I’m back from a 10K run down in San Gabriel. I haven’t done a 10K in almost five years I never really enjoyed short races, as I always felt that the pain of the “kick” at the end was worse than the pain of finishing a marathon or an ultra. I’m built for endurance, not speed. (And I always hated doing speedwork on a track. 12x 400M workouts, 8x800M workouts, and those awful mile repeats. Never again.)
Since we are doing a trail marathon a week from today, we took the 10K easy, running at what is called a “zone pace.” To run at a zone pace means that you are working hard, but can still carry on a full conversation throughout. It’s an old psychological tool to talk during races — it tends to frustrate and annoy the runners around you, who are usually working too hard to talk. I confess, though mine is not a compettive personality, I do enjoy “psyching out” other runners. My friend Sharon and I finished together; she won the women’s race overall and I placed 2nd among 35-39 year-old males. (It turned out there were only four men IN that age group today, of course!)
Last night’s dance at All Saints (see this post) was lightly attended, but went well.  An elegant stewardship event took place almost simultaneously upstairs on our lawn while the teens congregated in our subterranean social hall.
As far as I was concerned, the music was undanceable. This didn’t stop some from trying out the forbidden “freaking”, though we dealt with it with good humor. One of our fine new youth ministers carried a large bible (something not often seen at All Saints), and when physical contact seemed excessive, he would make a great show of leaping on to the dance floor, wedging the Scriptures between the bodies of the offending pair. He did it with grace and humor, and made his point.
It has almost always been acceptable for girls to dance together. It has almost never been acceptable for boys to do the same thing. But I note that in recent years, how girls interact with each other has changed. Sometime in the mid to late-90s, adolescents seemed to discover a kind of “faux bisexual chic.” I don’t know where it came from, but it has persisted and made its way down to the relatively young.Â
What does this “faux bi chic” look like? An example from last night: three girls who are not regulars at our church arrived; two had beaux who are All Saints boys. Their boyfriends, however, seemed more interested in playing with the turntable equipment than in dancing. The girls seemed bored, and went off to dance together. But they didn’t just dance — they began to caress each other with abandon, rub against each other, come close to kissing each other on the mouths. As they did so, they kept looking back at their boys at the DJ post, wanting to make sure that they had the rapt attention of the fellas. Naturally, they did. The boys all but had their tongues out of their mouths, but were remaining passive observers. The display was just innocent enough so that we didn’t have to pry girls apart with the bible — but it was depressingly typical.
My sources tell me that it has become much more common for girls to “make out” with each other at teenage parties. For some of these girls, there may be a genuine attraction — or at least real curiosity — about other women.  But for most of the young women with whom I have discussed this, it seems to be about attracting and arousing the men around them. Pretending to fool around with other girls allows them to demonstrate their sexuality without fearing being labelled as a “slut”, as the label “bi” carries little if any stigma for the girls with whom I work. (The same cannot be said for boys, of course.)  What bothers me is that it seems to be less about young women exploring and claiming their sexuality and more about developing a strategy for attracting and pleasing men by appealing to a classic straight male fantasy. That’s not only not empowering, it’s offensive! It ‘s another way in which the sexuality of the young is distorted and exploited. And it is a caricature of authentic bisexual and lesbian relationships.
I think we have a topic for next Wednesday night’s youth group! We’ve also printed out the lyrics to some of the rap songs that we played last night.  We will ask them to read this aloud, and then this, and then this. (Lyrics are explicit and offensive, you are forewarned.) I’ve got a pretty good idea that the kids will try and laugh it off at first. But maybe after they are forced to read aloud what they dance to, we might get somewhere.Â
Our youth minister is also going to play for them the new U2 single, Vertigo. And then we’ll read those lyrics.
Oh — and please see all the new photos of Matilde in my photo album!
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Rap, eew. The link to the first set of lyrics doesn’t seem to work, but the other two sets are (unsurprisingly) pretty offensive.
U2 is great. Not only do they make good songs with good lyrics, but I love the way Bono uses his money and influence to make positive changes in our world.
God, you hit on one of my massive pet peeves. If it’s that hard to get a guy’s attention, then I wouldn’t want it.
Oh, and the way it’s becoming increasingly fashionable for straight girls to be suggestively bi just to get attention from straight guys is nauseating.
And Hugo, while I appreciate that y’all are trying to get the kids to think deeper and whatnot about the lyrics, I would warn you that acting like this is a new thing is going to doom your efforts. Our entire society degrades women–singling out rap lyrics tends to come across more as singling out youth culture. Consider that everyone from the Rolling Stones to the hair metal bands of the 80′s–all are just as bad. And hip hop, unlike certain genres of rock music, at least has avenues for female artists to talk back.
Elenmir, I corrected the link to the Jay Z song.
Oh, I’m not going to argue it’s a new thing. But the explicitness is relatively new — what the Stones suggested obliquely (“Brown Sugar Woman”, “Let’s Spend the Night Together”, “Under my Thumb”) is surely less aggressive than what Jay Z, Ludacris, and Snoop are putting out. I am not attacking rap alone, nor black artists — but this is what the kids played, and so this is what we are responding to.
I’m not going to give them the whole “in my day, we were innocent” lecture. (Heck, I was listening to hardcore punk at their age — Black Flag, Circle Jerks, TSOL, Fear, that sort of thing.) But I am going to ask them to take ownership of their choices.
