Perceptions from a Pewboy

As simplistic as it might sound, allow me to say it: I am genuinely heartbroken over highly publicized implosion of Britney Spears.

My heartbreak is not a result of my love for her music. Her musicianship has never been her most compelling attribute (although, to be sure, she is clearly gifted and magnetic).

Neither is my heartbreak a result of a patriarchal “poor Britney” impulse. Her current circumstances, after all, are, in many ways, the result of a series of horrendous and self-destructive decisions that Britney has made in recent years. Britney, like all of us, must embrace the responsibility of facing up to the consequences of bad personal decisions.

Rather, my heartbreak is over the condition of an American culture that has easily and thoughtlessly manufactured an environment in which a saga like Britney’s can find a comfortable home.

I have long lamented our culture’s rampant and vociferous sexualization of our young. I am convinced, in fact, that part of the reason why Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” was met with such controversy in this country is that, even in 1955, it hit too close to home for many Americans. It bore witness to a reality that Hollywood was already placing before us—specifically, the reality that children and youth can be sexualized and therefore manipulated into an artificial adulthood for which they are not at all prepared. Britney’s circumstances are yet another illustration of our often-unnamed penchant for creating a virginal archetype and then sexualizing her for the purpose of feeding our already-distorted voyeuristic inclinations.

It began as a carefully and strategically choreographed journey for Britney. Certainly Britney herself must bear a good portion of the blame for the nature and content of this journey. But let’s not be too eager to let her promoters, her industry, and her fan base completely off the hook.

On Britney’s debut album, “…Baby One More Time” (1999), we were introduced to a winsome and attractive teenager whose coquettish charms, while obvious, were subordinated to her sweet and childlike sense of innocence (evident in songs like “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart,” which chronicles the pain of a broken love as only a teenager can experience it.) Then came “Oops!…I Did It Again” (2000) in which Britney’s sexuality, while certainly occupying a more central role (even on the album cover), is nevertheless carefully tempered by the girlish naïveté of the title song and songs like “Dear Diary.

In her third album, “Britney” (2001), Britney appears on the album cover looking much more like an aggressor than a coquette. On this album, Britney proclaims her willingness to subordinate herself sexually (”I’m a Slave 4 U”) while at the same time preserving her link to the innocence of youth (”I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman”). All of this paved the way for Britney’s fourth album, “In the Zone” (2003), which, as one might imagine, is her most sexually expressive and obvious album. With songs like, “(I Got That) Boom Boom,” “Breathe on Me” (which is NOT a prayer to the Holy Spirit!), “Toxic,” “The Hook Up,” and “Brave New Girl,” Britney successfully made clear to the world (to the tune of 3 million copies sold) that she was America’s Lolita no longer. She was now ready to occupy the role of a sexual—or, more appropriately, highly sexually charged—woman.

Do you sense the pathos of this carefully choreographed journey? We have imbued a young woman (or encouraged a young woman to imbue herself) with an aggressive sexual identity, thereby allowing her to incarnate the dual idea that a young woman’s primary value is as a sexual being, and that her primary function is the fulfillment of a male sexual fantasy. I don’t think that I have to spend much time convincing you of all the different ways in which this idea is reinforced in our culture. (A quick trip to Abercrombie and Fitch should accomplish that for anyone who is questioning my assessment of the situation.) Britney’s journey, in other words, compels me to reflect upon what our young people (and, in particular, our young girls) are learning about their identity from the films and magazines that we produce and from the celebrities that we manufacture (and then cynically cast aside when they can no longer meet our demands).

Stanley Hauerwas, my ethics professor in seminary, used to say in his lectures that rape, at its essence, is a violent attack on a sexuality that has not been voluntarily offered. He would often follow that definition with a question: “How voluntary is sex in a culture that communicates so blatantly to its young people that their value and purpose reside in their sexuality?”

Hauerwas’ point is a troubling one. He is suggesting that, as a culture, we have, in a sense, raped our children and youth by sexualizing them to such an extent that they are forced to occupy the preconceived sexual roles demanded by a (rapist) culture.

All of this, of course, illuminates with considerable brightness the urgency of sexual ethics in the ministry of the church. I am still mystified and frustrated that the church has almost completely surrendered sexual education to the public schools. Is the church so squeamish about the biology of it all that it has lost sight of its unique capacity to teach its young people a Christocentric sexual ethic in which even our genitalia are subordinated to the Lordship of Jesus? Has the church become so weary in fighting off the sexual avalanche coming down the media mountain that it no longer has the strength to offer to our young people a counter-cultural sexual narrative?

I find myself praying hard for Britney Spears these days. She seems to have problems on top of problems (not the least of which may be a serious mental illness compounded by drug addiction). I fear, however, that even these problems pale in their scope to a more pervasive and crippling problem: A culture that seems to be addicted to exploiting its young people and manipulating their innocence.

Perhaps our confession can go something like this: Oops! We did it again. We created an environment that is ripe for the tragic fall of a young person who was pushed, or, at the very least, encouraged into an adulthood for which she was not prepared.

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