Editing Out Sex

Recently, I heard Bruno Mars' "The Lazy Song" on the radio. It's a weird song. It's all about not doing anything all day. I get it; everyone loves a day off. I just don't know that the best way to sing about it is by crying "I'm gonna kick my feet up and stare at the fan, Turn the TV on, Throw my hand in my pants..." No reading?

Anyway, the main problem I have with this song is the way that it's edited on the radio. One verse's lyrics are "Tomorrow I'll wake up do some P90X, Meet a really nice girl have some really nice sex, And she's gonna scream out 'This is great!'" When I was driving along listening to the radio, the word sex was beeped out. Why?



Going back to my discussions on the book, The Purity Myth, and on abstinence-only education, our country is overly obsessed with sexual purity, even while our culture is bombarding us with overly sexual images. And abstinence-only education only teaches kids and teens to stay away from sex: no explanation of masturbation, no explanation of desire and attraction, no explanation of safe sex options. So, somehow, I'm not surprised that just the word 'sex' is considered so risque that it has to be silenced out of a popular song (a song that 13-year-olds are listening to everywhere, a song in which the edit does absolutely nothing to keep listeners from knowing what the silenced word is). But I wondered, if the line referenced drugs, if it said "Meet a really nice girl, do some really nice X,"would the line be edited in the same way? It might be; I don't know. But the fact that I even wonder, that I think our culture might glorify drug use more than responsible sexual encounters, is pretty sad.

What's worse is the attention given to specific words. The only reference to sex in "The Lazy Song" is the word sex: no details, nothing explicit. On the other hand, we have Katy Perry's song "Last Friday Night," a huge hit right now (complete lyrics here). It is all about a hungover morning after a blackout night and a one night stand. The entire song is about reckless drinking and un-remembered sex. However, this song isn't edited on the radio. Why? Because it doesn't use the words sex, drinking, one-night stand, etc. Can kids read between the lines? Of course! Do they know what this song is about? You bet! But without a specific, single word to edit out, it doesn't seem to matter.

Now I'm not saying that Katy Perry's song is inappropriate or should be censored. But I am saying that songs, films, and other forms of popular culture get edited all the time, and for all the wrong reasons. We need to stop focusing on single words and images that seem "dangerous" or "risque" and start looking at the bigger picture.