A Bit More On Britney

The subject of Britney Spears's nude layout came up at work today (among a group of 20-something men! Who would have thought?), and it led to a profitable discussion that I'd like to share with the blogosphere.

The general consensus was that Spears's attempt to restore her image through this kind of gimmick reeked of desperation. But at the same time, how could we not expect this to be the end result of her career? Since our introduction to her in "Hit Me Baby One More Time," until her 18th birthday, she was generally presented as jailbait: the innocent young thing clinging to her virtue - remember her virginity pledge? - secretly waiting to be corrupted.

The drama went through its acts, complete with de rigeur Madonna cameo and the related cheap parlor trick of girls making out, until there was really nowhere else to go. As a result, Britney's career (never about the music) imploded. The shelf life of such acts is pretty short, since once you've run through the cycle of virgin-to-whore, you're pretty much done. Posing nude is the last stop.

While we all agreed that this whole saga did not speak well of Brit, we also agreed she was just the most glaring symptom of our society's sexual hypocrisy. I mean, does anyone remember the completely disgusting 'countdown' to the Olsen Twins' 18th birthdays? In the same country, I should add, that has now decided to put scarlet letters on 'sex offenders' (statutory rape being one such offense!) until the end of time.

On this blog, some of us have labelled America's current attitudes toward sex as 'adolescent,' which I think is a fair judgment. The analogy, as it goes, is that we've cast off the strait-jacketed childhood imposed on us by our Puritan ancestors and have entered the delightful world of teenaged sexual obsession, in which people are judged by the most superficial marks and everyone is really irresponsible. The all-too-common idea (a very teenage one) that every kind of sexual experimentation is an empowering experience that should be encouraged and flaunted, and that the truest form of self-expression is body-worship, is not healthy. It's just not. It produces the likes of Britney Spears, who - having watched the Dateline disaster, too - I can only conclude has been psychologically warped by her experience.

While I appreciate the need to go through adolescence, I think it's high time for some responsible adults to start championing self-control. Not self-control because sexuality is bad and to be feared, but precisely because it is good. What is so ghastly and puritanical about advocating responsible sexuality between consenting adults in a monogamous relationship that we can no longer form these words on our lips?

Update/Clarification: To those who would cite my linking the photo gallery as hypocritical in light of my post, I defend myself by saying that I am temperate, but no prude.