WHY MILEY WHYYYYYY

For context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-bTWk3IHoU
Hide your children. Show them the Honi vagina cover if they need entertainment.

I’d like to start by thanking the VMAs for setting women back fifty, a hundred, a bajillion years, and shattering the tiny little piece of faith in humanity I was saving for the winter.

So three things I want to cover, because structure is important guyzzz. Firstly, what the fuck Miley? Secondly, what the fuck VMAs? Thirdly, what the fuck society?[1] And I guess somewhere in there I’ll talk about my favourite top bloke, bestie Sensitive New Age Guy SNAG Robin Thicke and his giant penis.

So to Miley. I’m not entirely sure how much of my rage/blame you really get. My anger with this little… shall we say, spectacular clusterfuck, can’t really be put on you. It can only really be put on the culture that inspired and influenced and pressured and shaped you to choreograph/participate in something this truly, truly awful. But I think maybe I can treat you as a little bit of grown up and say… you’re in the public eye. Girls have liked you since you were Hannah Montana, the most hilariously clean child star since…Hannah Montana. And you’ve made a lot of money from it. Is it plausible that maybe you owe something back to the people that gave you all that cashmonies and pouvoir? Like not telling girls that us ladies are just lovely little sex toy receptacles, consisting of tits, and ass, and...that would appear to be it.

And I’m not saying this means that as you grown up you have to be squeaky clean. As we know, that doesn’t work. I was super uncomfortable when Hilary Duff got pregnant, in my head it was like ‘Holy shit Lizzy got knocked up by Ethan Craft after ninth grade gym, that is messsssed’. And she’s the queen bee of asexual creepily forever young child stars. It seems you’re either Lizzy forever or you’re LiLo and there is a perpetual supply of cocaine residue dribbling from your nostril into your mouth.

By all means, Miley, have a sex life. By all means, be seen with various mancandy and whatnot and make your choices and wear what you like. But… just… seriously keep a lid on your crazy, because girls will scream with joy no matter what you do, whether it’s doing intra-venus drugs on a public street or lower your bent over, gyrating ass onto Robin Thicke’s crotch, with an outstretched, wiggling tongue, in front of millions of people. Even Rihanna judged you, and she bedazzles her nipples. Not that there's anything wrong with bedazzling your nipples. I'm sure it hurts to get the glitter off though. Logistics and that. 

I’m trying to walk a line here between being judgmental and being like, ‘good for you’. I think she’s been conditioned since she was a little baby Honeybooboochild but at the same time, I want to blame her a little bit. I don’t want to say she doesn’t have any agency, because that would be just as insulting (and perhaps more depressing) as saying she’s a worse role model than Darth Vader.

What’s kind of depressing here is that I’m having trouble figuring out what exactly is wrong with the bizarre portrait of female sexuality she’s tried to paint. First she came out in a leotard onto a stage filled with childhood toys which was….sexy? It was especially arousing when she tried to dance, but seemed to be having some combination of seizure and simultaneously manifesting an inner ear disorder. There was a lot of spontaneous pelvic thrusting, not quite in time with the music, but points for effort I guess. Then she ripped off the leotard, which apparently was too conservative and nanna-ish, to reveal a super sexy pair of skin coloured granny panties, to grind onto Robin Thicke, in front of his wife and her fiancé. Call me conservative but it just seemed like a recipe for like… mad awks?

I suppose… what I find degrading about it is… two things. First of all, that’s her job. To rub her ass on the crotch of a much older man she doesn’t know, in front of millions of people. Second of all… she seemed so into it. So truly, deeply into it. I guess… a feminist would be like, ‘If she’s into it, it’s her choice, and we shouldn’t judge her for it.’ And maybe I don’t judge her. I think it just looks scarily like really, really fucked up indoctrination to enjoy the attention, and to enjoy that accomplishment of being the most exposed sex object of all. Hurrah, I am queen of all the lands! My pelvic thrusting reigns supreme!

