), OR I'M SELLING MILLIONS SO ITS ALL GOOD. I WANT THAT OLD THING BACK!!

I agree with what you are saying, but would like to point out another diffence between rock from the late fifties through the 60's, 70's, and today. Used to be a whole lot more romance in rock (with the exception of political protest songs in the 60's). Today there's just a whole lot of misogyny goin' on. The degeneration from decade to decade is really scary, and begs the question of what lyrics will say in the future. If they get bad enough, there's bound to be some sort of backlash. Free speech is a wonderful right, but I think everyone, including artists, has a responsibility if not to the general public,then at least to their underage audience. There's a reason why older rockers are moving to country rock!

I never knew George Michael was gay, either!

If the sex in music is so blatant as to make it obscene then no way and this is the case in a lot of music today ,never mind the videos that go with it.You might juat as well have a full blown xxx rated movie.Music and dance for that matter can be very erotic.Anyway an interesting submission

As someone who believed that Olivia Newton-John achieved the hyphen by marrying Elton...I take your point.

You put together a nice piece. My one quibble is that the extent to which the music today is troublesome is not really because it's EXPLICIT but because it's frequently denigrating and abusive and bigoted. Explicit -give me Explicit any time if it comes with thoughtful or inspirational lyrics. Thanks.

...my son lives in Detroit: he's 39 and single! While I agree with your thesis-and the responses to it- I feel I should mention that in the early 1930's there was a popular song entitled "It Ain't The Meat, It's The Motion"! How subtle is that?

The last comment that is,this observation of yours,nothing new under the sun you know,I could of said under the son,but then I thought mommy might not like it?[on the other hand she might]

Here's a little bit of goofy song trivia. Tony Basil's song "Mickey" is actually a cover. The original song was titled "Kitty" and was sung by the relatively obscure, all-male British band Racey. Their version is about a guy lusting after a girl and implying that she's being a tease.

Also, the award for the most over-the-top use of sex in a song has to go to Princess Superstar for her song "Fuck Me On The Dance Floor" which is about, well, exactly what the title says.

Baby let me bang your box

baby let me play your 88 [piano]

baby let me bang your box.

Big when I was in high school, 1947-8.

Great job! You have a way of expression that's very entertaining! (Maybe it was all the lyrics) lol

I just wanna take this as an opportunity to say one of my favorite 'patented' sayings... "It is funny how things seem to change... But it's truly amazing how things can't help but stay the SAME!!!"

LOL

StarBaseONE2

Great piece. I try to tell the younger kids nowadays that older music was just as dirty but more creative. I hear The Who and their hit at work just about everyday. "Mama got a squeezebox, daddy can't sleep at nite."

Lil Richard's original version of "Tutti Fruiti" was about anal sex. I can't remember the artist but their was a disco hit called "Love come down" It was always there but well hidden.

Artists and songwriters today have no creativity. Or just lazy as hell. See ya around, Selena.

this sort of innuendo has been going on for quite a while -- what do you think the Silver Swan -- early 17th cent. English madrigal -- is all about -- that & the earlier Italian repertoire is all about sex -- after all "morire" isn't that hard (!) of an image to understand -- the folks who are talking this sort of smelly hot stuff have their heads in a very dark, uninformed place!

The TV series Eli Stone is gone now, possibly because I liked it (I have a terrible track record for my TV watching). But one episode in particular will stick in my mind -- when George Michael himself is put on the witness stand in a lawsuit against a school district for letting "I Want Your Sex" be played at the prom. I'm not sure when that particular episode aired (I think spring 2008 just after the writers' strike ended), but it was great fun to watch.

That same song was also used in 1998 when one of my local stations ran a Star Trek: The Original Series marathon. During the wee hours of the night, there weren't many advertisers, so there were two promos: one an original with local singers and dancers singing "Star Trek Fighting" (King Fu Fighting with new lyrics) -- and "I Want Your Sex", where the title song plays over clips from the show -- James Tiberius Kirk kisses one woman after another. (And there's a reaction shot of Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy looking at each other.)

I actually worked at a radio station in the early 80s, back when vinyl was still the norm and there were albums and singles. We usually were given a playlist of two to four songs per album (primary tracks and secondary tracks) and were supposed to play just those songs. But, just in case, (one song called "Cocaine" sticks out), management would literally paste stickers onto the track so no rogue jock could play the song.

Some things will offend a lot of the people a lot of the time. And, despite talk of parents monitoring the kids' music-listening, TV-watching, video-accessories-access, kids will still see or hear things they had never heard before and parents will still be very upset.

I always thought "relax, don't do it" was a guy thing... meaning they should slow down when they get close to orgasm. In other words make it last. I assumed it was about straight sex, but now I'm going to listen to the lyrics again.... I enjoyed your "Unfolding" chapter 1... chapter 1? There's more?! I thought it was an entire book already!! I can't WAIT to see where you take it from there... You have a beautiful, poetic style that is rare. I love your macro-descriptions of the body, how you zoom in on a small area and make it panoramic. And I love your drama. You are possibly my favorite erotic author in the known universe... I have written a couple of stories myself, on Asstr, but I struggle. When I re-read what I've posted, I always find typos and style issues... then I edit..... I will definitely read more of your work, and hope it rubs off on me!

cheers, Bethany...... b.boh@hushmail.com

Forgot to mention, I listened to your audio of Unfolding. An excellent reading! I could hear your voice narrating for the rest of the story. I wonder if you grew up around Boston? Your accent reminds me of Jackie Kennedy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9ajuEVNfb0

Reminds me of a rather gorgeous young lady in the Ship public house, way back in the 60's. The "girls" were sitting dicussing who they wanted to dance with when certain songs came up on the jukebox. My name was mentioned with the Honeycombs, yes i paid for three tracks and asked her to dance. Have I the Right To Kiss you came on and we had the most glorious long slow snog (kissing session) in the middle of the room. We stopped as the track ended to cheers, jeers and applause from 40 of our mates, she was blushing and awfully embarrased, ran out of the pub and I never saw her again. Thank you for reminding me of that.