cultural paedophilia

Did anyone see the pic of Steven Wells hanging out with Daphne & Celeste? He looked well seedy.

No. Demographic marketing doesn't work like that. You have a core demographic (the teenage girls) and then you have a non-core demographic (everyone else). Sometimes marketers - and indeed Bands - will have a demographic it wants to exclude because it's seen as uncool. An example of this would have been Blur kvetching about the teenage girls who fancied them. Since there's very little "rebelliousness" in the teenpop aesthetic the people involved probably don't think along those lines though.

Yes, there's something slightly perverted about it, but I don't think that's necessarily wrong. It's one thing to linger a bit too long while flipping through the channels, or to spend maybe a little too long studying the booklet of your nephew's Brittny CD. But do you actually BUY the stuff? Now that's just wrong. I have a weird, unhealthy thing for J-Pop (Puffy Ami-Yumi, Chocolat, etc.) that I don't feel comfortable talking about with all you.

Some listeners though will be listening to the music because they're projecting qualities they associate with teenage girls onto the music - that it's fun and shallow and unpretentious. That's in some ways a rubbish attitude because it stereotypes teenage girls, many of whom are absolutely horrible (not least to each other). I think it's quite hard to not project onto music an image of its intended audience, though. Was that what you were talking about?

Adult men are Brit's "unintended audience"? Don't kid yourself.

misread your post, tom...forget it.

Also of course demographic targetting can shift - Take That for instance built its act in the gay clubs to build a sales base before moving onto teenage girls. In the latest Smash Hits it's interesting that the 'fans' they 'interview' about Britney Spears include 1 16 year old girl and 2 20-year old women who talk about how her sound is maturing.

I don't think there's anything suspect about it at all -- the opposite, really. it's obvious: men are attracted to young women because they're young, often shapely and unsullied by life. and music markets to that. the taboos we have in society against that sort of thing are sometimes helpful, in that the independence and virtue of the young and impressionable are protected, but in other cases it's the source of much frustration, repression and anguish in life, both on the part of the beholder and those who are mature enough to make decisions for themselves.

If this was in any way a serious debate, surely thirtysomething men being into music aimed at teensomething boys would be viewed upon with as much or more disapproval.

Tim's post triangulates the missing assumption: that grown men can only enjoy music made by/for youngish girls out of sexual interest in the youngish girls making it.

Not that the industry that produced Britney doesn't make this assumption as well. . .

Thought: possibly making someone like Britney sexually desirable to grown men is actually a way of selling Britney to young girls? I.e., "Look at how fabulous Britney is: grown men drool over her. Don't you want to be like Britney?"

I do think it is a bit suspect. Probably not so much an "I doubt this specific individual man's sincerity" way, but at least somewhat so in the cultural sense mentioned in the question. I'm trying to quantify the whys here, but the closest I think I can come is to point out that a lot of the appeal of this stuff to the thirty-something men, is probably exactly *because* they feel it isn't aimed at them. It's possible that there's some reverse psychology in play there, but actually I think a more informed guess might be that the appeal is really coming from the fact that they can feel a certain safety and ease with themselves while having a bit of a perv at a much younger someone. Consider how many men this age might instead have considered the perving at Britney and co. off limits (and creepy) if the appeal had been more direct. Is marketing 'tricking' these guys into liking this stuff? Because, if this stuff isn't deliberate, it's an incredibly lucky coincidence for them that Bob Dole's appearance in that Pepsi ad gave so much tacit permission to the run of the mill and 'harmless' older fella with a boner for Britney. But you know what? I don't think these thirty something men are so stupid that they don't know what's going on. They aren't being tricked at all, so must be that they're feigning ignorance. I almost don't care how much they genuinely do or do not enjoy the actual music, although one thing can definitely feed off the other, the music itself has very little to do with why the videos are watched, the posters are put up, and the commercials and magazines featuring these girls in other contexts *do* sell to many of these guys. Deep down they've got to be feeling like they're getting away with something - as relatively insignificant or harmless as that something might seem. I have to admit that I do find that a *tad* suspect, but I've got to qualify that by saying that the motivating human nature behind most any other behavior probably isn't any prettier once you strip off the gloss. So yeah, it's suspect. But so's everything.

