On Chappell Roan and Situationships
A Love Letter from a Gen X Woman to Gen Z Women
If you haven’t heard of Chappell Roan yet, you will soon. Her debut album, Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, hit number two on the Billboard chart last month (just behind Taylor Swift) and number one on Billboard’s vinyl chart (a nod to the 80’s nostalgia her music evokes for listeners young and old). Unlike the mostly artless, uninspired and algorithm-produced pop stars of Gen Y and Z (sorry, Swifties, I just can’t understand what you like about that ear-garbage), Roan stands out in her unique and 80s-fun approach to music and style. Maybe this is the Gen X in me, prejudiced by some of that aforementioned nostalgia; so be it.
One of Roan’s songs that seems to resonate most with Gen Z and Gen Y women, is her ballad, “Casual,” an ode to the heartbreak of ephemeral modern-day “situationships.” As a term of reference, “situationship” didn’t come into the vernacular until around 2013. Defined as “a romantic or sexual relationship that is not considered to be formal or established,” it’s now ubiquitous in Reddit relationship forums and advice columns.
It seems almost every young woman who sees herself in Roan’s “Casual” lyrics has been in a “situationship,” where they struggle with feelings of longing and perhaps even love, while their partner remains detached and non-committal. The lyrics:
My friends call me a loser
'Cause I'm still hanging around
I've heard so many rumors
That I'm just a girl that you bang on your couch
I thought you thought of me better
Someone you couldn't lose
You said, "We're not together"
So now when we kiss, I have anger issues
You said, "Baby, no attachment"
But we're
Knee deep in the passenger seat, and you're eating me out
Is it casual now?
Two weeks, and your mom invites me to her house on Long Beach
Is it casual now?
I know what you tell your friends
It's casual, if it's casual now
Then, baby, get me off again
If it's casual, it's casual now
Dumb love, I love being stupid
Dream of us in a year
Maybe we'd have an apartment
And you'd show me off to your friends at the pier
It's hard being casual
When my favorite bra lives in your dresser
And it's hard being casual
When I'm on the phone talking down your sister
And I try to be the chill girl
That holds her tongue and gives you space
I try to be the chill girl
But honestly, I'm not
I fucked you in the bathroom when we went to dinner
Your parents at the table, you wonder why I'm bitter
Bragging to your friends, I get off when you hit it
I hate to tell the truth, but I'm sorry, dude, you didn't
I hate that I let this drag on so long, now I hate myself
Hate that I let this drag on so long, you can go to hell
Listening to this song, I am struck immediately with the question: Is no one telling these young women, and telling young girls, about their value? About virtuousness and chastity and the things in life that really matter?
I know the answer is no. I grew up in Gen X, and already - even at that time - the culture was pushing us young women towards “sexual liberation,” “female empowerment,” “sex positivity,” “slut walks” and even “sex work.” Turns out all of those supposedly “feminist” phrases were just academic euphemisms for molding young women into lonely, used, and discarded whores.
If I were to write a love letter to my younger self, and to Chappell Roan and to her young female fans, I would ask them this:
Why do you “try to be the chill girl that holds her tongue and gives him space?” Why fake or battle with your true desires? If your heart is longing for something real and meaningful, why do you settle for meaningless situationships and casual sex? Is it because that’s what our current culture has taught you is normal and empowering and cool and liberating and attractive? If situationships and casual sex are all of those things, then why do they leave you heartbroken and crying and singing and nodding your head to maudlin ballads like “Casual?”
Why do you think you develop feelings for a man you’re having “casual” sex with? Could it be because sex is designed to bond us to our one-flesh? To our spouse? To our other half? Could it be because during sex, your body releases Oxytocin - the bonding and trust hormone? Oxytocin literally creates feelings in you for a person you’re engaged in sex with, the more often you’re engaged in sex with them. It bonds you to them.
You point to the intimacy of sex as reason for him to stop calling the situationship casual, signaling that you place great value in sex as something intimate and sacred and meaningful. If it’s intimate and sacred and meaningful, then HOW can it be casual? Why do you let it be?
Has anyone who loves you, an older woman in your life perhaps, advised you that you should first choose your spouse - a man who would make a great husband and father - before you start bonding emotionally with someone through intimate and sacred and meaningful and Oxytocin-producing sex? If you approach your dating life in reverse, starting with “casual” sex, you are going to end up falling in love with a succession of very unsavory characters, who leave you alone, singing along with the lyrics of “Casual.” You thought you could keep your feelings out of it, huh? You thought you could agree with him when he told you “no attachment.” But now you’re just “trying to be the chill girl that holds her tongue and gives him space.”
Gen Z women: I know that most of you don’t come from Christian homes that teach you your intrinsic value, and what things in life are everlasting versus what is temporal. Many of us didn’t either. I know today’s culture is trying to destroy your beautiful soul with drugs, alcohol, cheap and meaningless sex, consumerism and an evil ideology that tells you up is down, what’s bad for you is good for you and that what’s cheap is valuable. It’s not true. If you have no one else in your life who will tell you this, no older, wiser woman who loves you and wants to see the best for you, then let me be that woman. You are worth so much more than what’s “casual.” And the choice to be casual and discarded versus everlasting and adored has always, always been yours.
Love,
A Gen X Woman
As a mom of Gen Z teenage boys, I have taught them to avoid girls who will do this and to not waste their time with girls who do not share the same values and goals as them. They want to marry and have a family. They have zero respect for girls who will waste their time like this and give themselves sexually so quickly. We shall see if what my husband and I have taught them will stick. I can tell you that good Gen Z men have zero respect for women like this. When I was in college, I read the book “The Rules” which was highly controversial at the time. It still is. While I didn’t follow them completely, I tried to follow them, and they served me very well. I didn’t waste my time with a man who didn’t want to be with me. I was saved a lot of heartache when I was younger because I didn’t throw myself at men and didn’t give myself up quickly and didn’t waste time with a man who didn’t want to commit. Feminism and the sexual revolution lied to both women and men, and they are incredibly lonely and depressed as a result.
Great words.