HOLIDAY SPIRIT

Cleveland Radio Station Pulls 'Baby It's Cold Outside' Over Consent Concerns

Star 102 has reportedly pulled the song because of a potentially "predatory" nature.

A Cleveland radio station has banned “Baby It’s Cold Outside” from the air because of concerns that the lyrics are predatory, CNN reports. Several hosts at Star 102, WDOK-FM, which bills itself as “Cleveland's Christmas station,” said the song’s description of a man pressuring a woman to stay at a party, in spite of her repeated refusals, is inappropriate. “People might say, ‘Oh, enough with that #MeToo,’ but if you really put that aside and read the lyrics, it's not something that I would want my daughter to be in that kind of a situation,” one host reportedly explained of the Christmas tune. “The tune might be catchy, but let's maybe not promote that sort of an idea.” Another host wrote on the station’s website, “Now, I do realize that when the song was written in 1944, it was a different time, but now while reading it, it seems very manipulative and wrong.” CNN points out that Frank Loesser’s tune is described as a “Christmas Date Rape Song” on Urban Dictionary. In the song, the female singer asks “What’s in this drink?” while the male singer replies, “Mind if I move in closer?...What's the sense in hurtin' my pride?” While the woman later answers “no,” the man insists “But baby, it’s cold outside.”

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