As a nineteen year old gay male, is my appreciation of Britney more 'innocent' than that of Tom's, being a late twenty-something straight male? Is the fact that I can make sharp aesthetic distinctions between the physicality of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears shorn of its sociocultural danger-signs because I am turned on by neither? Do I have to assume that my appreciation of Britney is authentic but my appreciation of the Backstreet Boys is suspect?

I think you're right Kim. But - I think there's quite a large segment of older Britfans though who don't watch the videos or look at the posters, at least no more so than they would for anything else. They might well be buying and listening to the records in order to feel younger or more 'in touch' themselves - who knows the secrets of the subconscious - but there's nothing more sinister going on than that.

Full disclosure - I have a Britney poster. It hangs above my CD shelves. Opposite it though is "The Boys Of S Club 7".

Hold on a second Tim, don't go complicating the issue with this whole gay angle. 8) I'm kidding of course. But really, it is quite obvious that there is a difference between the two situations. The questionable apects only seem to apply to things that we like partly because they give us some secret and palatable advantage or pleasure, in regards to something unfair or ugly that we might theoretically and publically renounce. The latent moral dilemma needs to be present. It kind of does apply to people other than the perving ones in different ways - all questionable selling of and buying into phenomena seem to reduce to something that sounds very cliche, namely the exploitation of or indulgence in the three basic consumer desires: fucking/consuming/using, owning, being. Britney is primarily marketed and appreciated by teen age girls via the third. To you by the second. For these thirtysomething men it's probably also the second, but for some, it's at least partly the first. But unless they're unusually honest (especially with themselves) about their small moral transgression, they'll probably insist that it's *only the second. So there you have it. The suspect bit is that one questionable motivation is indulged under the guise of another more acceptable one. I'll thank them for it too, for the pretense at least, because otherwise what could happen except that we'll eventually break down all our quite justified taboos out of 'honesty', because honesty is better (yeah right) and then you'll see how we'll get into some really nasty territory.

Incidentally, I am in no way attempting to contradict Tom's last post.

I think the points he made about wanting to feel in touch would fit in with the desire of 'being'. Although it's a bit more complex in that case because it's not the popstar herself that these older fans want to be in touch with, it's her young audience.

I caught my dad (in his upper 40's) watching the (horrible) Britney Spears concert on HBO. My mom didn't want him to. I'm the same age as Miss Britney Spears. It's just disturbing. I once told my dad semi- jokingly that Marilyn Manson would be a better role model for my 7 yr old niece, he didn't take that well.

My dad later tried to watch the Victoria Secret's fashion show on ABC. My mom liked that even less.

If it wasn't for old men in recliners TV might actually be worth watching.

I don't care one way or another how many guys drool over Britney, but what does irk me is her appeal partially based on image of naivete, er, I don't like it that guys like stupid women. And Britney may very well be a smart person, but this image of hers! argh! and people love it! What reviewer was it that pointed out, hey, Spears is still singing abt being treated like a little girl at 19? She isn't thinking abt maybe... college?
Thinking the BS (hah) fanbase is made up of teenage girls is kinda like thinking the old "Seventeen" magazine was for 17-year-olds. 'Teen' pop is for 11-year-olds, really.
Plus, this idealized notion of teenage girls 'unsullied by life' & therefore nonintimidating/attractive is just... completely fucked.
Was it on ILM that someone mentioned "Audition" in reference to this sort of thing? It's screening (unbelieveable!) in Washington tomorrow, I'll get back to ya.

