On Miley Cyrus Being a Bimbo at 2013 VMAs – Hypocrisy of Secular Feminists
I am making a prediction: as of right now (Aug 29 edit: my prediction came true, see bottom of this post for more links from Christian magazines who began publishing commentary on Cyrus), I see no editorials about Miley Cyrus’ VMA performance mentioned on The Christian Post or Christianity Today, but I am more than willing to bet the editorials condemning her as being a poor role model will start showing up in such publications in the following days, and I further predict Christians will use Cyrus as an example of how secular culture distorts or devalues sex.
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EDIT, Aug 31.
By the way, yes, my prediction came true. Christian response to Cyrus’ show is late and lagging behind the secular media reaction. I’m still seeing Christians opine about this Aug 31 – by this point, IMO, it’s too late. Jumping on the story to comment on it now seems way too late. I don’t know why Christians do this, they’re always two or three steps behind secular culture.
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Janet Mefferd, Christian radio host, will probably devote a segment on her radio show in the coming days to how society has gone down the toilet sexually, and point to Cyrus as an example.
Miley Cyrus is a twenty year old pop singer.
Cyrus performed with singer Robin Thicke on stage at the Video Music Awards show recently, and her performance included some racy dance moves, such as wiggling her ass up and down by Thicke’s crotch.
Thicke is a 36 year old married man, married to someone named Paula.
Remember how I have pointed out that there is no expectation of virginity- until- marriage from secular society or from Christians (not for anyone over the age of 25 – 30)?
Another example of this type of thinking was in an editorial today about Cyrus’ VMA performance.
I wish I had saved the link, but in the piece, the lady author said a few times that parents today are very naive to think that any 20 year old woman is a virgin.
If I can find that editorial, I will link to it. I thought I had bookmarked it, but I don’t see it in my bookmarks. This might be it:
(Link): Miley Cyrus is Sexual, Get Over It By Pepper Schwartz, Special to CNN
Quote by the author:
- It’s shocking all right. But let’s face it. A 20-year-old these days is unlikely to be a virgin and if she’s in the fast lane (read: Hollywood, New York City and other big cities) she is not going to look innocent. Shocked at Miley? Have you noticed your average 15-year-old girl lately? She has her midriff bared, she’s wearing her underwear for the world to see and her skirt may or may not cover her butt and crotch.
The fact is, there are in fact 20 year old women who are virgins today, but they do not get any media coverage.
I was once a virgin at 20 years of age. I’m in my early 40s and still a virgin, not from lack of opportunity for sex, but that I chose to refrain until marriage.
Here are a few other commentaries on the Cyrus story:
This editorial attempts to absolve Cyrus by criticizing Thicke, but I feel both Cyrus and Thicke were in poor taste:
(Link): Miley’s Need to Shock Was the Least Shocking Thing About It – Jezebel
I find it very disturbing that so many commentators on the internet are fine and peachy with Cyrus acting like a total whore and trying to justify the whore-a-bility, but then they act indignant that she is using black culture.
Said someone in the comments of that page on the Jezebel site:
- posted by ImmaHaveToInterruptYouU
Yep. I don’t care about Miley Cyrus trying to be “sexy.” She’s 20. She’s allowed to be as sexy as she wants. …
I mean you saw the way she [Cyrus] smacked that black woman’s butt and pretended to tongue it – objectifying black women’s bodies while simultaneously profiteering off of working-class black culture – ugh.
My reaction: so you would have been fine if Cyrus had been pretending to lick the ass of a white woman? Your only outrage is that the woman in question was black? That’s a strange set of morals.
I also do not understand how one can be fine with a young woman objectifying herself (and at that, based on standards that some white men find appealing and sexy), but that same commentator is upset Cyrus was supposedly objectifying another woman? Is that commentator fine with white women objectifying other white women? That is not consistent.
“Slut Shaming”
Quite a number of people online are defending Cyrus, and what they basically argue comes down to saying any criticism at all of a woman behaving in a vulgar way is tantamount to “slut shaming,” and that “slut shaming” is wrong. I disagree, depending on how we are examining this topic.
One of the few problems here is that people apply slut shaming only to females who behave like dogs in heat, but not to men who misbehave sexually on stage, in music videos, and so on.
Perhaps if there was a little less acceptance by both genders of both genders acting like tramps, and if people felt a bit more shame for acting like whores, there would be more decency in society… not as many abortions, not as many cases of sexually transmitted diseases, and so forth.
I hate the phrase “slut shaming” and wish it would go away. It’s one of the dumbest phrases I’ve ever heard, and it defines an even dumber concept.
I thought this comment by LosPollos on that same page was a bit more reasonable:
- Oh come on. I’m no Thicke fan but to say that he was somehow in charge of that shitshow is just ridiculous. I think Miley is a powerful enough young woman to get what she wants, and to imply that she was just playing the “young near-naked woman” in a Thicke-controlled clusterfuck is just insulting to her.
She appropriates cultures that aren’t hers, she’s desperate to shock and she’s heavily embarrassed herself. Thicke was an afterthought; he looks as embarrassed as everyone else did. He’s a dick and the performance was stupid, but I think we all know that Miley was in charge of that whole thing.
