Hotline Bling: Hedonism and Drake

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For those of you who hold the sense of hearing, I am quite sure your ears have been bedazzled by rapper/singer Drake's Hotline Bling; for those of you fortunate enough to not be able to hear this, unfortunately you have only had the opportunity to let his Uncle-Derrick-the-pervert-at-a-child-halloween-party-bash dance moves bedazzle you, and for people like me, who take everything in a rather serious manner, you have been offended at the lyrics contained in the video, in just the same way as professional choreographers have taken offence to his dance moves.
And for those of you even more like me, you would have shook your head at the lyrics and their connection to our current society, a society where hedonism is glorified and highly sought after - one would go so far as to say that the latest iPhone and hedonism go head to head in the minds of our adolescents and young adults. Four minutes of Auras of pastel colours and silhouette of slow grinding later, the entire meaning of modern love has been redefined. And though modern love revolves around sexual encounters, sex is still somewhat frowned upon. Well, the word, at least.
 
Yes. 'Sex' is still rather taboo in our society, surprisingly enough, and this is particularly the case in Disney movies. Apparently storks deliver babies and cartoon women do not have to undergo hours and months of pain and contractions and bladder leakage and vaginal discharge and days without sex. Do they even have genitals? Who knows. And why attack Disney? Well, popular culture. So popular that it has inherently become a part of our society, replacing common sense.
 Just the other day, on my journeying to obtain a so-called fresh Subway roll, I parked next to a metallic blue car with the windows down and the doors throbbing. Inside, seated on the passenger seat was a young girl, I would say somewhere in her late teens. She had her feet up on the dashboard and her phone cradled in both her hands atop the meeting of her thighs and her head, along with the entire car itself, was bopping to Drake's Hotline Bling. And as the lyrics rung out through the open windows, I shook my head and walked away, prioritising my plan to fetch my meal, and not wishing to ask her if she was aware that the lyrics she was ingesting contained a sexually implicit desire for lust.
You used to call me on my cellphone / Late night when you need my love / I know when that hotline bling, / that could only mean one thing, sings Drake, and radios all around the world boosted it into their top ten. Sometimes I wonder why it is that we censor direct sexual language, and not indirect?
Poor Drake, right? Why is this devilish writer targeting the one rapper who is emotionally adept, and unafraid to show girls all around the world that his many hypothetical break-ups have taken a toll on him? He is not the only singer with sexually implicit tracks bumping on our radios. Take Jason Derulo's Trumpets, for instance, wherein he sings, Yeah the drums they swing low / And the trumpets they go / Da da, da ra ra ra, da da [...], implying that once the woman's breasts are in his vicinity and unclothed, his urinating device blows like a trumpet. Put the pieces together.

And let us not forget Flo Rida's Whistle: Can you blow my whistle baby / Let me know / Girl I'm gonna show you how to do it / And we start real slow / You just put your lips together / And you come real close. The amount of times I have heard little children whistle along to the catchy whistle in the song makes me cringe. 

And classic songs are not exempt from this. Take I'm So Excited by The Pointed Sisters: Give in this time and show me some affection / We're goin' for the pleasures in the night. / I want to love you / Feel you / Wrap myself around you / I want to please you / Squeeze you / And if you move real slow / I'll let it go. These were the songs my parents would have rolled their ankles to. 

Or The Divinyls' I Touch Myself? Olivia Newton John's Let's Get Physical? Labelle's Lady Marmalade? Or Britney Spears' If you Seek Amy? Donna Summer sought some  Hot Stuff and 50 Cent invited people to his Candy Shop. Next informed females all over the world that if they got Too Close they would 'make it hard' for them. Salt-n-Pepa had no shame blatantly asking people to Push it, and neither did George Michael when he sung  I want your Sex. Marvin Gaye said, Let's Get it On, and Ludacris decided to politely ask What's your Fantasy, attempting to take in his listeners' preferences. The Ying Yang Twins, on the other hand, decided to take things more intimately in the ear, singing Wait (The Whisper Song). R. Kelly in the meantime saw nothing wrong with a little Bump N Grind, and Madonna cried out Like a Virgin and David Banner asked her not to Play with him. These songs and more, all causing a Sexual Eruption, much like Snoop Dogg's, all through the radio and through its listeners ears. Do not get me started on their video clips.

And so that brings me to my point at hand: why are these lyrics not as frowned upon as the word 'f**k'? I think that implications are worse than blatant desires. Implications can be picked up by many innocent ears and spread around like margarine on freshly toasted bread, all over the schoolyard. And that can lead to problematic situations in the owners of the innocent ears' futures, for when they wish to court with another human, they will dance around the matter - not to mention how awful courting through sexually implicit wording is:

"Can you blow my whistle?"

"You make my trumpet go da da ra da da!"

"Tell me if you want to seek Amy!"

"I want some hot stuff. I need some hot stuff. Give me your hot stuff."

"I don't see nothing wrong with bumping and grinding?"

"You make me feel like a virgin."

"I'm hot just like an oven. I need your loving."

"When I'm feeling down, I want you above me."

So what is the point of censoring vulgar words, when sexually implicit phrases, equally and most of time more vulgar are allowed to ring through our ears? Would you rather have your child hear the word 'f**k' or would you prefer having your child be asked by Flo Rida himself to blow his whistle? And so what we are left with is a hedonistic culture that frowns upon direct hedonistic ways, and glorifies sexually implicit language.

Thank you, Drake, for the questions you have posed in my mind. For your awful lyrics that make amazingly funny Joseph Ducreux memes. For unknowingly giving hedonism room to grow in the minds of the innocent. For making awful dancing look 'cool'. And I hope that girl never calls you again.