I was going to nap but decided to blog instead. Time will tell if this was the right choice.
Now, I haven't been on here in a while, and I've been feeling like I should. I have zero creative output in my life right now- I'm totally floundering on this comic I need to be doing; at work, I'm doing a lot of 'this just needs to get done' sort of stuff. So yeah, here I am at the blarg. What I want to write about stems from a conversation I had with my roommate Bethany last night, but first, some back story.
When I was younger, my mother was a mobile DJ. She, as a lesbian, did a lot of gay functions, and I grew up with all this great 80s dance music. My mother has always been kin
d of an audiophile, and for a while was pretty into having a good mixer and amp and crazy speakers. My parents still have these speakers that are basically the dimensions of an oven. Back in Springfield, where I grew up, our neighbors once had a party and my mother just rolled the speakers out onto the porch to provide music for the party. My parents had tons of parties in my early years (most of which I was shipped off to my grandmother's house for) and even when their friends just came over to hang out, invariably, the music would get cranked up and we'd have a dance party. Pet Shop Boys, Dead or Alive, Heavy D and the Boys, Pretty Poison (the first hot redhead I ever saw), Jodi Watley, Cathy Dennis, Technotronic, Bobby Brown, just tons of great stuff.I should take a moment to say that it wasn't all crazy gay dance music at my house growing up; I'm not trying to pigeonhole my parents here. We spent a lot of time listening to Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Fleetwood Mac, the Cowboy Junkies, Leon Redbone and the Beatles, too; even the Civil War soundtrack got played a lot. And I still love all of that stuff. I was just more drawn to the feel-good, booty-shaking stuff that got me and all my parents' friends dancing in the living room. And I'm still that way. Give me a dance party any day of the week.
Last night, I'm in the
car with Bethany and I've got a mix in that has Naughty by Nature's O.P.P. on it. "I wonder if listening to this kind of music as a kid had any effect on me," I joked. Bethany said, "What do you mean?" I kind of hesitated, and then said, "Well, you know...like promiscuity." Bethany said, "What?!" She had no idea that's what the song was about. She listened to it as a kid, too, of course, but never thought about it or had anyone explain it to her, and it's just a fun rap song from the 90s to her. When I was little, I remember being intrigued at this crowd of people that were all just openly promiscuous (down with O.P.P., if you will) and it all sounded very fun to me, like a club or something, long before I had any interest in sex.Samantha Fox is the next thing that comes to mind. This adorable woman with pink-blond hair and sophisticated British accent that was naughty and just wanted to have some fun. I'm watching the "Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)" video for probably the first time in my life right now, which makes me remember we never had MTV when I was growing up. The first time I was exposed to music videos was when my parents started getting VHS tapes from MTV with the latest music videos, and I remember those all very well (though it mostly things like Tom Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance- not anything saucy). The point I'm trying to make, though, is that I never saw Samantha Fox dance or saw her exposing her midriff or anything like that. I knew Lita Ford was hot, but only because of her picture on the CD (seriously, how hot was she?). As a result, I was constantly making up music videos in my head for every song I listened to. So most of my sexy 80s images were completely of my own imagination. When Fox's Love House was playing, I think I was always imagining something way racier than what's in the video. The song started with an ominous male voice asking if I was ready to do things tonight that I never dreamed were possible, and then bubbly Samantha goes on to talk about what sounds like some amazing rave/orgy that attracts the attention of the city police (who I thought were the "silly police" when I little). How awesome is that?! And it never sounded dirty or lewd. It just sounded like fun. A little raunchier than Love Shack, maybe, but still pretty harmless fun. Even in O.P.P., it didn't seem like anyone was getting hurt. C&C Music Factory's Things That Make You Go Hmm has a similar plot to it, and while everyone in the song seems a little skeptical, no one's heart is getting broken, and every discretion is a punch line.
And I really think all of this did influence me. Not entirely- there's a lot of it that was just in me. My parents never listened to Alice Cooper or Warrant or Poison or several of the other musicians that helped form my stupid sexuality. But in talking to my friends about sex (and I do it a lot- I make some of them uncomfortable), I've found that I'm way more open than a lot of people. To me, it's all still Love House. Maybe the sort of free and open Samantha Fox/Naughty By Nature sexuality doesn't mesh with the tortured desire of Alice Cooper's Poison or Love's a Loaded Gun. I don't really know. I think my thesis statement here is that my sexuality is an amalgamation
of 80s lyrics. I'm completely enamored with the hair metal groupies scene of that time, too. It just seems like the 80s were the best time for sex. And I'm not a damn day glo hipster hammer pants asshole over here- the rest of the 80s is neither here nor there for me. I'm also not claiming to be any sort of sex expert- modern or otherwise. I have no idea what sex (and when I say 'sex', I mean the pop culture appearance of, not the act itself. I imagine that's stayed fairly consistant) was like during the 40s or the 60s. I just know the image of sex in the 80s is absolutely awesome. I know a lot of it is sexist and demeaning, and that concerns me a little. But then I think about Lita Ford. It bums me out a little that she's all rolling around on the ground in the Kiss Me Deadly video because that's some Britney Spears shit and actual musicians aren't supposed to have to do that. But she looks so good! And it's her video. There's no dude grabbing her or objectifying her. It's just her being, "yeah, I look this fucking good and I play guitar. Eat it." One video I do remember watching as a kid was Close My Eyes Forever with her and Ozzy Osbourne. Woman played a double neck guitar and it was such a sweet solo. I remember thinking, "wow, she's gotta be some kind of special to have Ozzy duet with her." And in the video, she was just torn jeans and big blond hair and made me think of my mom, who was arguably an atypical mom, but still. My mom was someone I thought was cool and powerful, not eye candy. And how can you argue with Jodi Watley saying that some crap guy is "unworthy of her best" and she's going to find someone that really appreciates her. Recognition of self-worth, dude. The men may have had eye candy in their videos, but the ladies were always in charge in their own videos. And I can roll with either of those.Maybe that's all just me trying to justify that I love trashy music from a trashy time period. It doesn't really matter though. Regardless of what any of these musicians were trying to say or put out as an image, I took from them what I wanted to. A little pomp and swagger, and a lot of innocent fun.
And that is how 80s music influenced my sexuality. :-P Thanks for listening.
