The commentators started talking about her dancing with a pole and how the US is sexualizing children too early and we are asking 8 year-olds to figure all of this out.
I happen to disagree. I happen to feel that, for one, kids start to pick up on sexual cues and innuendos at a pretty young age. Secondly, I think if people stopped focusing on just the now they would be able to look back at the 60s and see that this has been going on for a very long time.
So it isn't okay for Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears to sing about love or lust beyond their years or be in an intense spotlight and revealing their individual sexuality, but it is okay for Michael Jackson to be singing in a very high pitched voice "Shake it shake it baby, ooh ooh!"? What was he. like, five?
I look back on my middle school days and I knew plenty of kids that were already doing drugs and having sex at the age of 12. This is just something that is very real and I think unavoidable. I can try to look back and see if there was a super star when I was 12 that was out there being sexual and being an example to cause kids to want to be this way and I can't see one. The Spice Girls were the hot thing and I didn't see them promoting sex, but rather a confidence in one's femininity and in close friendship amongst young women.
Sexuality is simply a part of reality. A part of life. The difference between today and the 40s and 50s is that we are not suppressing people's communication and saying, so much, "don't talk about it". Sex and the topic of it has simply become less taboo. Not any less present in human nature.
Now, in Miley's defense: The kid will be 17 in November. When I was 17, I know that I certainly had a strong sense of my own sexuality. Put a child in the spot light and they naturally mature faster mentally and intellectually. You can't expect them to be healthy individuals if you want them to grow up quickly in one way but not the others.
In terms of her performance at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, my personal opinion is that you cannot consider what she was doing on the stage as dancing with a pole. None-the-less on one. She was wearing Stiletto heels on a stage and dancing and singing, walked over to an ice cream cart on wheels and stepped on to it and was being wheeled around the stage. What was she supposed to do? Just hope her balance was good enough while multi-tasking? As a performer you cannot sacrifice your own safety for an act, first of all. And secondly, you can't just stand there holding on to a pole. You do need to wiggle and move a bit for the entertaining aspect of it all. That is why any performer is successful. Because they are fun to watch and don't just stand there singing. There is always some sort of visual appeal.
What I think the issue is in today's society is a desire to control too much. Control what kids are watching, eating, saying, doing, thinking. Safety and balance is important yes. But if you squelch individuality too much you get teens who push the envelope simply because it is there to push. If you let a kid "go" and do, it is my personal opinion that they will find who they truly are as an individual.
And I think that is precisely what the world sees with Miley.
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