It's So Nice To See People Get What They Want

Thanks to my brother, my friend, Chris Rogers, and my brother's friend, Paul Dunn for answering the challenge from the last blog: a song written by a white man that celebrates/sexualizes a quality in women that is usually derided in our culture.

My brother pointed out Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls:

Are you gonna take me home tonight?
Ah, down beside that red firelight;
Are you gonna let it all hang out?
Fat bottomed girls,
You make the rockin' world go round.

Hey
I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad,
But I knew life before I left my luxury,
Left alone with big fat Fanny,
She was such a naughty nanny!
Hey big woman you made a bad boy out of me!
Hey, hey!

I've been singing with my band
Across the wire, across the land,
I seen ev'ry blue eyed floozy on the way, hey
But their beauty and their style
Wear kind of smooth after a while.
Take me to them lardy ladies every time!

Hey listen here,
Now I got mortgages on homes
I got stiffness in my bones
Ain't no beauty queens in this locality. (I tell ya!)
Oh, but I still get my pleasure
Still got my greatest treasure.
Heap big woman you done made a big man out-of me!
Now get this!

Oh, you gonna take me home tonight (please)
Ah, down beside that red firelight
Oh, you gonna let it all hang out
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round
GET ON YOUR BIKES AND RIDE!

Oooh yeah oh yeah them fat bottomed girls
Fat bottomed girls
Yeah yeah yeah
all right
ride 'em cowboy
Fat bottomed girls
Yes yes

I've never heard this song, but I did read online that it has many appreciative, fat-bottomed fans. The title of this song even parallels Muddy Waters' Big Leg Women. Big:Fat::Leg:Bottom::Women:Girls. I do like that his obsession began because he was seduced by his fat nanny. However, wouldn't that make this more of a fetish song? Isn't the nature of a fetish a weird, often inexplicable sexual preference that may have some root in a possibly traumatic or at least strange childhood experience? I'm thinking of Rosseau. In Confessions, he explains how, after being spanked by his Governess as a child, as an adult he could only reach sexual climax by being paddled. This isn't to say that there aren't many men out there who genuinely dig ladies with more flesh, and this isn't to say that Brian May (who wrote the song) wasn't one of them. However, there is a difference between a preference and fetish, especially if you are the one being desired. Remember that episode of King of the Hill when Peggy, after being paid as a foot model, learned that her feet were desired only because of how definitively bizarre they were?

My friend Chris pointed out Fugazi's song Suggestion:

Why can't i walk down a street free of suggestion?
Is my body the only trait in the eye's of men?
I've got some skin
You want to look in
There lays no reward in what you discover
You spent yourself watching me suffer
Suffer you words, suffer your eyes, suffer your hands
Suffer your interpretation of what it is to be a man
I've got some skin
You want to look in
She does nothing to deserve it
He only wants to observe it
We sit back like they taught us
We keep quiet like they taught us
He just wants to prove it
She does nothing to remove it
We don't want anyone to mind us
So we play the roles that they assigned us
She does nothing to conceal it
He touches her 'cause he wants to feel it
We blame her for being there
But we are all guilty

Thanks for this song, which I've never heard, and it certainly does deal with many of the themes from the post before. However, and Chris pointed this out, this song's purpose is to talk about the objectification of women as a problem. Thank you, Fugazi, but I propose another solution: equal-opportunity objectification.

Then, Thank God, Paul Dunn, who I can't believe even reads this blog, pointed out a song I already knew: Confederate Railroad's Trashy Women:

Well, I was raised in a sophisticated kind of style.
Yeah, my taste in music and women drove my folks half wild.
Mom and Dad had a plan for me,
It was debutantes and er-symphonies,
But I like my music; I like my women wild.

Yeah, an' I like my women just a little on the trashy side,
When they wear their clothes too tight and their hair is dyed.
Too much lipstick an' er too much rouge,
Gets me excited, leaves me feeling confused.
An' I like my women just a little on the trashy side.

Shoulda seen the looks on the faces of my Dad and Mom,
When I showed up at the door with a date for the senior prom.
They said: "Well, pardon us son, she ain't no kid.
"That's a cocktail waitress in a Dolly Parton wig.
I said: "I know it dad, ain't she cool, that's the kind I dig."

I like 'em sweet, I like 'em with a heart of gold.
Yeah an' I like 'em brassy, I like 'em brazen and bold.
Well, they say that opposites attract, well, I don't agree
I want a woman just as tacky as me.
Yeah, I like my women just a little on the trashy side.

Yeah, an' I like my women just a little on the trashy side,
When they wear their clothes too tight and their hair is dyed.
Too much lipstick an' er too much rouge,
Gets me excited, leaves me feeling confused.
An' I like my women just a little on the trashy side.

I'm tempted to dismiss this song as another ironic country song (like Redneck Woman by Gretchen Wilson), but it's so thorough. There is the part about the Dolly Parton wig, but it doesn't exploit the obvious advantage (and punch line) of dating a trashy woman: she puts out. Instead, he highlights the fact that they are "brazen and bold" and, yes, "wild." If this were just a fetish song, it would have some origin in his youth, such as his first encounter being with a trashy older prostitute. However, he liked them because his parents wanted something different for him, "debutantes and symphonies," and he rebelled.

I love this song. A year ago, I wrote a piece about the R. Crumb documentary and an experience I had at Office Max. The song's chorus was quoted in its entirety. I should have thought of it before! Thank you, Paul. You've completed my challenge, and for this, I will deliver as promised, another photo of me and my new boyfriend, Herbie: