Archive for February 11th, 2006

Candid Shots

February 11th, 2006 -- Posted in funny | 1 Comment »


Watch the nose twitch!


Now how big can my mouth opens… aaaaaaah~

Rape Me

February 11th, 2006 -- Posted in people | No Comments »

Rape me
Rape me, my friend
Rape me
Rape me, again
am i the only one?

Hate me
Do it and do it again
Waste me
Rape me, my friend

Am I the only one?

My favorite inside source
I’ll kiss your open sores
Appreciate your concern
You’ll always stink and burn

Rape me
Rape me, my friend
Rape me
Rape me, again

Am I the only one?

Rape me!


These are the words for the song Rape Me released in last studio album by the infamous grunge band Nirvana. Before I proceed, just to clarify that I have nothing against this band. In fact, I grew up with the angry lyrics of Kurt Cobain. I cannot imagine how I’d have turned out if not for their In Utero and Nevermind albums. I even named my dog ‘Cobie’ after Kurt.

“Rape Me” drew the ire of many feminists upon its release on In Utero in 1993, but Cobain, a proclaimed feminist himself, often claimed in interviews that it was an “anti-rape” song. He said it was a song of poetic justice, in which a man rapes a woman, is sent to jail, and ends up being raped there himself. Still, its title was censored as “Waif Me” on Wal-Mart and Kmart releases of In Utero, an intentionally comical name chosen by Cobain himself (he had originally wanted to call it “Sexually Assault Me”). The song is sometimes seen as a sequel to Nevermind’s “Polly,” which Cobain narrates from a rapist’s point of view.

Cobain often pointed out that “Rape Me” was written before Nirvana’s ascension to superstardom, and therefore could not have been a cynical comment on fame, as many suggested around the time of In Utero’s release. Still, the song’s bridge, which was written later on, does seem to contain direct references to Cobain’s celebrity, which he famously struggled with. The line “my favorite inside source” is believed to be a reference to former friends who, supposedly, revealed personal information to the magazine Vanity Fair, which ran an unflattering portrait of Cobain and wife Courtney Love in September 1992. The line “I’m not the only one” is believed to be Cobain’s way of saying that his wife and daughter were being just as badly hurt by the negative media exposure as he was. 

Polly
Isn’t me… have some seed
Let me clip… dirty wings
Let me take a ride… don’t cut yourself
Want some help…pleased myself
I’ve got some rope… have been told
Promise you… have been true
Let me take a ride… don’t hurt yourself
Want some help?...to help myself

Isn’t me… have some seed
Let me clip… dirty wings
Let me take a ride… don’t cut yourself
Want some help…pleased myself
I’ve got some rope… have been told
Promise you… have been true
Let me take a ride… don’t hurt yourself
Want some help?...to help myself


Imagine Kurt’s distress when he found out that what he wrote and how it was interpreted could quite often be miles apart. He was appalled when he found out that Polly a heavily ironic anti-rape song had been sung by two men as they raped a young girl.

The thing is, for years I’ve read the lyrics of this song over and over, listened to the song with Kurt’s croaky voice singing the words, and still don’t understand how there can be ‘fans’ who admitted to raping a girl stating that they were fuelled by the song.

Even though the lyrics is short and the words ‘rape me’ are repeatedly sung and screamed in the song, the overall feeling of the song is rather soothing and angry grunts are rather short lived. That’s somewhat impossible for the song to build an urge to rape someone. Maybe I have not been close to being a rapist, nor have I ever been a victim of a rape case, but understanding of rape from Sociological 101 textbook point of view, the mind of a rapist is a complex confusion of pain and pleasure, of consent and defiance, of “yes” and “no”.

Perhaps that’s precisely the same mentality of Kurt’s ‘friends’ whom he dedicated the two songs to. The same mentality when they misinterpreted Kurt’s words of ‘BACK OFF’ from him and his wife and daughter as ‘YES! COME ON!’. The same mentality which is in reality interpreting everything said by famous stars like Kurt just the way they want to. It was not Kurt’s lyrics that told the two rapists to take pleasure in raping, but quite on the contrary, they were already having the pleasure in mind when they misinterpret his songs as ‘words that speak their rapist’s desire’.