Youth Ministers and Children’s Ministers alike face large challenges in teaching kids about sexual purity as their teen idols pose provocatively for adults.

Miley Cyrus shot to stardom at age 13 when she signed on with Disney for the role of Hannah Montana.  In the past two years, both Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus have won the hearts of children, teenagers, and parents alike.  It seems that she is now looking to expand her career toward more adult audiences, by posing for Vanity Fair Magazine – and like many Vanity Fair photo shoots of adults, the pictures are provocative and revealing.

The Vanity Fair photo shoot displays Cyrus in several provocative positions including one in which she appears naked draped in a bed sheet showing her back and looking over her shoulder at the camera through tangled hair.

Though Cyrus is defending the shots as artistic and classy, Disney is very upset.  Disney is blaming Vanity Fair and the photographer Annie Leibovitz for taking advantage of a young star wanting to expand her career to an adult audience.  It seems that Vanity Fair seems that the best way to attract an adult audience is to make a 15 year old girl into a sex object.

This controversy is all coming on the heels of another P.R. mess involving candid internet pictures of Miley vamping for the camera showing her bra and skin.

Some are making cautionary comparisons to Britney Spears.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

What kind of real impact do you think that celebrity culture has on teenagers that you work with?  Do you think that sexualized photos of a 15 year old girl is alright in this case or not? Why? How can Youth Ministers use this to talk about our sexual culture while honoring our design as sexual beings?

FULL CNN ARTICLE

Youth Culture Update online is an article summary compiled by Damien O’Farrell