“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” doesn’t portray a situation in which a woman lacks sexual consent. It portrays an attempt at seduction. The woman wants to stay but continually resists because it’s what she “ought” to do. Her parents expect her home and will worry. The neighbors will spread gossip. The man, meanwhile, wants her to disregard these concerns and give into the desire she feels, and he encourages her by persuasion — telling her how cold it is, suggesting she should have another drink, proposing to put on some music.

It’s this back and forth between a man trying to get his way and a woman putting up half-hearted resistance that gives the song its sexiness. She isn’t powerless. There’s no sign she’s being held against her will. She engages in the playful argument throughout most of the song because she hasn’t decided what she wants to do — if she will stay for another drink or do the “right” thing by leaving.

The truth is that Qutb and contemporary progressives are offended by much the same thing — the sometimes confusing and complicated interplay of sexual desire and moral imperatives. The primary difference between them is that Qutb believes that individual men and women should avoid situations in which they must negotiate such confusions and complications in the first place, while today’s progressives strenuously reject any suggestion that such situations should be avoided. (Recall the anger and ridicule sparked by news that Vice President Mike Pence has long avoided adulterous temptation by refusing to dine alone with women other than his wife.)