Notorious nymphets
By Ann Powers, Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
America has condemned -- and fetishized -- jailbait since long before Miley Cyrus disrobed with her parent’s permission in early 2008 for Vanity Fair. Yet the “Hannah Montana” star’s trip-up was truly rather innocent compared to what has gone before.
Even so, there was an immediate fallout, and the multi-platform teen star apologized for the photos just as they were becoming public (as she also did when photos leaked from her MySpace page) . In the days that followed the release of the Vanity Fair photos, a range of responses inspired a debate that played out in the press. Yet it was a debate thats been happening in America for decades, and one that again reflected society’s unresolved feelings about teen sexuality -- specifically the paradox of young women as both sexualized threats and victims.
What follows is a look at some key cultural moments regarding the sexualization of teens over the past few decades - some incidents that have caused debate, others that inspired reflection and some that just resulted in a lot of money being made. (Kevork Djansezian / Associated Press)
Britney Spears
Like Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears was a Disney-bred star. Unlike Cyrus, however, Spears was marketed to adults as well as teens.
Need evidence? Check her breakthrough video for 1999s
Baby One More Time, which exploits Catholic schoolgirl fetishes while declaring that shes not that innocent.
Need more evidence? Jeff Fenster, the A&R executive who signed one Britney Spears to Jive (R. Kellys label, coincidentally), once told a roomful of people at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas, that the soon-to-be pop star scored a record deal not because of her singing ability, but because of a photo.
The shot, said Fenster in 2006, showed a young Spears on a picnic bench with a puppy, and inspired Fenster to declare that “she looked like the sweet, all-American girl that you just wanted to defile and do bad things to.”
Spears was pegged to be 15 or 16 at the time she was signed. (Al Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The photos of Jock Sturges and Sally Mann (1990s)
These two fine art photographers began to receive a world of criticism in the late 80s and early 90s for their artwork, often of young children, many of them nude of seminude.
Manns At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women turned some heads, but her 1992 work Immediate Family captured nude images of her own children, and was met with cries of exploitation and child pornography.
Similarly, Sturges photographs were attacked as porn masquerading as high art, and FBI agents raided his studio in 1990.
One of Mann’s photos is pictured at left. (AFP/Getty Images)