I listen to a lot of hip-hop, but not that bullshit. I tend to agree with Amanda, that if you just come down hard on their choices they’ll get defensive. They know the lyrics; they just think they’re above internalizing them. Exposing them to other choices in their preferred genre (like say, De La Soul, Talib Kweli, The Roots…or this heavy number, “Love Song” by Jean Grae) might yield some interesting results. Your kids probably aren’t getting much exposure to better quality hip-hop. From the sounds of things, neither are you!
Don’t get me wrong…I seriously dig U2. I liked U2 before anyone knew who the hell they were. But the kids might turn off just because they don’t like the genre, y’know? (Personally, I like that U2 seems to be returning to their original garage-rock sound. ‘Vertigo’ brought back waves of nostalgia for me, when I’d rock the block with ‘Gloria’ as a public service!)
Explicit sexual material is not the same as sexism. Bikini Kill has material that puts anything a rapper could come up with to shame, but it’s in service of puncturing sexist thought and therefore probably quite productive for young people. There aren’t any rappers I can think of who have more odious sexist attitudes than some 60′s rockers like Mick Jagger–even your most sexist rapper now is likely to give props to women who hold their own, whereas those women were treated like absolute trash in the 60′s.
But if I may be so bold as to make a suggestion? Kids are threatened by these lectures because they are afraid that they have to adhere to sexist thought to be up with what’s hip, so maybe some role models of people who thumb their nose at sexism and are cooler for it? Missy Elliot is a really popular rapper who I admire a lot for her take-no-shit attitude. La Lubu has good suggestions, too. And the Beastie Boys are super role models of men who used to be invested in a sexist worldview, but who now actively work to fight sexism.
Well, we have lots of kids who like U2, actually. Anecdotally, many tend to draw a distinction between the music they listen to and what they dance to. They see them as distinct genres — and of course, we have a diverse group of kids, with a few brave country fans and one or two who will listen only to classical music…
We did play for them, last year, that Nas song (something written for children, very inspirational), they liked it…
You should also talk about the song by Sarah Jones, “Your Revolution”, a new look at gender via Gil Scott Heron’s old classic.
I doubt most high schoolers would notice it’s feminist overtones, but it definitely turns the hip hop stereotype on it’s head.
Here is a page with the lyrics and some discussion questions. You might also note that this song, which uses lyrics from the big male rappers, was considered offensive and unsuitable for air by the FCC, whereas the songs you listed are not.
(Jones eventually won that fight)
The song really only works when you hear it. If you want a copy, email me.
Good Lord! Makes our fights over Pokemon cards and Eminem t-shirts seem pretty tame. But then, we have both a childrens and a Youth band and home-grown hip-hop and rap artists of our own, whom we encourage to write and perform their own stuff for Church. Some of them are even good, too.
Lauren, the song you posted gave me chills. How powerful. I wonder what the agenda is, when songs such as that one are repressed, yet the other examples that Hugo listed are encouraged to flourish?
Well, no I don’t. Not really.
No offense Hugo but I would have never (and I mean never) guessed you were a Black Flag, Circle Jerks kind of guy
Not anymore. I have been many things in my life, bcb, and a wannabee punker was one of them.
(I liked other bands too — Johnny Thunders, Husker Du, Minutemen, Jodie Foster’s Army…)
But the explicitness is relatively new
Er…Hugo…were you listening to those punk lyrics? “Too Drunk to Fuck” and “Beef Balogna” ring a bell? C’mon.
That said, I agree with everything else in your post. I’d be tempted to tell some of the girls “Someday, one of those boys you’re trying to attract with that behavior is going to push you to do more than just kiss your girlfriend.”
It’s the misogyny that is so new, mythago — the Dead Kennedys, whose music you reference, were practically egalitarian…
What about the blues? Early jazz? Pretty explicit and often misogynistic.
Please provide lyrics, zuzu, that are entirely equivalent to the ones I linked to in their use of profanity and their advocacy of violence against women.
The fact that misogyny existed in an oblique form in earlier material does not mean there is no distinction betweeen those earlier forms and contemporary hip-hop.
Here’s one I googled up: “Your Southern Can Is Mine,” Blind Willie McTell, recently covered by the White Stripes:
Now lookie here momma, let me explain ya dis
You wanna get crooked I’ll even give you my fist
You might read from Revelation, back to Genisis
You keep forgettin’ your southern can belongs to me
So there ain’t no use in bringin’ no jive to me
Your southern can is mine
In the mornin’
Your southern can belongs to me
You might go uptown, have me arrested put in jail
Some hotshots got money gonna pull my bail
Soon as I get out, hit the ground
Your southern can is worth a doller a half a pound
You might take it from the south baby, hide it up north
Understand you can’t rule me and be my boss
Take from the east, hide it in the west
But when I get you momma your can’ll see no rest
Now baby ashes to ashes, sand to sand
When I hit you momma then you’ll feel my hand
Give you a punch through that barbed wire fence
When I hit you baby, you know I make no sense
Well then look here woman, don’t get hot
I’m gettin’ me a brick outta my backyard
Well if I catch you momma down in the heart of town
Gonna grab me a brick and tear your can on down
You may get bed sick cuz baby you’re graveyard bound
Gonna make you moan like a graveyard hound
That seems pretty violent and misogynistic to me. I’m not sure what it is about profanity alone that concerns you — this doesn’t have a single cuss word in it, but the threat of beating, rape, and dispatch to the graveyard with a brick for defiance is crystal clear.
Well, so much for my pretty formatting. I tried excerpting.
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