I don’t really like Katy Perry or her music, but I have to hand it to her. She’s really carved out a niche for herself through her outsized sex kitten persona and a batch of songs that, shallow though they may be, are undeniably catchy. Delivering her sexy-but-safe pre-packaged pop, she’s a vision of lustful innocence — the prima donna and the whore.

It’s almost too good to be true that Perry was raised by a couple of pastors and began her musical career as a Christian artist. Who better to top the charts a few years later with a song about kissing a girl? The thing about that song is that, for all its bluster, it carries no sexual weight. Sure, maybe she kissed a girl, but afterward she probably turned away giggling.

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