Bitches On the Radio

I was at Spike’s yesterday and for the first time, I heard Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance” on the radio. I paused by the door, wanting to see if they’d cut down the bridge like they did on the karaoke version, when I heard something startling: they’d bleeped out the word “bitch.” As in, “walk, walk, fashion baby / work it, move, that *** cuh-razy.”

Dumfounded, I wracked my brain, trying to recall whether bitch was among the naughty no-no words on the radio nowadays. I know God is, except in pious cases (despite the hard work of The Beach Boys, whose “God Only Knows” was banned from some radio stations for not using “God” in a religious fashion), and especially when used as part of the word goddamn, even though silencing it generally plays hell with meter. Ditto fuck and shit, and of course cunt, which actually may have finally trumped fuck as the Worst Swear Ever. But bitch?

I know I have heard Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back” on classic rock radio. Same goes for the Rolling Stones’ “Bitch.” Heck, in 1997, thirteen years ago, we were treated to Meredith Brooks’s “Bitch,” which was heard as a sort of feminist paean to mood swings. Maybe there’s a loophole if the song has “bitch” in the title?

Or maybe there aren’t rules about this. When Christina Aguliera’s terrific big-band homage, “Candyman,” came out a few years ago, my friend John wrote about the odd disparity of bleeping out the term “makes my cherry pop” but keeping in “makes my panties drop” – in essence, condemning the sexual innuendo part but being totally okay with the actual sexual part.

It seems arbitrary, that’s all. Lady GaGa can’t declare herself a bitch on the radio, Jay-Z can’t mention references to drugs – even when condemning them! – in “Empire State of Mind,” and Panic! At the Disco can’t say “closing the goddamn door,” but everyone’s cool with Britney Spears spelling out “F-U-C-K me” with wordplay so transparent it might as well be onionskin paper soaked in canola oil.

Look, bitch isn’t even on George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television” (although, weirdly, “piss” is, even though they used to say “pissed off” on Friends all the time). Remember that billboard advertising Melrose Place featuring nothing but Heather Locklear and the word BITCH in capital letters? That was a decade ago. Come on, radio. We’ve grown up. Shouldn’t you?