Several weeks ago, Britney Spears unveiled her latest single, “3;” which, incidentally, became her third number one hit in the US. An unabashed Britney fan, I enjoyed this piece of unapologetic electro-pop in the vein of Kylie Minogue or Lady GaGa.

But upon first hearing the song, I experienced an emotion that I thought had died long ago: Shock. More surprisingly, I seem to be the only one who actually found the song scandalous.
If you haven’t heard the song yet, it can be summed up in one word: threesomes. The song abandons subtlety and spends three minutes and thirty-three seconds praising the sexual pleasure of a ménage a trois. Not so shocking, and in fact rather boring, is the accompanying music video released the day before Halloween.

I guess I shouldn’t be at all surprised by the woman who earlier this year released “If You Seek Amy,” but that single’s meaning was “hidden” within the inane chorus. “3,” however, makes “If You Seek Amy” sound tame by comparison. But what is really shocking to me is not so much the song’s content, but more the lack of controversy “3” has stirred up.



2008 and 2009 have been banner years for overtly-sexual musical. I faintly remember when Madonna’s “Justify My Love” and “Erotica” were banned from MTV in the early 90s – and now less than twenty years later, those songs could have been produced by almost any mainstream female artist today. And while conservatives threaten to boycott if there is so much as a same-sex kiss on television, music now seems to be produced and played relatively consequence-free. In fact, the more overtly-sexual a song is, the more popular it seems to become (which is nothing new).

Flo Rida’s “Right Round,” David Guetta’s and Akon’s “Sexy Bitch,” and 3OH!3’s anti-female “Don’t Trust Me,” have all topped the charts without conservatives batting so much as an eyelash. Have conservatives actually given up on winning the battle of the airwaves? Or as radio becomes less and less relevant, is it no longer seen as a serious threat?

The two songs that have been singled out by sex negative activists in the last year – the aforementioned “If You Seek Amy” and Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” – are unique in that they are performed by women. Katy Perry’s homophobic sentiments aside, would conservatives have been more or less upset had Jesse McCartney sang, “I kissed a boy”? Singling out female artists as being the only ones propagating “harmful” messages regarding sexuality is pure sexism. And how “If You Seek Amy” is any more or less offensive than “Right Round” is beyond me.

But then where is the backlash to “3”? Perhaps conservative Americans are too consumed with fighting health care reform and climate bills to care about pop culture right now. And in lieu of combating sexually-tinged lyrics, how will this shape music in 2010? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.