Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan: All's Phair in the social scene

Call it sex and the college girl. Indie-rock queen Liz Phair has been rocking my world since the eighth grade, but I didn't quite get some of her more controversial lyrics until I grew out of high school. It hit me then that the provocative Ms. Phair has the late teen/early 20s-girl-relationship thing pegged. You see, Phair knows what every Penn girl figures out halfway through her first frat party -- when it comes to love, we're supposed to be two different people. Half the time, the world tells us that confident, fun girls are sexually aggressive. But just when we start to dive into the meaningless hookup scene, we're yanked back and commanded to be "nice." Phair understands this tug-of-war perfectly. On the one hand, there's "Flower," her shockingly matter-of-fact anthem of a woman on the prowl. "You're probably shy and introspective, that's not part of my objective," she tells her prey. "I want to be your blow-job queen" is one of the few printable desires she goes on to name. Eye-opening? Yes. A bit scary? Sure. But attractive? Definitely. See, this woman is all about power. She knows what she wants, and she goes after it without apology. Why bother with all the hassles of a relationship when you can have the no-strings-attached hookup? Why wait around for some halfway decent guy to notice you when you can survey the room and take your pick? While there are some devoted couples, Penn is pretty friendly to the one-night stand. Why shouldn't we be able to be more confident, empowered, assertive -- dare I say it? -- more like a guy? There's a push from all around to be this girl -- we've had a sexual revolution, after all. The philosophy goes that a woman can and should take charge of her sex life, drinking in the power that comes from choosing a boy, having her fun and walking out the door without a backward glance. This woman doesn't wait around the phone for a week waiting for Mr. Saturday Night to call. She's got better things to do, and if she feels the need for some lovin' later on, she can always go out and get it. Except it's not that simple. The same time the world is telling us to hook up with abandon, it's calling us a slut behind our backs. We haven't totally gotten rid of the old 1950s-era view that nice girls don't do much behind closed doors, and if they do, it's with their faithful boyfriends who love them to pieces. Sex and the single girl just don't go together, so you're better off holding out for Mr. Right. Maybe this is an outdated opinion meant to squash any female empowerment we've managed to eke out over the years -- it's beyond clich‚ to note that guys, as a rule, don't face social censure for fooling around with girl after girl. But maybe this side has a point. Phair gets it, too. For all of the raw lust in "Flower," something in her feels the pressure for an old-fashioned romance after all. In "Fuck and Run," she wonders, "whatever happened to a boyfriend, the kind of guy who tries to win you over? And whatever happened to a boyfriend, the kind of guy who makes love 'cause he's in it?" Now the world's telling us that random hookups ultimately won't fulfill us. The argument is all about respect. You're worth more than just half an hour of some drunk boy's time, it says. You and your body should be appreciated -- hey, even worshipped. Hooking up can be fun for a while, but sooner or later you'll be left with gonorrhea and a broken heart. It's a seductive argument, really, and it also goes for guys (to a lesser extent). Nobody should have to wake up next to someone whose name you didn't quite catch. That's dangerous, they tell us. And emotionally empty. And cheap. Sounds good until you're the only one of your friends not making out on the dance floor. So what's a girl to do? Sow her wild oats, or is that trashy? Wait like a nice girl, or is that hopelessly repressed? Maybe we're so confused because it's hard enough figuring out what we want without worrying about how to be two different women at once. But we're not quite alone in this. Liz Phair gets us, and somehow she made it through college. Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan is a junior communications major from Wheaton, Ill.

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