Confronting #MeToo

If you need proof that anything can be taken to an unhealthy extreme, witness the removal of Baby, It's Cold Outside by Cleveland radio station WDOK from its holiday playlist. According to the station's general manager, this is in response to complaints that the song's lyrics are “inappropriate”.

If you're not familiar with the standard, it is a playful exchange between a man and a woman. The man wants his companion to stay the night, citing the undue cold and potential risk taking her home could subject her to.

The woman effectively pleads her case that this is not the right time, and the song draws to a close. There is no rape. There is no assault. There is no predation.

We don't even know if she stays or returns home. 

Apparently, the #MeToo community is privy to information the rest of us aren't.

Let me address the sexist hysteria responsible for turning this harmless song into an invitation to date-rape. (I should also apologize in advance for possessing a penis, which likely renders this yet-another unbearable example of mansplaining.)

Baby, It's Cold Outside is a vignette. An imagined dialogue between two people confronting the eternal question: I want to. Don't you?

Men express this thought. Women express this thought. There is no gender monopoly here. It is a song about the beautiful longing two human beings can feel for each other. It is a wry and poetic seduction. 

I hear it and smile at the memory of my own (mostly unsuccessful) attempts.

It is cute. Playful. Nothing more, nothing less.

I am of the opinion that the well-intentioned people who have issues with this song could find evidence of Satanic worship in a Norman Rockwell painting, or enticements to methamphetamine use in The Sound of Music. 

Look hard enough for something and you'll find it.

But beyond that, I'd like to know the whereabouts of the legions of fierce, strong women I hear so incessantly about. I mean, seriously? A guy cooing in your ear and inviting you to a sleepover is your kryptonite?

Sorry, but that's crazy.

For those of us with the broad and deep frames of reference age affords, this is the feminist equivalent of the Tawana Brawley scandal. A flimsy, cheap, over-reaching and ultimately damaging effort that will undermine, not strengthen, #MeToo.

Please. Keep your sexism out of my Christmas.