I am assuming that this is the point of this article, but it’s so all over the place that it just reads like a reactionary defense of Miley Cyrus with no actual defense
That writer raises an interesting point.
Secular feminists want to argue on the one hand that women are in control of their bodies and sexuality and should be able to act like big old whores with no repercussions or criticism from anyone at any time.
But, the moment a woman chooses to use her body and sexuality to act like a brazen whore on stage (and receives some criticism over this), feminists do not hold that woman responsible, but rally the troops around her to defend her.
Secular feminists want women to be able to make any and all choices (especially about their bodies and sexuality), but they do not believe that women should be held accountable or be held responsible for those choices. They want freedom without consequence, without criticism. Nobody I know lives in a universe like that, not men, not women, not blacks, not whites.
Further, Miley Cyrus is not the universal, end all, be all representative of all women everywhere. Cyrus does not speak for me. I do not feel as though she represents me.
Ergo, if other people want to criticize Cyrus for acting like an immature hussy, I do not take it as an attack on all women, or on myself personally. Woman are not all alike; we do not all share the same values or morals.
Cyrus chose to act like a whore on stage. If I were a pop singer, I would not choose to act like a whore on stage.
Some have argued that Cyrus is just trying to shed her old clean, Disney image, and to demonstrate that she is finally an adult now. Guess what?
I was once her age, and I never felt it necessary to demonstrate my sexuality or womanhood by parading around in public in a latex bikini grinding my ass up against some man’s crotch.
I had qualities called “self respect” and “control.” Cyrus apparently lacks both.
Feminists told women of my age, as we were growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, that we should sleep around often, not feel guilty or ashamed of it, and we should do this to demonstrate (to them? to ourselves? to men? to whomever) that we were real women in charge of our own lives.
That secular feminists define being feminist or a “real woman” by having sex or sexuality itself was insulting to me; there is no room in secular feminist thinking for a woman who chooses to remain a virgin, and secular feminist thoughts on these matters are not that different from patriarchal culture that tells women their only value is in performing sexually for men, or making babies.
Secular feminists, not just sexist men or conservative churches, but secular feminists, also conveyed to women of my generation that our main value was in our bodies and sexuality.
Women of my generation were not encouraged by secular feminists to develop our intellect or creative abilities.
We were instructed by secular feminists, though, to get control and power – especially over men, and at that by using our sexuality, sex, and our beauty. And I find that a gross, disgusting, sexist view point, no better than the caveman sexist pigs who judge women solely on a woman’s looks or if she “puts out.”
Secular feminism of the last 30 or so years is really no different from good old fashioned misogyny.
The secular feminists in the 1980s and onwards would dictate to young girls such as myself to take charge of my own life, not to listen to what churches and preachers told me about my body and sexuality, but instead of stopping there, stopping at, “don’t let others make your choices and tell you what you should do,” the feminists of those eras (and still now) would continue to tell me what to do!
Secular feminists would tell me in their books, magazine articles, newspaper clippings and college lectures, that in their opinion, in order for me to be a real woman, I would need to start looking at porn, enjoying porn, have sex before marriage, screw around with as many men (and maybe a few women too).
The secular feminists were just as bossy, domineering, and judgmental about my body and my sexuality as any conservative Christian ever was!
Secular feminists don’t want churches, parents, or Republicans telling women what to do with their bodies or sexuality, but they make fine little dictators… the secular feminists want to tell women what to do with their bodies and sexuality.
Secular feminists would have me trade out one set of bossy, know it all judges – churches, preachers, parents, Republicans – for secular feminists.
No thank you. How about I tune all these sources out and make up my own damn mind and decide what to do for myself?
(Link): ‘Desperate’ Miley slammed: ‘That was messed up’
Christianity Today published this on Aug 28
(Link): Jesus Loves Miley Cyrus
And The Christian Post on Aug 28:
(Link): Forget Miley, What About the “Man” on Stage With Her?
From Aug 28, Christian Post:
(Link): Miley Please Stop
On Aug 29, from The Christian Post:
(Link): Miley Cyrus Twerking What Would Hannah Montana Say?
Aug 29, CP:
(Link): Miley Cyrus at VMA: Can We Stop Pretending to Be Shocked?
From Christian Century, Aug 29:
(Link): Miley and MLK
From Christian Post, Aug 31:
(Link): Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana and Our Kids
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Related Posts This Blog
(Link): Confessions of a 25-year-old Christian virgin (article) – and related info
(Link): No, Christians do not Idolize Virginity or Celibacy
(Link): Why So Much Fornication – Because Christians Have No Expectation of Sexual Purity
(Link): Christians and Cheap Grace Concerning Sexual Sin
Christian Pundit 
Cyrus — Already wrote editorial. Oh well. You’d probably like it.
For each syllable that is uttered in churches in praise of a wedding anniversary, mother’s day, father’s day, etc. without a corresponding syllable of encouragement for the biblical faithful single, a society moves one step closer to total depravity. We’ve one-half step away. John