A woman saying “the answer is no” and a man completely ignoring it is the main reason; I’ve also heard complaints about the kind of pressuring in his “what’s the sense in hurting my pride?”. Whatever her intentions might prove, that’s not a good way to treat someone. Also, although I can tell it’s not what was meant, her wondering “what’s in this drink?” evokes a lot of bad feelings in a lot of people.
My dad was part of that generation. He knew exactly how to understand the song, and even used it as a general template himself to ‘convince’ women to give in to him. It was not a subtle song for the audience at the time.
There’s a blog post out there that analyzes this, but the “What’s in this drink” was kind of a meme of the times where people would blame bad behavior on the drink being strong as a way of dodging responsibility. The whole song is both of them colluding to cook up a reason for her to stay, and he is pretending to sway her and she is pretending to be seduced, but actually she is from the get go ready to stay. They are just playing their respective roles in the dance. But I get where all the banter doesn’t read well currently because we are aware of the rapey implications to their cover story.
That’s my take on it too. His feeble arguments for staying and her half-hearted attempts to leave are part of a flirty game they are both playing.
That said, how it was intended in 1944 and how it sounds today are two different things. Given that women are fighting for respect in the face of a wave of revelations about harassment, I’d be happy to see the song shelved along with other outdated mid-twentieth-century artifacts.
(Liked for incorporating “brouhaha” and “canoodling” in the same comment)
TLDR; it was not possible for a woman to consent to sex under any circumstances because if she consented she was a tramp, and if she did not, she was damaged goods. Therefore, this was as close to consent as a woman could come - a good cover story.
As someone recently pointed out, sure, there’s historical context, but it’s not playing over the loudspeakers at the store while the song is. And the message is still that "no” means “I just need a little more convincing.”
There are lots of songs and stories that were once “fine” and aren’t, now. And for historical context (that is still true today), those same excuses she uses “playfully” in the song were often (and still are) given by women who want to say “no”, but don’t dare. Who play along with the hopes that he won’t take it personally, and will let her go. People who have never had it happen hear banter. People who have might be hearing their own voice pleading “Please, no,” as they hope to get out of there unhurt.
Like I said, we live in an amazing world. You can listen to whatever you want, whenever you want, in your own home, or with the privacy of a good set of headphones. The song exists. It will continue to exist, even without radio rotation. Nobody is saying that nobody can ever be allowed to listen to it. Just that maybe it’s time to retire it from the public sphere.
I’d be fine with it gone the way of a few Disney movies that are permanently in the vault.
There’s so many films from that studio system where the women were wink wink nudge nudge prostitutes, oh, I mean, models, and all this double entendre around it. I find it all so weird the way there was all this sexual innuendo that was good fun in the movie but then any actual woman acting like that would be scandalous.
Not everyone has Miley Cyrus money.