Katy Perry To Her Tweener Girl Customers: Have Sex, It's So Awesome!!!

Here's Katy Perry on Saturday Night Live.

If you don't want to watch, the basics of the lyrics is that she's super-hot to have sex with a guy she loves, and thus proposes:

Let's go all the way tonight
no regrets, just love
We can dance until we die
you and I will be young forever

You make me feel like
I'm livin' a
Teenage Dream
the way you turn me on
I can't sleep
Let's run away and
never look back, never look back

Later on she talks about how awesome it is to be felt up through her "skin-tight jeans."

She is plainly attempting to mimic the basics of Like a Virgin here, lyrically. Like a Virgin was also a metaphor -- kinda -- about very young people having sex and how awesome it is. I say metaphor, because Madonna said "like a virgin;" that is, she wasn't actually saying she was a virgin, but was so hot for this guy she felt like one.

Similarly, Katy Perry isn't saying she is a Teenage Dream, but she feels like one, because she's so horned-up and stuff.

But I do not think her legions of tweener girl fans are going to get this very thin distinction (and Katy Perry doesn't really mean them to). They are not going to take from it that this is an adult woman saying she feels so hot 'n horny she feels like a Teenage Dream, but is in fact not a Teenage Dream at all; they are going to make this their anthem, and become someone's Teenage Dream.

And she's telling them how awesome that is. And how teenage sex is just so awesome that even when adults want to discuss awesome sex, they talk about it terms of teenage sex, the most awesomest awesome sex of all.

And yeah, for that reason, the song will sell well, and it will be proposed as theme for junior proms across the country (and will mostly be rejected by faculty... mostly).

None of this was necessary, of course, even if her motive was money. As an attractive woman with some ability to write catchy bubblegum pop, her career is failry secure. It's not like she was a Britney Spears desperately needing a comeback hit and thus resorting to the tried and true method of selling sex to younger and younger tweener girls.

This was just evil for evil's sake. She wanted to be even more famous than she is (and she is already quite a bit more famous than her present, but very limited, talents would recommend), and she decided to grab at that on the backs of tweener girls, already immersed in a culture that tells them virgins are weird and having sex is what the cool, popular kids do, with almost no pushback against this message at all.

What is our goal here? What's the current average age for girls losing their virginity? I'm gonna guess -- 15 and three months? Is the goal to push it down to 14 and 11 months? I think that is the goal, and I think Katy Perry can be very proud of herself for having that kind of an impact, pushing this age down by another four months.

It's in this context that I would advise all those people who think Christine O'Donnell is "weird" and "judgmental" and "too religious" for expressing her take-it-slow views on sexuality. Young girls -- really young; tweens -- are being sold this crap day and night by an insidious, viciously cynical pop culture that says it's never too young to be someone's Teenage Dream.

Is it so awful that some people want to push back on this and try with what tools they can to raise the average age of first sex up to the "prudish, judgmental, no-fun" range of 16 and 1 month?

The Defense... always offered is the claim that these songs are for adults, and so you can't tell adults what they can or can't listen to.

Um, they're not for adults. This genre is called bubblegum pop, not "steak and potato pop." It is designed specifically to appeal to the immature, naive musical tastes of children, a snappy sing-a-long sort of style that isn't terribly different than jingles for breakfast cereals.

I'm not buying Katy Perry's albums, and she knows it. 12 year old girls are. So spare me this "mature song about sexuality" bullshit.

In addition, she sure seems to know who her target demographic is, doesn't she? This ad runs constantly on MTV shows like The Hills:

Oh, right. She's appealing to all those adult listeners who 1, know who she is, 2, enjoy bouncy Alvin and the Chipmunks bubblegum pop, 3, watch The Hills on MTV, and 4, have acne problems.

Yeah, all those adults.

Katy Perry is the sort of woman that many girls dream of being. She's hot, obviously can have any man she wants, is (sorta) talented, and living every girl's dream life.

They'd like to be her. But not every girl can grow gigantic funbags or a perfect bubble-butt. Not every girl can learn to play guitar enough to fake it on stage. Not every girl can land a million-dollar record deal and put out a string of catchy conspicuously-commercial jingles.

No, girls can't do that. But they can easily emulate Katy Perry in one way. Every little girl could be someone's Teeange Dream tonight, couldn't she?

Again, this is just evil. And as "weird" as Christine O'Donnell's campaign to encourage girls to keep in in their pants might be -- what's weirder? Being so "judgmental" as to be against this, or being indifferent to sexualizing young tweener girls?

Aimee Mann can write "mature songs about sexuality" because she actually writes songs for adults. Katy Perry writes songs for children. How about maybe making them age-appropriate for your intended victim demographic?

Mommy, Why Does Elmo Have a Cleave In The Middle Of His Head? Spoofing herself here, showing off her moneymakers.

Are You Quite Sure You Are Writing Songs For Adults? Again, she sure seems to know her audience is considerably younger than 18. Her big score of a film role? The voice of Smurfette in the upcoming The Smurfs cartoon-movie.

posted by Ace at 01:22 PM

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