Pubescent Sexuality

America has condemned -- and fetishized -- jailbait since long before Miley Cyrus disrobed with her parent's permission. Yet the "Hannah Montana" star's trip-up was truly rather innocent compared to what has gone before.

Even so, Miley and her team anticipated the fallout. The multi-platform teen star apologized for the photos just as they were becoming public.

Disney then released a statement of its own, claiming that “a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines.”

Vanity Fair defended the photos, arguing that Miley’s parents were present and approved the “beautiful and natural portrait of Miley.” Finally, photographer Annie Leibovitz responded to Miley’s statement, apologizing that her photos had been misinterpreted.

The range of responses inspired and mirrored the debate that played out in the press in the days that followed. But it’s a debate that’s been happening in America for decades, and one that again reflects 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.

Fiona Apple

Though Apple was of age at the time her video for “Criminal” was released in 1997, it’s hard not to view it as a reaction to relaxed sexual images in pop culture.

The video, directed by Mark Romanek, flirts with a snuff-film feel, trying to make the viewer feel uncomfortable for watching the striptease.

With Apple declaring that it’s a “sad, sad world, when a girl will break a boy just because she can,” she’s asking the viewer to think about who’s being taken advantage of –- the girl onscreen, or those devouring the teasing content?

Billy Idol’s “Cradle of Love” (1990)

And so it begins.

Released in early 1990, Billy Idol’s “Cradle of Love” ushered in what would be a bolder, more forward decade of teenage sexuality, one that often felt far removed from the complexities and repercussions of “Lolita” (see Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, etc.).

In this video, a lonely, glasses-wearing sophisticate is forced to give in to temptation when Devin, the teenage girl from “down the hall,” arrives to play a cassette.

Once Idol’s rock song starts, Devin proceeds to strip and simulate sex on her neighbor’s bed.

In the process, she destroys his expensive plate collection, and reduces him to tears. Only when he is begging her to leave does she lock lips with the male next door, thereby absolving the man of any guilt.

The slasher film girls (1980s to today)

Film franchises such as “Friday the 13th,” “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Halloween,” the last of which began in the late ‘70s, proliferated throughout the ‘80s. Combined, they helped birth the slasher genre, which has continued to thrive.

Many slasher films share a similar theme -– illicit sex and drug use among teens, specifically teenage girls. Those who partake in such activities are often met with a violent end (morals!), but not before showing the audience some skin.

The message: Wholesomeness may prevail, but it is not what sells.

Pictured: Actress Brittany Snow in 2008's "Prom Night."

Lori Maddox and the teen groupies (1973)

Lori Maddox was one of the great teen groupies of 1970s Los Angeles. Her most famous hook-up was with Jimmy Page when she was 14.

Rumor -– or rock ‘n’ roll myth -- had it that Page would lock Lori in his hotel room at the Hyatt on the Sunset Strip for nights on end to keep her from other rock stars -- and that Lori approved of this "protective" behavior.

The period was nostalgically examined in the 2000 film “Almost Famous,” where a sexual coming-of-age was ignited by a brush with fame. Three of the actresses in the film, Anna Paquin, Fairuza Balk and Bijou Phillips, are pictured at left.

Lolita (1955)

Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain played Humbert and Lolita in the 1997 film of Nabokov's Lolita. The novel's unsettling appeal is the story about a suave and silver-tongued European emigre who seduces a 12-year-old American girl.

Vladimir Nabokov's novel popularized the term "nymphet" and brought to the fore Western -- and specifically American -- society's troubled view of the teen-girl.

The archetypal image of the nymphet remains 14 year-old Sue Lyon, starring as Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 film adaptation, sucking on a Lollipop behind her heart-shaped sunglasses.

Whether Lolita is the aggressor, or the victim, has been a matter of debate in the decades since the release of the book and film. Its themes were resurrected and placed in middle-class American for 1999’s “American Beauty.”

tags: sex  sexuality  teenage  pubescent  nynphet  pedophlia  

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