(The whole combination of tragic dancing, weak singing, harmful lyrics and mindless glowstick waving fandroids was truly sickening. These people vote. Well at least...they will once they exit puberty.)

Also I guess… the fact that a lady who lots of young girls and women look up to aligned herself with a song and video that condones rape and trivialises sexual brutality is also something I find to be empirically fucked. That’s why her being so into it is offensive. It says she enjoys being degraded, she doesn’t think consent matters, or she didn’t bother to think about the lyrics. Lyrics such as the beautiful ‘I’ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two.’ By grinding said ass up against the noted #Thicke phallus while he sings such lyrics… well, I don’t think you could get any more complicit than that.

Just in case it wasn’t clear (and it’s not, considering this piece of musical offal is still topping the charts), most women don’t enjoy their perineum/anuses getting ripped during sex.

That’s OK though. What we want doesn’t actually matter. Feel free to ignore.

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[1] Got to the end and realised there was no structure. Just like everything I write. WHATEVSSS

ERMAHGERD VAHGERNERS!

I’m one of those dickheads who checks their phone in the theatre. While watching Law Revue last night someone linked me a picture of eighteen vaginas, and it filled my screen, bright enough to burn the retinas of the audience members two rows back. My first reaction was ‘Jesus Christ.’

I was about to click away to something less offensive and then…

The happy little feminist in my head was like, hold up bitch, what is offensive about a clitoris? What is offensive about a labia majora, leading inwards to a vagina? What is ‘offensive’ about the surrounding pubic hair? What is innately so disgusting about something a woman is born with, and grows to become an integral part of her life, through sex, through childbirth, purely just as the most intimate part of her body?

What’s offensive isn’t the body part (although physically, it was disarming to see, because one rarely gets such a direct view through the kaleidoscopic vaginacam). What’s offensive is, firstly, society obsesses and obsesses over what’s beneath a girl’s skirt and whose property it is. To finally see the female crown jewels is something fairly destructive to the hype.

But secondly, the vagina is secret women’s business, is it not? Us men go down on you as little as possible[1], enter it in the dark, and when you finally pop out that kid for us, we’ll stay in the waiting room, thank you very much!

If it isn’t ‘offensive’; if it isn’t harmful, or cause for uproar; if it isn’t a violation of people’s eyes, why did they have to put black bars over the labias in the first place?

First off, they didn’t do shit to cover the goods. They were opaque and thin, and did what society does anyway – show everything except the main attraction.

What’s ‘offensive’ is acting like the vagina is dangerous, or ugly, or innately unattractive, or something that should never be a part of public discourse. Because you (the invisible evil media man) made every vagina a part of public discourse. You can’t represent female sexuality in so many other offensive ways, in music videos and objectifying television shows and films, and then put a black bar to attempt to half-cover the reality. Well… I mean… clearly you can, because that’s exactly what you did. But you shouldn’t be able to, goddamnit!

The misogynistic comments that sprung up like wildfire in response to the cover were upsetting to say the least. Sometimes I’d like to put a nice big black piece of masking tape over certain people’s mouths rather than their vaginas. Men ranked the parts on the cover; critiqued what they called ‘excess’ pubic hair. Some of them just responded by saying ‘gross’.

So…not that they deserve the dignity of a response, but I’ve got three. One. If I ranked your dick last on some arbitrary criteria, without even knowing how it reacts, or who it’s attached to, and mocked it in front of you, would you like me? No. If that analogy was too confusing, all you need to know is that you’re an asshole who should speak less. If at all.

Two. Sorry if some of us don’t like having hot wax poured on our genitals and then ripped off so we can be nice and hairless like a prepubescent child for you, for three weeks, until we have to go and do it again. Maybe you should consider taming your Amazonian region. No? That’s gay? Oh, ok. Well enjoy your hand.

Thirdly, the vagina isn’t ‘gross’. It’s fucking beautiful, and if you find it so gross, enjoy celibacy. This is why it never made sense for calling someone a ‘pussy’ to imply weakness – pussies can expand and contract immensely; pussies can give birth. The walls are damn strong. LEGIT have you EVER considered the implications of a vagina being taut around both the average sized penis AND an arriving human? That science is cray. If there is any body part with the capacity to heal itself and recover from sexual assault, painful sex or childbirth, it is the royal vajayjay. So next time someone calls you a pussy, thank them.

