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Miley Cyrus, Rihanna and Britney's sexed up attempts to be ever more shocking reach new lows: What does it mean for their young fans?

As Miley, Britney and Rihanna all show off new lows in taste and decency, we asked a body language expert what this hyper-sexual pop culture could be doing to our children

It seems wherever you look there's a young, female celebrity twerking, stripping or gyrating for a camera, be it in an official music video, public performance or just for a selfie on their camera-phone - uploaded to Twitter for all the world to see.

As Miley Cyrus reaches a new low in taste, in photos featuring her wearing very little and touching herself while gazing into the camera, we asked body language and social behaviour expert Judi James, what message Miley and other celebrities such as Rihanna and Britney are giving to young girls...



Judi says this is a power-play by stars.

"They feel their quasi-sexual posturing empowers them, almost putting them up and out of the reach of the average male," she explains.

"A lot of the sexual imagery they use is aggressive in the way it is performed, e.g. the twerking, where the woman mimics a female animal on heat demanding sex from a male. And the physical hints at nudity imply a level of body confidence that they might feel signals overall power and status.

"But all these displays can also have a massive downside. The twerking could also be seen as a female mimicking one of the most passive and submissive sexual roles, while the nudity could merely take us back to the days when women stripped and posed purely for male gratification."


[Miley Cyrus at the VMAs: Was it really that shocking?]

[Miley's most naked photos yet]


Miley's concerted effort to shed her Disney skin has been gathering force, but though she's taking most of the column inches, she's hardly doing anything different to her peers. Rihanna's new video for Pour It Up gives common decency a run for its money and even Britney's latest, Work B****, has been banned from UK TV for its explicit content.

But rather than progress and empowerment, are these female stars just giving tweens and teens the impression that the only way to get noticed is to shed as many clothes as possible and publicise their burgeoning sexuality as overtly as they can?



Judi says: "It’s easy to see how these talented women have been caught up in their competitively shocking performances, in many ways they’re still competing with Madonna in her heyday, but these are also women with a past: not a sexual, controversial past but a career as squeaky-clean child stars and willing or unwilling role models to millions of kids.

"For parents there is a danger that what should be a normal rite of passage in terms of growing up gets exaggerates to bizarre extremes. Fans of these women might be at an age where they want to experiment with their styling but how ‘normal’ might it now appear to go to the kind of lengths Miley is going right now?

"Would anyone really like to define the dividing line between Miley’s twerks and Rhianna’s selfies and Page Three girls and strippers from the past?

"What might be seen as a bit of a joke between the stars and their audience will desensitise in terms of ability to shock (even royals have now been caught twerking and it’s sure to be a hit with party-loving grans who have had one glass of sherry too many this Christmas), meaning the pressure will be on to raise the bar even higher."



Judy adds that in terms of role-modelling, it depends how these stars really are in their day-to-day life. She points to female stars from the 60s and 70s, who openly experimented with drugs and were very open about their sexual incontinence - living a lifestyle that would be dangerous for their fans to follow. But she feels that this isn't what's happening here:

"Miley, Rhianna et al seem to be providing what might just be a fashion look.

"And the worst thing is to tut and act shocked. This is exactly what this behaviour is aimed at achieving. The longer parents rant and ban their kids from watching the more those kids will feel impelled to admire and copy."