Poem: To Robin Thicke

[ladytauriel]

This poem begins with a quote from Robin Thicke in an interview in regards to his hit "Blurred Lines": "People say, "Hey, do you think this is degrading to women?" I'm like, "Of course it is. What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman. I've never gotten to do that before. I've always respected women." So we just wanted to turn it over on its head and make people go, "Women and their bodies are beautiful. Men are always gonna want to follow them around."... Right now, with terrorism and poverty and Wall Street and Social Security having problems, nudity should not be the issue."

Robin, when the pompous surrounding your song dies away; when pesky little feminists drop away from it with time, like annoying flies after a fly catcher whacks them against the wall; when your name no longer reminds women of its rhyme with your genitalia and no longer makes your ex-wife laugh with her girlfriends over how untrue the word "big" is -

Robin, I hope find yourself a girl.

I hope she thinks you're the prince of gentlemanliness, that your prim haircut is a reflection of your perfectionist ways, that your blue eyes reflect the oceans of femininity, poetry, song - good song -, and a deep voice that can lure her to sleep at night.

I hope she runs away before you can kiss her at the first dinner; I hope she pole dances like the queen of a bar; I hope she wears the brightest lipstick she can buy; I hope she leaves little quotes of Tolstoy on the fridge for you every morning; I hope she makes you feel like a winner for finding her.

I hope she walks across her flat draped in nothing but a flowing white gown that might as well not be there; I hope she wears nudity at home like it's a five thousand dollar prom dress; I hope her hair whips across her face as backs away, hips swaying, sashaying, to show you what a good girl she can be; and I hope that you just stare at her in wonder and marvel about how a woman can ever question her own body when she knows to own it like a comfy pair of sneakers no boy of hers will ever see.

I hope she knows she's beautiful.

I hope you assure her that she's beautiful when she leaves the lights on, when her belly stands out in her skin tight dress, when her hair fades from blonde to grey, and that she just smiles at you with fascination every time like, "Wow, I wonder why he thinks I don't know that."

I hope she goes to a Zumba class one day, where the instructor has prepared a new song. A song that’s old, with a little beat that's catchy, movement, her body following like dance is her soul and the words are at the tip of her tongue, even if she hasn't heard them before.

I hope she hears your song that day.

I hope she comes home, fire behind her eyelids and a speech caught in her throat, entrapping the anger and frustration, like a bitch whom she heard you call an animal, wanting to read you a lecture.

I hope you'll say, "Baby, baby, it's alright! It's okay, I was joking, I think nudity is something women should embrace, because their bodies are just so sexy and irresistible!"

I hope she tells you that it's not okay. That while a man is not her maker, a man is the maker of a society in which he feels obligated to “liberate” a woman from her self-centered, uptight ways of self-protection through the inexplicable use clothing against rapists, sex offenders, unabashed staring, and men who are unable to control their animalistic impulses.

That while nudity is preferable to six inch heels, the comfortable sneakers are hidden in the dark where no boy can ever see them, and without them, there is no place for her to run. No way for her to run fast enough.

No way to run from the stares aiming at her breasts, from the hand landing on her ass, from the catcalling that continues from your excuses that men will always want to follow a woman around.

No way to explain to the man wanting to give her “something big enough to tear [her] ass in two” that she’s grabbing him because there’s nothing more that she wants in the world than to get messy with the blood dripping from his arms as she scratches her fingernails against in a silent “no, no, stop”, because the words that leave her mouth are not loud, not forceful, not meaningful, not human enough to break through his eardrums, which are veiled with the words “blurred lines”, as if rape is something more complex than the string theory.

I hope she shakes her head when you say that the title didn’t mean the blurred lines between yes and no, but the blurred lines between “the good-girl/bad-girl thing and what’s appropriate”, as if either answer will give you the rights to treat her like a body, to treat the body like an animal, to treat the animal like a wild beast set free in a world where the only way to find her a way into her home is to find your way into her.

I hope you tell her that she’s playing hard to get, the bad girl you never thought she could be; that you want to win her back.

When she leaves, I hope the blurred lines are made as clear to you as your own sorrow at losing a woman who rocked her body for herself, was a good girl for herself, had sex for her own pleasure. Who loved herself. Who knew herself. Who was and would be herself without you.