Written By Rachel Redfern
Over the weekend you might have noticed the Sinead O’Connor and Miley Cyrus kerfuffle that happened on the internet. The whole thing started when Miley Cyrus states that the Irish singer was one of her idols; a little while later, O’Connor posted this public letter to Cyrus, “advising” her; though really, her advice sounded a lot like condescending, passive-aggressive slut-shaming. So Cyrus then acted out an immature and hurtful scene on twitter by referencing O’Connor’s personal struggle with mental and emotional health. Sinead then descended to the 20-year-old pop star’s level and posted an irate tirade on facebook, cussing out the young singer and just plain-old aggressively calling her a “prostitute.”
The whole thing is horrible and ridiculous and both have acted badly and today, I’m not here to defend or support either of them.
But what I do want to talk about is the conversation that has swirled around young Cyrus ever since the ill-fated twerking incident at the VMA’s, and her subsequent music video of her naked on a wrecking ball. Everyone has slut-shamed Miley Cyrus. They’ve wagged their fingers at her dance moves, her tongue, her hair-cut, her entire demeanor, her (unsurprising) change from Disney star to adult, her drug-use, and the fact that she’s just “not a role model for young girls.”
Because apparently America thinks, as it has for the past, I dunno, forever, that female sexuality is “icky.”
News flash: she’s a POP SINGER. Like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Britney Spears, Christina Aquilera, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and virtually EVER OTHER FEMALE POP STAR OF THE PAST 40 YEARS.
And of course the real issue here isn’t that each of these women has had a bout with a dirty dance move and a lot of flesh showing on camera, but rather, that they dared to do it and not feel ashamed. That they dared to do it and own it as a part of who they were, a part of their own sexuality. Because this is what people are really scared of, they’re scared of women’s sexuality just like they always have been. If Miley takes her clothes off and grinds on a wrecking ball in front of their little girl, then someday, their little girl, or little girlfriend, or little wife, might do they same.
You know what world. They are. And some are going to like it.
But I know what you’re thinking, “How dare they like it?!” “There will be no liking of sex!” “Good girls don’t like sex.”
Scary thing about all this? Sometimes, BOYS DO IT TOO! Only nobody really cares if boys do it because they’re uncontrollable sex maniacs anyways, amiright?
And the big thing is, pop singers have been doing this for a long time, to generate controversy, get attention, and sell albums.
Welcome to showbiz, baby.
And you know what, someday, maybe Miley Cyrus will look back on all this and regret it. But maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll be a sex-icon like Madonna for the rest of her life and make millions of dollars and be perfectly happy.
Now, I applaud O’Connor for pointing out the insidious nature of much of the music business executives and the way that they are using the female stars in their contracts. However, it’s possible that Cyrus, who literally grew up in the music industry, is also a market-savvy pop princess entirely aware of the best way to keep herself current and in demand: controversy.
And since she’s embraced her rebel idol status with a rockin’ hair cut and intense tongue use, part of that is expressing an overt, in-your-face sexuality with stunning confidence.
For some reason, America (and much of the world), fears that deep V between a women’s legs and the fact that we like having access to it. For some reason, it’s incomprehensible that some women might enjoy taking off her clothes and feeling the thrill of voyeurism. Some women, just like some men, love excess and attention and the body is a powerful way to get those things
As media reviewers who pay a lot of attention to female interaction with the media, we often complain the inappropriate sexual exploitation of women, specifically when that happens with the goal of a directed male gaze. For example, these stupid superhero posters with ridiculously designed uber-feminine poses.
But female sexuality that aggressively maintains control over what it wants and how it chooses to be presented? Well, I can get behind that because it’s her choice.
We also complain when that sexuality is lacking in substance and obviously operating off of a limiting standard of female beauty. As an image think of Megax Fox straddling a motorcycle in booty shorts for no other reason than Michael Bay wanted her to.
But super spiky bleach blond hair whilst wearing tennis shoes and a bear-studded leotard? Sure, whatever.
Amanda Palmer, that brilliant musician and feminist extraordinaire, once got fully nude at a concert FILLED with people in a fierce reclaiming of her own body after a snarky post by the Daily Mail. Nudity and sexiness won that day. She’s also written her own letter to Cyrus and its awesome.
Lady Gaga, (Funny feminist Caitlin Moran once wrote in stellar praise of the pop singer), who I’ve seen more times without clothes than I have with, is considered an eccentric purveyor of the avant-garde and hyper-camp. And while she’s occasionally controversial, no one is writing her open letters demanding that she put some clothes back and stop gyrating.
It’s because of age. As always, Miley’s coming out into the realm of the adult, from a coveted child star’s position, means that she must always be sweet and funny and America’s girl-next-door.
But here’s the thing, she is America’s girl next door. At least some of them. She’s experimenting and projecting herself, just do it in a far more public one than your average 21-year-old. And making a lot more money.
So America, get over yourself and your Victorian, false-nostalgia ideas about what a women’s libido is really like. Cause you’re babbling and my vagina and I have better things to with our time.
Personally, i just felt she was trying wayyy to hard to be sexy in the VMA performance(And the tongue tongue thing just got annoying). With that said, i do agree its silly to expect her to remain sweet/innocent of her whole life because of being a child star.
I actually remember being on the imdb board for Dakota Fanning, and dear lord there was so many topics/discussions about whether she would go nude or not for a role after turning 18. And i was like I DON’T CARE I JUST WANT HER IN GOOD MOVIES.
@Julian, I’m starting to think we americans have forgotton the definition of a campy performance. The British have Simon Pegg and others to remind them. Miley was going for a campy performance, not a “sexy” one.
I’ve read three articles on this site thus far all echo the same tired references to “Victorian” aesthetics and “nostalgia” for worlds that never were, blah blah blah so on and so … flat. Well, fine. Maybe on reflection there is some of that. But my first reaction is a snarky “Hey, Adrienne Rich called from the 1970s and she wants her rhetoric back!” But let me be more constructive and modestly suggest if it’s true that there is a bit of anachronistic pining for “Father Knows Best” goofiness still out there in these United States it is also the case that your analysis contains a whiff or two of anachronism. We must ask ourselves “what has changed?” I submit that whether people articulate it or not one important concern we sense in this software driven era where hard core porn is litterally www dot 4 or five letters dot com away from everyone there is a loss of control over the self images of our age. In that milieu we all worry that this collective unharnessable “we” is robbing kids of a childhood stripped of these elements. True enough that there’s no scale to prove that that is something “better.” One might contend this is merely a bourgeois trifle in contrast to poorer societies where kids have always lived in close quarters with their parents and, or to animals. So there’s nothing special about exposure to or non exposure to sexuality early in life. But even if that is the case please note this not a nostalgia for Victorian prudishness. It is rather a far more modest nostalgia for a childhood free of worrying about things we perceive it was better to not have to deal with at the time. It all reminds me of the opening scene of The City of Lost Children where the viewer is numbed by the multiplication of Santa figures and watch stunned as the children are robbed of their souls. Perhaps it is mere aesthetic and there is no objective proof of its superiority. But many of the most important things in life are like that, aren’t they? So, seriously, it’s not just about religion – it may be for some. Or just about antiquated desires to return to a woman as Madonna figure. Though it may be for some. Or some pathetic misogyny. Again, for some, perhaps. None of these is the whole story. So please take a moment and at least entertain the idea that there is something going on beyond the patterns of rhetoric about ‘Victorianism’ whose tuning echo hails very faintly from the 1970s. Even if you don’t agree with my best guess at what it is, it has to be something more complicated and attuned to our age than that.