And how do we ascribe strength? ‘Maaaaahtteee. You’ve got balls.’ Yes. You have balls. And if I knee you in them, you’ll be rolling around like a wounded chained-up Gollum[2].

But oh no! We weren’t just worried about the vagina, were we? We were worried about a clitoris peeking through here and there. ‘You’re allowed to show a vagina!’ laughs whatever evil old white man decided indecency laws. ‘It just has to be a single crease!’

...What the fuck? Who decided that and why? ‘You’re allowed to show a vagina, just on the condition that it could be mistake for your elbow bend or some other vague unidentifiable section of skin!’ Whoopdeedoo. You may as well say, ‘You’re allowed to show a vagina, on the condition it looks nothing like an actual vagina.’

I guess that’s our story, isn’t? ‘You’re allowed to show a woman, on the condition that she’s as generic, passive and non-idiosyncratic as a white A4 piece of paper.’ As long as she fits our arbitrary criteria determining what is perfect and everything else; what deserves to see the light of day and what doesn’t.

Well just as I’d like to see more women who aren’t 5’10”, blonde with an eating disorder[3], I’d like to see more hairy unconventional in your face deal with it I’m here I’m loud I’m proud straight up cunts. And you can’t stop me, because I have google.

It was was the fact that we could see the labia minora, too, the clitoral hood, the clitoris, the big happy family. The whole shebang. AKA, what female genitals actually look like.

So of all the nudie Honi covers, it was these little buttons that were causing a lot of the fuss. But the clitoris? Offensive? I don’t buy it.

What could possibly be offensive about such a joyous collection of nerve endings? One can only draw the conclusion that the people drawing black bars over clitorises haven’t been into contact with one lately.

Weeks ago, the Sydney Morning Herald printed photographs of charred bodies in a death pit in the depths of Syria. They had been burned alive. It wasn’t something I expected to come across over my bowl of cereal, I’ll be honest; the Herald usually fills out pictures of Megan Gale with stories about pet grooming competitions. I was a little bit taken aback, and lost my appetite.

But the thing is, I built myself a little bridge, and got the fuck over it.

How, as a society, have we determined a collection of vaginas doing nothing other than existing to be more offensive than a collection of charred, murdered corpses?

One of the arguments that was bound to pop up, was what if a little girl sees it? What then? Wouldn’t her eyes melt and her brain explode?

If I had a daughter I would show her this intentionally and explain to her what it meant. ‘See Blue Ivy? The vagina is special, and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not defined by what clothes you wear, or how much makeup you put on, or how you do your hair, or who you’re dating. It’s defined by how you feel about it and if you respect it. It doesn’t matter if you’re Miley Cyrus or Sandra Oh, we’re all on the same playing field. It will always be there for you and it will be an important part of your life, and will probably bring you a lot of happiness. There's nothing to be afraid of about your body parts. But as for the rest of being a woman, well get ready for some fucked up shit.’

Yep. Parenting 101 right there.

But at the end of the day, I can joke and say sassy things… but how sad, that my first reaction was one of horror, towards a body part I myself have and appreciate every day. How sad, that I had first wished the whole cover didn’t exist. How sad that although I developed my reaction through further thought, my first reaction stung of self-hatred.

And now? Well... the next time someone unlocks my phone and sees my wallpaper, they’re in for a rude awakening.

Note: Thank you to all those involved in the making of the cover. To the women, you are very brave and wonderful. To the makers…brilliant. Just brilliant.

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[1] Apologies to the guys who actually give head and do it well. Props to you. If you could alert females to your whereabouts they’d be much obliged.

[2] If you’re looking for a decent substitute, my preference is ‘Mahhhhhtee get some ovaries.’

[3] Not that those kinds of ladies aren’t nice ladies.