Her comment on the hooker boots photo was "its really cool that she is on a table and ladder at the same time." When I asked her specifically about the clothing and boots, she said they were cool. She was more interested in the climbing on the furniture aspect. The other photos also elicited the same sort of non-response. My 9 year old is a huge Miley/Hannah fan, and she didn't find anything unusual about the pictures. I do not as a habit expose my child to fashion magazines or a lot of television. She is old enough to know that Hannah Montana is a character on a TV show. I think adults are making too much of a big deal about this.

You're probably the best writer here.

The conservatives, as one writer pointed out, follow a twisted set of mixed messages. But what of the mixed messages coming from feminists here?

She is 16 yrs old. Many here would defend (as I do) sex education, providing contraceptives, and some even defend the right of a girl this age to have an abortion without notifying the parents. Yet she wears some boots and its a sign of the exploitation of women?

So we're saying she is old enough to know about sex, have it, old enough to handle contraceptives and old enough to CHOOSE abortion/Birth. Yet now she isn't old enough, mature enough, or capable of choosing to look sexy? Its some how exploitation?

Jeez, no wonder our kids are so f'ed up. If it isn't the rightwing hypocrasy its the left wings...

Not necessarily sexism, lots of people DO think that BOTH 16 year old boys and girls should be asexual. The difference is that they can more successfully intimidate girls, and maybe their parents.

You can't blame it all on the right wing, not by a long shot, though obviously the "left" and right on this issue feed off each other.

"We're all too happy to see her clad in a girly frock and schoolgirl socks -- however, black thigh-high boots, and a black pushup bra? Horrors, that's a child! But in both cases she's an eroticized 16-year-old celebrity"

This confuses me. Yeah, in the Britney video with the Catholic school skirt hiked up to her privates, SHE was sexualized. But normally, why is a "girly frock" sexualizing? My niece loves Hannah Montana, and on that show the girl is hardly put into a position of being a sex symbol. And if "girly frocks" are sexualizing, pray tell how she could dress and NOT be sexualized? I can't think of a third alternative.

My main problem with this is that I don't think this girl's pretty. At all.

This is the long and short of it.

Leaving aside Miss Cyrus' impressive singing talent, which will take her far, she is yet another pop tart from the factory that pumps out pretty young teens with golden hair and plump breasts and long legs. It's old news that grown men like yours truly see the sex appeal that these companies know we'll see, though why they do it is a mystery, since I can't imagine too many grown men buying concert or movie tickets to these girls' shows unless they're bringing their own daughters, by demand.

Maybe it's Hollywood's way of giving Dad something to look at when dragged by his 7 year-old daughter to see the pop tart's latest movie or concert?

More likely it's just keeping in line with corporate America's sexual exploitation of our country's children, the better to sell them unnecessary crap, while rightwing politicians and preachers rant against the dirty hippy left, but rise in throaty defense of corporate America.

That's a load of crap, I've seen Gene Simmons wear boots like that and HE'S not a hooker. I don't hear anybody calling them "aging jewish rockstar boots". Fuckin' people, I swear.

Cyrus is yet another emerging nightmare for the cosmetic loathers.

Since when did our fine hookers submit a patent for the 'hooker boot'?

So, because the god-forsaken, sleazy bitches-of-the-back-alley wear a certain type of boot young ladies are now on notice to avoid wearing the same?

Young ladies should be thrilled few hookers wear crop pants on the job.

Christ, are women really this goddamn uncomfortable with sexiness? Is it any wonder young girls grow up confused about their sexuality? Young women (as our president recently and perfectly illustrated) are the main embodiment of sensuality in any society.

Young men can't even begin to emanate this level of raw aesthetic. Backward American culture sits in critical judgment of young female icons who express what many girls are forbidden to by mothers who are goddamn express trains full of whore-fear and fathers who don't know jackshit about anything but six cylinders and Bud.

Is it any wonder I sit and marvel at the absolute absurdity of female morality? Perhaps, allowing girls to FREELY express themselves WHILE they are still under parental tutelage is an excellent way to encourage emotional intelligence regarding their sensuality.

So, what do you want, people? to shove the blooming sexuality of young girls back into the closet? Make it a hot house plant that can only survive under strict cloistering? THIS is the problem with teen sexuality.

Most people in goddamn society are fucking scared out of their wits by teen sexuality and can only cope with it by hiding it behind some sort of archaic moral order.

I say leave Cyrus alone to express her sexuality. A whole helluva lot of young ladies are enjoying their own vicarious journey through this young icon. Let the children be happy.

I remember looking at them and thinking, yeah that's not the Hannah Montana look - but there's a lot of ground between that and raunchy.

Sure Miley Cyrus is a star, but what about the rest of the fashion models that fill the pages of magazines like Elle? Most of these models are girls - a few as young as 13 - and no one is writing magazine articles about the scandalously dressed girl in the latest "Juicy" ad.

I just can't jump on Miley for appearing in a magazine along with a bunch of other girls her age.