Katy Perry "I Kissed a Girl" and I Liked it Too!

This song garnered some attention on National Public Radio recently because of it's overtly "same sex" message and its number 1 Billboard ranking. I find it interesting because, though it is a song about a same sex "relationship," the singer is unquestionably ambivalent about the experience and ultimately the lyrics express society's simultaneous disdain and fascination with lesbians.

When I was in college my friends and I would jokingly say, "Well, if I were a girl, I'd like girls too. Who'd want to get that close to a hairy smelly muscled guy?" And the last verse in this Katy Perry song brought me right back to those fun talks in our dorm room. She sings, "Us girls we are so magical / Soft skin, red lips, so kissable / Hard to resist so touchable / Too good to deny it" And I agree. But this, along with the opening line of the chorus, "I kissed a girl and I liked it / The taste of her cherry chap stick" is the only truly positive thing that Perry's lyrics say. The rest of the song questions, Denys, and tries to justify her actions.

Before I go on, let me say that I don't know Katy Perry's sexual preferences or whether the lyrics in this song express anything truly personal. it is my intention only to demonstrate what these lyrics convey, not to promote my own heterosexual viewpoint. I will try to write from this perspective.

Perry's lyrics demonstrate two simultaneous conflicts, internal and external. She acknowledges the social impropriety , and the personal, dichotomy in her actions.

She shows that her actions may have been interpersonally unacceptable when she writes, "I hope my boyfriend don't mind it" This shows that she recognizes that she has broken some rule of heterosexual relationships.

She moves on to acknowledge that in her society, this is inappropriate in the second verse when she writes.
"It's not what good girls do / Not how they should behave / My head gets so confused / Hard to obey"
Of course society tells us how "good girls should behave" and when Perry sings that it is hard to "obey" it is obvious that she recognizes that there is some "authority" that should be obeyed.