I don’t understand why everyone is saying “I can’t believe you did that Miley” for supposedly objectifying herself, but nobody at all even questions Terry Richardson for doing the objectifying. I guess city-folks are used to his antics by now and country-folks don’t even know there’s a he as a culturally relevant person to even comment on. But it’s his gaze that’s being turned on Miley, our gaze is actually being focused on his that. We are accepting Terry Richardson’s image of Miley, in the Wrecking Ball video and the released porno-lite pictures, to be true. And then we’re criticizing Miley for it. If it’s wrong to be photographed with camel toe, why isn’t it wrong to photograph a camel toe?

I understand that Terry Richardson didn’t direct the MTV Video Music Awards and therefore isn’t responsible for her, for some reason, scandalous performance on it. But that performance was almost verbatim the video for the song. In the case of the awards show aren’t we as society, by posting the video on facebook and sharing pix captioned “OMG,” just taking on that almost voyeuristic role? Because who actually watched the MTV Video Music Awards? That’s what I thought.

Because what is Miley Cyrus’s view on all this? You know the SUBJECT of these photos? What if we weren’t looking from the outside in? What if instead we empathized with the subject, putting ourselves in her shoes? She’s a country girl from a Disney Show who went off, got a European lesbian haircut, came back and started basically screaming “Hannah Montana is dead! I’m a new one!” She’s rebelling. It’s natural at this stage in life, it can be perfectly healthy. Reject what was expected of you because you felt pressured or curious, and go to an extreme opposite. Experiment with sex and drugs, and fashion and “scenes” and lifestyles. Have a falling out with your parents (and Disney (and Us)). Some of these things seem sort of relateable and not The. End. Of. The. World. right? Especially in a post sext-scandal world where everyone from middle school students to politicians in charge of our country are getting in on the action. What harm did her little display really have? Oh, none was that? You’re little sister got a shitty lesbian haircut? Oh well.

I understand why people would worry for a former child star as there is a sordid and tragic history concerning their metamorphosis into adulthood. So many burn out rather than fade away. But to me Miley’s outbursts seem so self aware, it’s like she’s acting out a scene from Party Monster every night at the club because to her that’s what rebelling is, what she saw as a kid in a movie and thought seemed scary and exciting and glamorous. And an overwhelming (ie mostly all) amount of the comments on the situation aren’t even really concerned with Miley. They’re not getting all outraged and upset because she could be in danger or needs to be helped in some way, they’re just damning. Because she showed us something and we all looked (and looked again and shared with our friends and co-workers and random guys at that party.) We condemn her for what we saw. “I saw your nipple, now you don’t even deserve the respect you already didn’t have.”