[open can of worms ON]

If she showed anything that a court would define as pornographic, it's illegal for an American to have the pictures on their computer.  They could go to jail for many years and be labeled as a sex offender.

If her naughty bits aren't showing, then it becomes a question of sexual ethics.

1) Is it morally wrong for 15 year old girls to be sexually appealing? 

Clearly not.  Fifteen year old girls have boyfriends.  The boys didn't get interested because they thought it would be a neat science experiment.

2) Is it morally wrong for people to take pictures of 15 year old girls being sexually appealing?

How many teen magazines are there?  Are all the pictures in them of 18 year olds or above?  If some are below 18, are they sexually neutral in all ways?  Clearly not.

3) Is there a magical cutoff age below which there is an objective reason why it's bad to look at attractive girls?

Duh.  No, there isn't.  Legally, we can say that it's bad to have sex with young women when you're an old man.  But can we really say that old men ought not think about having sex with young women?  A lot of people call it perverted, but the fact of the matter is, in many parts of the world, and in many cultures in the past, it's been common practice for young women to marry much older men.  There have been times when normal fifteen year old women were married and starting families.

This is a cultural question.   America has a lot of sexual crime against young women, but it's not tied to porn or sexual advertising.  There are many countries that have much more liberal laws about nudity, advertising, and porn, and they are not similarly plagued.  In other words, we cannot say that this photo shoot will cause bad things to happen because it's inherently wrong.  We can predict that people's interpretation of it might have very negative effects.

As for me, I think the only reason she might suffer negative effects from doing this shoot is if the media turns on her and ruins her career.  That's the media's fault.  Not hers.

This is not really a good portrait. She looks scared, slumped over, pale, and cold. This is not a picture of health. Her super red lips seem out of place as well. I would say if you are equating wholesome to healthy looking then this picture does not make her look wholesome. I personally don't find it sexual, attractive, or erotic. It is not an immoral picture though, she is not selling sex in this. If anything it is deconstructing her pop star persona to that of just another young woman that has to deal with everything else other girls her age do.  This picture is not sexy, she is not sexy in it, and I don't think she was too young to do it. If you want to talk about someone possibly being taken advantage of at a young age by marketing their sexuality, look at Brooke Shields. Attractiveness will always be a part of selling things, especially music. I think if the intent of the Anne was to get her naked under the guise of artistic pursuits to do softcore pinup shots, then that would different. This is not the case, and the insulted moral righteousness of Bill O and other talking heads is tipping the scales of hyperbole once again.

Yes that is the point. Walking that line where lets make her look as close to adult versions of sex appeal, to draw in more demographics, but try to keep it barely on the side of not looking like a whore. Then the moment people say she looks like a whore, Disney say their are outraged. It is hypocritical, and all part of America's hangups about sex and nudity. This reminds me of the Melissa Joan Hall Maxim controversy like 5 years ago. The exact same thing happened, except she was older and over 18. This all reminds me of that sexually active joke in Juno. They flipped the switch...now she is a whore for acknowledging people find her attractive and flaunting that for personal financial/popularity gain.

The appropriate clip for this kind of thinking style all reverts back to the whole...look but don't touch,touch but don't taste, taste but don't swallow. I know it is a rant about GOD, but it also suits the similar thinking process involved by those who profit from the sexual commercialization of young women.

Bad move, yes.  Clearly.  Immoral?  Hardly.

it's nothing more than a calculated business move. this young actress has an army of publicists, managers, handlers, advisers. you think they would carelessly let her pose for something that she might later be ashamed of? they(and her) knew precisely what was going to happen with these photos and everything, from the timed release of the pictures to her statements to the press has been one slick PR campaign to shift her career into a new phase.

the only thing that is disturbing is how low Billy Ray will stoop to keep the entertainment biz dollars rolling in..

The Cyrus clan is clearly immortal!?  I must move quickly, then, and take his mulleted head, and with it his power!  There can be only one!

I agree

Actually, this is probably not true.  While pornography is often correlated with pedophilia, it has never been demonstrated to have a causal connection.  Quite the contrary, it appears that in societies that don't demonize erotic or lascivious images, sexual crimes tend to be less of a problem.   The theory is that in a society where both porn and predation are wrong, you might as well be a predator, since you're doing something wrong anyway.  Where porn is seen as a healthy escape, it seems to function as one.

I'm a bit confused.  Are you saying only 15 year olds should be able to look at photos of 15 year olds?

In any case, there's a false dichotomy in Western culture regarding sexual development.  We feel that there is an immutable line between children and adults, and there simply isn't, at least not after puberty.  Some people develop faster than other people.  Some develop physically but not emotionally, and vice versa.  While the laws about sex with minors and sexually explicit photography of minors are good approximations, and serve an appropriate legal function of generally preventing exploitation of minors, the law is just that -- an approximation.

But only after the magical 18th birthday when they magically are adults?  I sense a double standard.

I agree that there's no legitimate reason for it to reflect badly on her.  I disagree with the rest.  The laws are there to prevent sexual exploitation of minors.  You just said that there's nothing wrong with sexuality, and now you're saying that there is.  Teenagers are sexual beings.  As much as it may rankle some conservatives, there's absolutely nothing objectively wrong with an over-18 person looking at an under-18 person and feeling sexual attraction.  Their bodies are designed to be damn attractive.  Natural selection has programmed us that way.  If I really got started, I could write for a long time about how we create an unrealistic model of sexual development, discouraging sexuality when it is most in need of healthy encouragement.  I'll leave it for another time.  The bottom line is that our laws are there to prevent old men from tricking young girls into having sex, not to keep old men from lusting after young women.

I'm not really 'into' this sort of thing, but that does piss me off.

It's her choice to take the photo shoot, and if she thought it was fun and enjoyed it, who the fuck does anyone think they are (well, aside perhaps from her parents) to tell her, "It's not rght,"

I see it as directly married to the Christian guilt-trip of, "If you're having fun being naughty, it's a bad thing,"

Was she harming anyone? Was she doing something outside of consent? Was she even posting the photos in a fucking teen magazine? Last I checked, Vanity Fair was for grown-ups.

The 'it makes her a bad role model' card is bullshit. First, it's not her 'duty' to be a good role model - unless this is an official declaration by parents that, yes, they really are too irresponsible to rear their own children. Second, in what way is demonstrating one's sexuality being a 'bad' role model anyway? Say whatever you want - this draws a very clear line to 'abstinence is the answer' teaching mentality.

Aaaah - I have to only slightly disagree. I know those morons (publicists, managers, handlers, etc.). The good ones are few and far between. They know that eventually the "ramp-up" has to happen. Look at Brittney Spears and everyone else from the Mickey Mouse Club. Those people know that the ramp-up to sexy HAS to happen, and in this case, they just jumped the gun. They've been doing this to kids for so fucking long that they dropped the ball. Instead of waiting for the Magical Age (that being 17), they went for "artistic" at 15. 

If it was a calculated business move, it wasn't calculated enough. Somebody needed more coke, and they got impatient for the money. She's WELL within her rights to say "I feel ashamed" as a defense. The kind of whirlwind these kids get put into would overwhelm someone twice their age (and often does). These people may have fucked up her eventual transition now, and she has to work out another way for that to happen. Bad calls all around.