Taste of Her Cherry Chap-Stick

Experimentation. It’s not a word with much weight anymore. Our teenage years have become synonymous with this concept of “experimentation”. We are expected to “experiment” with drugs, alcohol, sex, sexuality, passions—this is the time we, as members of society, are granted a “freebie”. To a certain extent we can, and should, do as we like under the anthem of “experimentation”. We are meant to explore now so that by the time twenty-four rolls around we know who exactly who we are. Check that off the list please!
Yet the problem is, experimentation has become an excuse, a cover-up, for behavior. In particular, experimentation seems to have undermined sexuality and gender exploration among teenagers. It’s cool for girls to kiss girls at a party because they’re just “experimenting”. The next morning it’s no questions asked. Experimentation is a one-way street that still leads straight to heterosexuality. It’s not about exploration but about mistakes and thoughtless decisions. By labeling a lesbian, transgender, or otherwise out of the norm behavior “experimentation”, we as a group de-legitimize the behavior altogether. The acts are mere experiments—they hold no value or serious weight in our exploration of identity; they are fleeting.
Perhaps one of the greatest manifestations of this distortion of “experimentation” is Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl, which released in the spring of 2008. The lyrics are as follows:
“This was never the way I planned. Not my intention. I got so brave drink in hand. Lost my discretion. It’s not what I’m used. Just want to try you on. I’m curious for you caught my attention. I kissed a girl and I liked it. The taste of her cherry chap stick. I kissed a girl just to try it…”
While at first glance Perry’s song seems progressive and even daring, a closer look at the lyrics shows just how crudely the song hinders legitimate sexual exploration. Perry treats the event, her kissing a girl, like an out of control act—“I got so brave drink in hand.” It’s as if she only was able to kiss a girl because her judgment was inhibited. The same way girls whore themselves out at parties, using alcohol as an excuse, Perry uses alcohol as the reason behind her homosexual behavior. Furthermore we hear how Perry “lost [her] discretion”, suggesting that kissing a girl was just another slutty, erotic move; Perry was inherently NOT making a decision but rather acting thoughtlessly, carelessly and without consequence.
Perry’s I Kissed a Girl has merely fueled the image of sexy girl-on-girl hookups, which seems to have gained popularity and normality in the pop world. At parties, boys jokingly ask drunken girls to hook up—and girls do it! At dances, girls hook up with other girls simply to appear more provocative, and thus attractive, to boys. At the 2003 MTV Music Awards Brittany Spears and Madonna locked lips in front of thousands of viewers; during interviews following the kiss, Spears was shocked at the suggestion that she had ever kissed a girl before. In addition the interviewers often suggested the kiss was a “gift”; it was as if the kiss was somehow meant to pleasure male viewers—and it probably was considering the circumstances.
So what does this new phenomenon of “girl-on-girl” action mean? It means that teenagers may not actually be exploring their sexual identities. Suddenly, when a girl kisses another girl, she does not, cannot, contemplate whether she liked the kiss; we are programmed from our peers and from the media to see girls kissing girls as heterosexuals being a little wild and crazy. But what if wild and crazy turns into sincere and eye-opening? How many girls never allow that kiss to mean more than a drunken hook up or a bad mistake at a dance? Have we as a generation turned lesbian behavior into a heterosexual sideshow? Or am I being too critical—is the popular acceptance of lesbian hook-ups a sign that as a generation we are truly progressive?
-Zoe B.