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Well yeah - what that culture absolutely allowed was for someone else to misinterpret a no as a yes when it was not intended to be - whether in ignorance or by design.
Of its time though, it reflected a courtship dance with an assumption that every one knows the rules of the game (clearly a dangerous notion)
It's as flawed and complicated and dangerous and problematic as most courtship rituals. But also like most courtship rituals it can be charming if viewed in context. The very idea of a rape culture - the importance we place on consent in our modern culture can't be retrospectively applied, because we cannot retrospectively imbue the people of that time with that knowledge and mindset.
By which I mean it's ok to look back fondly, and nostalgically at those courting rituals, and the songs that reflect them - in much the same way as we individually might look back fondly on an early foray into love. I look back at teenage relationships and they were highly problematic by today's terms, but they are still fond memories, because we didn't know that.
There are degrees of wrong - and we have shifted the slide along the rule - that doesn't negate the romance of all that went before. People shouldn't be made to feel like apologists for rape if they still like the songs they kissed their childhood sweetheart to.
I have way more of a problem with a track like Blurred Lines which came out at at a time when we were fully aware as a culture of the dangers of the no means yes courtship game.
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