The answer to taylor swiftHighly anticipated 12th studio album The life of a chorus girl it was as expected: streaming records were broken, Billboard charts topped, and fans are clamoring for more amid a new music video, limited edition releases, and an upcoming Eras Tour documentary. (The devil works hard, but Swift’s marketing team works harder.)
Although Swiftie fervor has reached a predictable fever pitch in the wake of his commitment to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelceso have reviews of possibly Swift’s sexiest song yet: “Wood.”
The catchy tune has enough of a playful pop beat that you almost forget Swift is clearly singing about her fiance’s reproductive appendage. The album’s ninth track—what some Swifties say is an intentional ode to the length of Kelce’s manhood—is about love, yes, but also carnal desire.
“She tinted me and opened my eyes / Sequoia, it’s not hard to see / Her love was the key that opened my thighs,” Swift sings over and over. “Girls, I don’t need to hold the bouquet / To know that a hard rock is on its way.”
In a country that demands women look sexual, but never own their sexuality outright; to adhere to unrealistic beauty expectations for the sake of the male gaze while suppressing her own desires, Swift singing like a 35-year-old woman who enjoys being picked on by her fiance is simply called: unacceptable.
“Wood” and similar tracks inspired by their romance have been described as “vulgar,” with one conservative outlet arguing that Swift’s “explicit” lyrics carry “the thump of a door slamming shut on childhood” (again, Swift is 35). Founder of Barstool Sports Dave Portnoywho admitted via Instagram that she “really liked the song ‘Wood’ the first few times I heard it,” telling fans that she couldn’t stand the song anymore once she realized it’s not so underlying content.
“No. No. I’m not rocking and weaving and interspersing a song about Travis dying,” she proclaimed, though one can’t help but wonder how many songs about women’s body parts Portnoy has gleefully “wove and weaved.”
From shock and disgust to criticism and outright condemnation, the reaction to a female artist’s music that grows and evolves with her is a stark reminder that even in the year of our lord 2025, the world is still terrified of a woman who isn’t afraid to own her sexual power.
Unfortunately, this is a tale as old as sexism itself. In the late 90s and early 90s, it was Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore i Jessica Simpson — all initially packaged as “innocent” schoolgirls with a touch of badass, “Come on, no?” energy
For Spears, it was pigtails and a porn-inspired Catholic school girl outfit while simultaneously marketing herself as a virgin. When he had his own sexuality, with songs like “Overprotected” and his public relations with Justin Timberlake i Kevin Federlineshe was considered too problematic, too sexual, despite how she was sexualized as a teenager.
Then there’s Aguilera, a “genie in a bottle” who, once released, sparked relentless outrage. With a few “dirty” lyrics and a couple of guys with no ass, Aguilera became the rage of a society still heavily steeped in purity culture. MTV told her she needed “to be spanked like the naughty girl she is” and that she looked like she came from an “intergalactic hooker convention” from TIME magazine.
The message, then and still, to women around the world is clear: Be desirable forever, but never experience it ourselves. Spark passion in others, but never dive into your own so you can better understand each other and create your own sexual experiences worth celebrating.
Adhere to the ubiquitous Madonna-slut complex: Make straight men want to have sex with you, but never have sex yourself lest they label you “vulgar,” “explicit,” or “whore.”
Look, I’m a big fan of Swift’s “Wood”? I can’t say I am. At the risk of angering untold numbers of Swifties around the world, the lyrics are certainly creepy and, for a sexually experienced 38-year-old, a little juvenile, despite what the pearl lovers among us might say.
But maybe even the dignified and painfully obvious innuendos are part of the point. Who among us hasn’t been so happy to have our backs proverbially broken by our better halves that we brag to our girlfriends in ways that, when we come to our non-orgasm senses, seem a little ridiculous? Love, sexuality, sex and desire – it’s all messy and often cringe-worthy.
So while the references to “Redwood” and “hard rock” evoke more than a few pained laughs, I for one look forward to the day when a grown woman, nearing 40, can sing about having pleasant, consensual sex any way she wants without being denigrated by those who wish her to remain perpetually prepubescent.
If I have to choose between a society that wants to infantilize women forever and at the same time sexualize them, or a couple of lame lyrics about the will of a man worthy of praise, they bring double meanings, one catchy tune at a time.