Is the new one really an improvement on the original? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Yesterday, I heard about the new rendition of this old song by Kelly Clarkson and John Legend being released. Musically, they’re good singers. I can’t really comment much beyond that as I am not one with much of a taste for music. However, the idea was the old song was a creeper song. The girl is at the guy’s place. The guy is encouraging her to stay and well, the reason he wants her to stay is so he can have sex with her. Some went beyond that and called it rape, as if the woman will never play sly with a man and try to make him look like he’s seducing her when she’s really seducing him. Yes. Believe it or not, women can sometimes want to have sex themselves.
So here comes a new version meant to be an improvement. It’s meant to strike a blow against the patriarchy. I listened to it last night and then looked up the lyrics to clarify some matters, but as I listened, I thought, “This song is even worse than the other one is supposed to be.”
If in the old one, the guy was trying to get the girl to stay so she would have sex, this guy seems like he’s practically ready to hold open the door and throw the girl out. From the lyrics, he has taken her back to his own place and she has no car. Now today, if a guy takes a girl back to his place, well, we all know what that means.
So when she says she doesn’t want to stay, he’s calling her a cab immediately and even telling her the driver’s name. She talks about her parents and he’s thinking “What? You still live with them?”! (Did he possibly take a minor back to his place? If there is a minor, then why is she talking about drinking?) He even has a line in there at that point saying, “Your body. Your choice.”
Now of course, if any possible hint shows up that the girl could change her mind, he’s there to say how much he wants her. However, as soon as she’s ready to go, he’s ready to encourage her. The other version might have the guy trying to seduce the girl, which by the way is in many ways normal. Men even in marriage will often want to try to do anything to encourage the lady in their lives to have sex.
So what do I gather from this? That first off, if this is a blow against the patriarchy as it’s called, it’s a horrible one. Second though, it really shows me again that our culture is clueless when it comes to sex. We don’t know how to think about it. Perhaps some of us don’t understand the idea of a man and a woman dating with sex being off the table because it’s, you know, reserved for marriage.
Our culture doesn’t understand what sex is or the many purposes of it or why it should be reserved for marriage. Sex has been reduced to a recreational activity. Some people have said that our culture thinks too much about sex. This is false. It’s just the opposite. We think too little about it. Doing it, dreaming about it, watching it, and talking about it, does not equal thinking about it.
This is really a good chance for our Christian community to shine as well by doing marriage right. (Even though Shaunti Feldhahn exposed some myths about divorce, it is still way too common today even among Christians.) Doing marriage well is a service to God. Now I am not saying divorce is never an option. If you are in an abusive situation and there is no hope of change, get out.
Every marriage will also sometimes require hard work. This is normal and when the situation is worked out, the couple can very well be stronger than before. Part of that will be the proper understanding of sexuality.
The misunderstanding of sexual ethics is one thing that for those of us who live in America could very well lead to the breakdown of our society as it strikes at the heart of the family, the building block of society. People want to be loved and they want to have sex and there’s no sin in that. It’s how they are fulfilling those desires that is the problem.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
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