Exploitation

By now, there has been much public attention focused on the picture(s) of Miley Cyrus in the magazine Vanity Fair. In the photo made public in the media, the 15 year old starlet is seen naked, with a satin sheet wrapped around her, she is looking directly into the camera over her shoulder, and her hair is mussed as if she is just getting up from sex. The expression and gaze are sophisticated and hint at sexual knowledge and experience. You have the youthful round face of someone not yet an adult contrasted with the very adult setting, nudity, and sexuality.

My first thought was "didn't Britney Spears appear in a photo with similar sexual overtones?"

I am concerned that profit is being made from marketing this young woman's sexuality. By publishing this photo, the magazine is furthering the acceptance of the notion that children are valid objects for sexualization. Printing such sexualized photos grants the faceless consumer sexual access to a child. And, although this young woman was paid for the picture, she was paid only a fraction of the money others will make from the photos . . . and this is coming really close to fitting the definition of trafficking.

I am distressed at the many many shows and media outlets that tell young women that if they are willing to take their clothes off, or pose for sexualized photos, or grant people sexual access to their bodies . . . that they too can be living the lifestyles of the rich and infamous. We have "celebrities" who became celebrities because they made sex tapes that became public. We have the whole "girls gone wild" phenomena. There are prostituted women who are seen as glamorous and savvy because the men who hire them pay thousands of dollars rather than a few. We have the recasting of strip clubs as "gentlemen's clubs."

Taken in their totality, it seems that we are moving backwards as a culture.