Annie Get Your Pen

Annie Lennox is the latest to leap on to the We Need to Pay More Attention to these Pop Stars (I'm on team Ignore Them and They'll Go Away) bandwagon. After Sinead O' Connor wrote her open letter "in the spirit of motherliness and love" to Miley Cyrus warning her of the music industry's penchant for using nubile women's bodies to sell more stuff. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Lennox said: "I'm all for freedom of expression, but this is clearly one step beyond, and it's clearly into the realm of porn." 

The subject of pop star's skimpy wardrobe seems to be a favourite theme for the singer currently, on her Facebook page Lennox wrote: "I have to say that I'm disturbed and dismayed by the recent spate of overtly sexualised performances and videos. You know the ones I'm talking about. It seems obvious that certain record companies are peddling highly styled pornography with musical accompaniment. As if the tidal wave of sexualised imagery wasn't already bombarding impressionable young girls enough."

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Here, at least, the people at the top are being quizzed. The record companies, not what some suspect are the record company puppets. The point that sexualised imagery is fine as long as it comes from you - which brings in consent culture - is made: "I believe in freedom of speech and expression, but the market forces don't give a toss about the notion of boundaries. As long as there's booty to make money out of, it will be bought and sold. It's depressing to see how these performers are so eager to push this new level of low.Their assumption seems to be that misogyny- utilised and displayed through oneself is totally fine, as long as you are the one creating it. As if it's all justified by how many millions of dollars and U tube hits you get from behaving like pimp and prostitute at the same time. It's a glorified and monetized form of self harm."

Listen we all have regrets and I think we all go through a phase where we're so concerned about getting adult experiences in our lives that we try to indicate all our maturity in the snap of a bra strap. Which of course in turn denotes immaturity because those of us what are mature (or maturer) have done it before. Worn the unflattering corset top with bootleg jeans, shared the packet of cigarettes and vomited the cheap vodka. 

nobody ever died from cracking out a tit.

And we are, mostly, OK. Do we regret the vodka and cleavage? Not really, certainly to liken it to self harm is problematic. Remember when Christina Aguilera went through her Dirrty phase? And we all gasped at her orange skin, oohed at her piercings and worried at the loosely laced (yes laced, like the jeans a medieavel wench might wear) flies on her low slung jeans. Then she went all Marilyn on our asses (sorry, I went a bit pop culture there. Asses), got married, got pregnant and we were pleased. Now? Well is her life really improved purely by washing off fake tan? Can we sincerely answer that? Is Dirrty not the best Aguilera album?

I know we allegedly and apparently far more worthily worry because these young stars really have the money to screw themselves up. But nobody ever died from cracking out a tit.

Miley Cyrus was a child star, a child that portrayed unattainable (unless you are Miley Cyrus) childhood of clear skin and endless wardrobe. It's not as though she whapped a bap out: MILLIONAIRE. It's plausible that to Cyrus this is simply another personna. 

Rather than the pleas for women such as Rihanna and Miley to 'respect themselves', I wonder if it wouldn't be more helpful if we respected them? 

Squeamish Kate