Of course, the other thing I always thought about the song is that it IS, as you said, very ladyrotic, so maybe part of the problem is that the narrator understands ONLY TOO WELL how Jolene could take that man, what with her auburn hair and white skin and green eyes and everything. People were talking about “Jesse’s Girl” above, and … well, it’s sort of the same thing, no? The narrator there seems to be spending *cough* an awful lot of time picturing Jesse and his girl getting it on, and notice that Jesse is the one who gets a name, here. But really, whenever I listen to “Jolene” I picture the narrator sharing a glass of sweet tea with an increasingly discomfited Jolene, while talking so, so very earnestly about how gorgeous she, Jolene, is – oh, it’s just too much for the narrator to bear!

…Maybe I’ve just spent too long in fandom.

I mostly only see that sort of behavior from ladies (and men, actually) who think that they are not what anyone would ever choose to have, and so perhaps it is some sort of compensation or cover for that? To dehumanize the object of your affection and think you can take them and THEN they will want you, because you took them and you own them, not because you are worth wanting? It’s a really stalkertastic line of thinking, and really sad, but being sad doesn’t make it any less A Bad Thing That You Should Not Do.

And, yeah, The Boy Is Mine is a genderflipped version of The Girl Is Mine, which is a pretty song but is intensely creepy since it is basically two dudes arguing that a girl belongs to one or the other of them because of what she says to them or how she treats them, when it is obvious from how they are talking about her that she very much likes both of them and has no intent to ‘belong’ to anyone, but maybe that is kind of the point? And if it is, is that feminist, or just polyamorist, or … ? Sadly it seems rather unlikely that that is the intent of the songwriter; the distinct lack of the woman’s actual voice in the song and instead all of her actions and supposed feelings being presented as points and counterpoints in an argument between two dudes seems to be pretty obviously about ladies as property, not ladies as free-thinking, wide-swinging radical man-lovers who love more than one man.

RAMBLE RAMBLE RAMBLE eh wot *monocle*

It’s a battle to the death between ladypersons; the man is simply the trophy to be won, then shoved in the back of the closet as soon as another competition hoves into view. The fact that I only know one woman who actually does this seems to indicate that this is not a standard tactic of women, but I think the men would like it to be (except for the shoving into the back of the closet thing).

BTW, I always amuse myself by pretending Springfield is singing “I wish I WAS Jessie’s girl”. It makes the song much more nuanced.

But you can blame the woman. For being sexy.

It’s interesting that Jolene doesn’t seem to be doing much to ‘take’ the man in question, other than having pretty eyes, skin and hair.

But then you didn’t even mention lady hating and it was about ownership and I agree completely.