Indeed, for decades now we have witness the pornification of culture, and popular music has not been immune from this. Today it seems every second music video is nothing less than soft porn. In fact, actual porn stars are featured in many of these videos.
Pop music has gone from being innocuous and innocent to decadent and sleazy. Twenty years ago we had albums like "Nasty As They Wanna Be" by 2 Live Crew. It featured:
-226 uses of the word f**k
-81 uses of the word s**t
-163 uses of the word b***h
-87 descriptions of oral sex
-117 explicit terms for male and female organs
And that was just in one album! Things have not got any better in the past two decades. Indeed, it has been all downhill for at least forty years now. And for much of this time, I and others have been warning about these destructive trends. Yet we were mocked, scoffed at, made fun of, told we were 'wowsers' etc.
But it seems others are now finally beginning to see the light as well. Even non-conservative and non-religious voices are beginning to appear, warning of our pornified pop culture. Consider for example this recent news item:
"Raunchy pop stars are facing a growing backlash from their own industry, with one of the players behind Kylie Minogue's career the latest to hit out. Kylie's former producer Mike Stock has slammed saucy film clips as 'sexualising' children, saying modern pop stars are going 'too far'. He joins other high-profile stars including Kate Ceberano and Katy Perry in condemning the avalanche of inappropriate clips.
"Calls are rising for individual ratings on film clips or a ban in children's viewing hours. Stock, one third of the legendary pop factory Stock, Aitken and Waterman, said he was loathe to let his own children watch many of today's pop queens. 'The music industry has gone too far,' he said. 'It's not about me being old fashioned. It's about keeping values that are important in the modern world. These days you can't watch modern stars like Britney Spears or Lady Gaga with a two-year-old. Ninety-nine per cent of the charts is R 'n B and 99 per cent of that is soft pornography.'
"Gaga's latest music video Alejandro, complete with simulated group sex and religious symbolism, has been criticised as one of the most controversial. American singer Katy Perry also weighed in, recently tweeting: 'Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke.' It was widely reported she was referring to Gaga's film clip."
It is not just pop music but an entire culture shift which began with the counter-culture of the late 60's. There were calls for liberation from everything, including sexual restraints. Thus the sexual revolution unleashed a tidal wave of permissiveness, sleaze and sexual anarchy.
Many feminists were behind this, speaking of 'empowerment" and "liberation". But now that their libertine worldview has come full circle, and they are seeing the ugly effects of this in their own daughters, many are now having a bit of a rethink. One important new article by Cassy Fiano explains this turnaround:
"There's a new nightmare on the block for femisogynist moms. Now that they're all grown up and settled down with teenage daughters of their own, they're shocked to find out that the sexual empowerment they've been championing for decades has backfired on them. How has it backfired? Well, the femisogynist moms are finding out that sexual empowerment has really turned their daughters into slutty teens.
"Canadian magazine Maclean's examined the phenomenon in a controversial article titled 'Outraged Moms, Trashy Daughters: How did those steeped in the women's lib movement produce girls who think being a sex object is powerful?' Confused moms who label themselves as feminists can't understand why their daughters label themselves as sex objects, sleep around, and demean themselves yet call it empowerment."
She continues, "One culprit for why girls are so hyper-sexualized these days can be traced right back to the extreme sex education being taught in our schools, with the charge being led by femisogynists to keep the sex ed coming. Girls have been taught by the adults in their lives to embrace their sexuality, have been lovingly encouraged to explore their sex lives in new and innovative ways.
"The feminist extremists gush about the brilliance of giving their daughters vibrators, they teach middle schoolers how to have good sex. Planned Parenthood distributes sexually explicit brochures to Girl Scouts and teach 10-year-olds about anal sex. Children are inundated about sex from extremely young ages about sex, something that the femisogynists encourage, and yet they can't understand why teenage girls are sleeping around?"
Her concluding remarks are well worth noting: "The fascist feminists have been engaged in serious social engineering over the past few decades, subverting marriage and family. The word 'father' is also noticeably absent. Femisogynists have tried very hard to make sure that fathers no longer have any say in a girl's sexuality. But now that some of those activists have grown up and started families of their own, they're realizing that they maybe don't like the results so much.
"And of course, we can't forget about abortion. Abortion opened the door to sex with no consequences. It opened the door to men being able to use women and not have to deal with the responsibility of the possibility of a child. We let the sex genie out of the bottle, and for a while, femisogynists cheered it. But it seems like some of the femisogynists moms aren't liking what they're seeing.
"It used to be that men had to prove their love and commitment before having sex. But femisogynists instead told women that they were better than that, that having sex like men made you empowered. Decades later, we're seeing the results of this social experiment. It's ironic, isn't it, that the very people who manufactured the social experiment are now the ones complaining about how it all turned out – and, as usual, taking absolutely no responsibility for the disaster."
Our pornified pop culture – of which pop music is one important part – has been turning our children into hyper-sexed tarts, and some of those responsible for it are now beginning to ask some hard questions. However it may be too late – at least for this current generation – who have been sent down a moral sewage drain by a hedonistic, selfish and rebellious culture.
Whether enough concerned voices will now emerge and challenge this toxic culture and hopefully turn it around remains to be seen. But if something does not happen soon, the future will be looking very bleak indeed.
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Adapted from Bill Muehlenberg's weblog at www.billmuehlenberg.com.
Bill Muehlenberg lectures in apologetics, ethics and theology at several Melbourne theological colleges. Bill used to work with the Australian Family Association, Focus on the Family, and other pro-family and pro-faith organisations.