Lutheran pastor Eric Clapp notes on his blog that Robin Thicke is getting off easy while Miley Cyrus is being slammed for their duet performance of Thicke’s hit song “Blurred Lines” at the Video Music Awards. He writes:
There have been a number of different parenting websites or blog posts who have come up with good ways to talk to your daughter about Miley. And, don’t get me wrong, I’m all about parents talking to their daughters about sexuality.
But is no one going to hold anyone else on stage or behind the scenes accountable for that performance? Are we really going to have another one-sided conversation where we only talk to the girls about their sexuality while we completely ignore the boys in the room about their standards of behavior too?
There are next to no commentaries, articles, or blog posts that talk about how Robin Thicke was on stage with a woman young enough to be his daughter while thrusting his pelvis and repeating the line “I know you want it” while T.I. non-chalantly raps about much more graphic stuff.
Clapp notes that the VMA spectacle offers an important teaching moment for our sons as well as our daughters. He references Shelly Latham, who writes:
There were two people on that stage (more than that really, but let’s focus on the main two). Apparently Robin Thicke invited Miley to accompany him on “Blurred Lines.” He is a 36 year old man. She is a 20 year old not-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman. He knew what he was asking was naughty. But for the man, getting a younger girl, a barely legal girl, is “hot”. She may have twerked her booty off, licked that foam finger like an ice cream cone and all but begged him to have sex with her on that stage (and, no, that is not okay, and, yes, that is in incredibly poor taste), and a grownup, who respects women, who understands that 20 is still pretty much a kid would say, “Maybe this isn’t in your best interest. Maybe you should cover up. I respect you too much to respond when you depend upon sex to promote your value. I’m old enough to be your father, and I wouldn’t want a man to look at my daughter the way that I see men looking at you.”
Bear in mind that the ill-conceived VMA routine was a send-up of Thicke’s trashy “Blurred Lines” video. At her blog, Latham posts this wisdom from Pastor Casey Thompson, of Wayne Presbyterian Church in Wayne, Pa., about how parents can talk to their sons about Robin Thicke. And here’s related perspective from Cafe newsblogger Kurt Wiesner at his blog.