New Perspective: What I Listen To

I love me some Pandora. I mean being able to create your own radio stations with minimal commercials, what's not to love?

But then I started to actually listen to what the songs were saying.

Having a new perspective (or more like a clearer understanding) about what love is and what it isn't completely changed things in ways that I wasn't expecting. There is one artist that I'm thinking about in particular that has this energy to their music that is so FUN to dance to and singalong with. But now that I realize what is being said I was taken aback. It made me feel a little sick because frankly the singer was asking to use another person for their own sexual pleasure. I mean it. No joke here. At least prostitutes are paid for being used (still so horrible), but here was a person singing about asking another for a one-night stand literally... They didn't even try to make it sound like they were asking for something else.

And today while driving around with one of my friends, she popped in a newly bought CD. All songs but one were about this artist needing sexual release, having sexually explicit encounters and trying to get people to sleep with them. 12 out of 13 songs were about sex, and not sex in the good way. No they were about using other people for their own sexual needs, desires and enjoyment. Need a different definition? It was all about selfish, lustful sex. Look don't misunderstand me, sex is great! What it is made and created for is awesome! The first commandment God gives to Adam and Eve is to basically have sex. But this stuff these "artists" were singing about is the antithesis of what sex was made for; the giving of one's self as a gift to another as an expression of love and commitment.

And no, I'm not on some high-horse preaching "I'm better than those who listen to this music" or whatever. That isn't where I'm coming from at all. All I could think about was how hurtful that kind of sex is, how selfish and meaningless it is. This is about people USING each other. It reminds me of slavery: because it's about convenience, self-gratification, lust, selfishness and the abuse of human dignity. What is good about any of that?

I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm taking more time considering what and who I listen to now. How I wish our culture, our nation would value love- real, self-giving, true love.  

I wonder if we even know what that is anymore?