Is “Baby It’s Cold Outside” Kind Of Rapey?

It would be nice if this discussion had words with more nuance

Apparently these are scenes from the movie the song first appeared. They’re probably copyrighted by someone. Used without permission, please don’t sue me.

In a slightly drunken conversation at a Christmas party, a woman I was talking to offhand mentioned how the song Baby It’s Cold Outside is “kind of rapey.”

It’s not a song I particularly care about or enjoy, but I always thought that claim was a little over the top, and I said so. This resulted in a bit of a stand off, where she was insistent the song was, and I was being a bit dismissive, but both of us were unwilling to push the matter because we didn’t want to create a tense atmosphere. Eventually we just dropped it, each thinking the other is a stereotypical example of a type of person who is a little out of tune with reality.

Later, I was thinking about it, in particular about how my exposure to the song largely comes from remixes where it’s placed in some kind of down tempo chill hop or ambient electronica. I don’t really enjoy the kind of old school crooner style of the original. Or maybe I should say, of most early renditions. There seem to be many versions of the song from early days, and I don’t know which is the very first. Nor do I care.

Anyway, the main point is, what I had exposure to was possibly misleading me, because maybe not all the lyrics were included. Maybe what I knew of…