Music to Mate By

It’s 8:38 a.m. on a Friday morning as I write this.  Humboldt County is at 42 degrees.  The sun is creeping over the trees and a bird is chirping incessantly somewhere near my bathroom window.  Outside, the morning’s music is shattered by a car stereo blaring some kind of country tune.

It seems that the people around here with loud car stereos only play hip hop or country.  I never hear anything I’d define as “good.”

This obsession with assaulting the world with your music seems odd to me.  I’ve witnessed males (and it is usually males who do this), turn up the stereo at the approach of a young lady/teen girl.  It’s the equivalent of showing their pretty feathers.  “Look at me,” it says.  “I have Kayne playing!”  I’ve never seen these ladies just hop into the car and rip their tops off unless they were hookers.  (If that’s the case, you don’t need the music, chaps.  Just wave a Jackson around.)  In fact, most of these ladies ignore them and go on about their day.  Dejected, the young men will speed off looking for some new, easier conquest.  Perhaps a drunk aunt.

Music as a mating ritual is nothing new.  Barry White is often the one that comes to mind.  Prince.  Justin.  Skinny Puppy.  You name it.  Almost every band has had one of its songs used to woo a potential conquest into bed or onto his or her knees.  It is kinder and more legal than a date rape drug.  It shows insight into the hunter’s interests.  It lets the hunter know if his or her prey is worthy of his or her advances.  Music, when used to induce sex, is a far more interesting and accurate barometer than, say, the clothes you are wearing.  A woman should not be expecting romance if her beau puts on Cannibal Corpse and starts stripping off his clothes.  However, if she starts stripping in turn, that beau knows he is going to be in for a good time.

If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy ...

I always thought it would be amusing to invite some potential sexual conquest into the Compound for a little experiment.  I’d have a few candles lit for mood lighting.  I’d do my best to charm and seduce her.  Say all the right things, make all the proper compliments.  I’d then ask if she’d like to hear a little music.  She would, of course, agree to that.  Why?  It offers a break.  While I get up to put on a CD, she can think things over.  “Do I want to do this?  What if he thinks I’m fat?  Did I shave?  Yes.  Does he care?  What will he think of that Ohio State University tattoo on my ass?”  In the span of time that it takes to get up off the couch to put a CD into the player, she can either commit to the act or find a way out.  She doesn’t need the music.  She needs time.  And time is what I give her … and then I start the CD.

Kidz Bop Volume 23.  Tiny voices singing “Let Me Love You.”

She realizes she has made a terrible mistake … or she thinks it’s really funny and takes her clothes off because nothing gets to a woman like humor.  Either way, it’s a win win for me as long as she doesn’t run from the house and call the police to report me as some weird pedophile.

You can have your Kanye and whatever else you think works.  I’ll take a chorus of prepubescent voices singing in high-pitched tandem any day of the week.  If that doesn't scream romance, nothing does.