I've been watching Miley for a little while, feeling concerned and yet familiar with the route she is choosing. It's clear she is distancing herself from a wholesome, 'sweetness and light' show-business beginning. For this I give her much respect, she is attempting to transform herself, rejecting her kiddy self, to embrace a version of womanhood that is and has brought her great attention. Society loves a nubile young gal, flashing her assets and becoming accessible. But the older, wiser, more prudish contingent are going to be mourning the loss of the doll-faced, lush- haired, sweet-natured gal we had come to know and love.
With a little experience on my side I can see that Miley is doing nothing new here. She is simply buying into the oversexed version of femininity that peeps like MTV (and many other mass media outlets) are so keen to promote. Geez, the poor girl has lived in that world since forever. To her, power, fame, wealth, femininity are defined by nudity, crudity and the ability to drape oneself hungrily over a man, any man, or indeed any giant metaphorical man part too. Like I said, nothing new.
This is just the fudged up version of 'woman' that the mass media is so keen to espouse. Miley is like an advert for it, 'get naked girls, get sexy', only then will we love you (in a hating kinda way). She may as well have 'product of Playboy' stamped on her ass. She is it. She is what a male dominated media wants girls to become. Pneumonic, sexually rebellious girls, who believe that in 'giving it up' they are getting power. When really, well really they are just giving themselves up. Giving away their hearts and their reality to fit a sexualized silly stereotype. This is Dumb Culture made real and pneumatic through the flesh and limbs of someone who doesn't, as yet, know better.
So I said I was familiar with this. And yes, indeedy, I am. Before I was a soul rocking spiritual author, I too ventured down the route of shedding my clothes and upping my sexuality, in the true belief that I was portraying to the world the 'real me.' I signed up with a couple of modelling agencies, and I got my boobs out, well, one of them anyway. I posed and pouted in a bikini, and for me this felt empowering. It felt like I was taking control of my destiny. By being captured, on film, in the near nude, I believed I was making a statement. I am Alice, I am hot, I am cool, I am OK with my body (I wasn't of course), I am all that society wants me to be.
And yep, I was all that society wanted me to be. A lump of pretty flesh in a hot pink bikini, sultry eyes, toned thighs, busting out of my bra.
Then I grew up. Then I lived a little and started to miss the innocence of my youth. I started to realize that life was a little bit more than being about my butt. I started to feel a whole lot grossed out by whatever it was I was trying to achieve. In response to these new feelings, I started to write, I started to read, I started to learn all about who I really am, and I mean really, on a deep down, uber cosmic, energy based, wholly invisible, intrinsic and magically sexy level.
To do so I had to go back to page 1, back to the girl I was before I thought it was all about the physical. I had to revisit my childhood and remember what made me happy then. I re-embraced the me I had so vehemently rejected for stripper heels and a big red pout. I slowly started to learn that 'me' is not about appealing to our baser needs, getting attention through some obvious sexual display, but 'me' was about something so much deeper than appearance.
Miley may think she is a bursting out of chrysalis right about now. But I think she is wrapping herself up in silk as I type. Forming a cocoon of lies and falsehoods of youthfulness and indiscretion. And you know what, this is so cool. More power to her. Because in a few years, when the nakedness outshines her talent, and the crudeness outshines her soul, she will need to cuddle up in her silky chrysalis and figure out just who she is. She will need to strip herself clean of the accoutrements of desire and sex she has cosied herself up with.
She must recognize that being grown up, a grown up woman, is not just about being willing and able to fuck. That is just what the world wants young women to believe. It's a very convenient belief for a pornographic misogynistic society to espouse. And Miley clearly believes it, without even a hint of irony or self deprecation, the poor kid believes it. So yeah, buy into it Miley, but by goddess, do I look forward to the day you choose to buy out.
The crazier Miley goes now, the more learning will be had. I am a great believer in chaos, I know it can transform so much for the better. Miley is in a place where her chaos, can not only help transform her life, but maybe, will be an example for other young women to follow. And yes, she may well have to go backward, to her early days, to that 'wholesome' youth of hers to help figure that out and to move forward in a healthy way. I truly believe that when she does, then she will become a beautiful butterfly, replete in depth, soul, true knowingness and real, feisty, kick-ass, sexy, intelligent, heartfelt, inner beauty. Now that Miley, that beautiful butterfly, with its sass and singing, that is one the world will truly love.
Learn more about everyday Spiritual Living and how to embrace a little in your life in Alice's award-winning book The High Heeled Guide to Spiritual Living