There’s this thing going around about how “Baby It’s Cold Outside” isn’t really terrible and about rape because it’s really about playing with societal expectations. If the woman claims that she has been forced to stay at the man’s apartment because of the cold and snow and so forth, no one can blame her for staying even though she obviously didn’t want to, guys, seriously, she’s a good girl. She was just there for one drink, which may have been too strong (someone told me no one had ever heard of drugging women’s drinks back then), but was that her fault? She’s just a lightweight? So she got to stay with the guy anyway, which was what she wanted. And presumably have all the sex.

And I just can’t figure out why anyone is buying this. I really can’t. If that is the intended subtext of the song, it’s incredibly naïve. Because it assumes that no one would say, “Well, why did you go to a man’s apartment for a drink? You knew what would happen.” It assumes that there is or was a way in which even a woman’s rape wouldn’t be seen as her own fault. The article claims that there were a lot of jokes about this in popular culture of the time, but it doesn’t bother to mention any, and I can’t think of them. There may have been some that I’m just not remembering, but I’ve been trying for weeks now and still can’t think of them.

I mean, there’s Rock Hudson’s rape den in Pillow Talk, I suppose—you almost wonder if it’s where Matt Lauer got the idea for a button to lock his office. But we aren’t supposed to sympathize with any woman who ends up in there, and he meets Doris Day and gives that sort of thing up—and he has to trap Doris Day, remember, who’s sensible enough to give his character a wide berth. The women in Rock Hudson’s life in Pillow Talk are not show as independent women who are making their own sexual decisions; frankly, that wasn’t allowed under the Code.

I mean, even today, you get women told they should go to jail for not reporting a predator, because that doesn’t even just make their own abuse their own fault; it makes it their fault other women were abused. You get women told that being sexually assaulted is just the price you pay for getting ahead in certain industries. You get women told that they’re obviously lying to get the fame and glory that comes from being an acknowledged rape victim.

And maybe that’s part of why this idea gets me so mad; the idea that a woman would lie and say that she’s been assaulted—and let’s be real; this song implies that sex will happen—is a pervasive one in our culture despite not being based on any real evidence. Do false rape accusations happen? Sure, sure. At about or less than the false accusation rate for other crimes—maybe three percent. But we get a lot more convinced that maybe some of these accusations are false than reports of stolen cars. And that’s in part because of the cultural narrative that women lie about sex they regret and call it rape; this is preemptive lying, and it’s seriously unsettling.

This isn’t a new idea, either, the idea that there’s something a little disturbing about the song. If other people like it, that’s fine. As I keep saying, you have to judge for yourself what your choices are. I still think, though, that the most accurate pop culture look at this song is from The Muppet Show. Miss Piggy sings it to Rudolph Nureyev in a sauna, and it’s quite clear that he is not interested in what she’s offering. It’s funny, though, because everyone knows you don’t have to take it seriously. Which is a whole other problem. I think the bit is funny, though, because it’s funny watching a strong and agile man being menaced by felt.