Kim, I'm not trying to demolish your position in any way as I think it's basically correct (for the record, my boyfriend's main justification for owning a Westlife cd is that he thinks they're goodlooking, and I find myself being more favourable to Blue than I might otherwise be due to one bandmember's cuteness). I am however interested in the *multiplicity* of relationships which males might have with Britney's music, which you demonstrated, so thank you.

But your post is shrouded in hypotheticals and maybes (possibly to quite sensibly avoid offense) and therefore I'm not sure where you now stand in relation to the original question - the issue of *inherent* suspectness. I'm sure that a lot of straight men will have a different appreciation for Britney than I do, but will all of them? Also, there's the age question: is a 19 year old boy who is turned on by Britney defined by his age or his attraction in this situation ie. is he too suspect because of this desire to fuck/use/consume, or is his guilt vitiated by a contemporaneity of age with the object of consumption? Hopefully I've made it clear that I'm not disagreeing with your position so much as wanting to link this back to the original question.

Man does Tim rule.

The question does need to be asked: since Britney is legal, why does liking to look at her necessarily make an older man "pervy?" The implied answer is that it's because the age difference bars any possibility of a healthy romantic interest in her, thus his looking is strictly sexual. But his looking at a televised woman his own age may just as likely be strictly sexual.

What makes young-woman lusting "pervy" is when a man finds young women attractive specifically because he views them as easier targets for domination or manipulation. I don't think the middle- aged man in the recliner really thinks this. I think Britney dominates him, in that he's wowed by her "youthful vitality" and feels somewhat unable to compete with it (isn't this how "adults" usually react to young-person trends?), and I'm guessing his thoughts about Britney include a whole lot of "Why didn't I know girls like that when I was teenager?" or "Jesus, I wish I was going to high school now."

Why all the discrimination against thirty-something males and 'stupid' women? If they find each other and are happy, great!

Kim's onto something with the fucking/owning/being - but I think it's relatively culturally OK to admit to the first and the real hidden secret is the third.

Back to my office. Tom brings in a Britney CD. Colleague: "Oh, Britney Spears, bet I know why you've got that." Tom then has three options, according to Kim's schema.

1. "Yes, she's a babe. I'd give her one." Likely Response: "Tom you sad man but yeah I would too", male bonding and banter follows.

2. "No no I like the music." Likely Response: "What? But it's crap."

3. "I identify with Britney and want to be her or her idealised audience." Likely Response: ambulance called.

I think that as well from a queer perspective Britney is interesting because she fits with a tradition of woman or girls who played there gender as a role .

i like hanson, and it's not just their looks...though the youngest one got pig ugly btwn albums, didnt' he?

I was trying to get into some of this on the inverse bubblegum thread, but it died. Brit's playing dirtier than she is, but then this is actually more real than trad-bubblegum. Christina's young skank is much more of the typical dirty-old-man fantasy, while Brit is about being young and growing, & flirting with overt sexuality -- trying on roles, & beginning to explore the power of sexuality. In my experience with most 19-yr olds [present company excepted, heh heh] ppl. very often are not nearly fully socially formed by that time.

I think the attraction is in the recapitulation of youth, a way of working out issues of how we came to be who we are by watching others play-out (play-act) these things for us.

Christina's young skank is much more of the typical dirty-old-man fantasy

Nonsense, I hate her. *pause* Er, anyway.

>>Why all the discrimination against thirty-something males and 'stupid' women? If they find each other and are happy, great!>> It makes me think of two of my housemates, who are married, the girl is not stupid but is quite young and could be called naive, accommodating, unable to stand up for herself, & I see the guy likes that he therefore has absolutely zero obligation to compromise on any point in their relationship, & that's exactly what he wants. So I think he will be happy and she will feel pressured to pretend that she is happy since contradicting him too much will wreck things.. and she will think it is her fault, and so will he.
I think this sort of imbalance is suspect, yes, I think the idea that the perfect girl will not ask you to change/grow in any way is suspect. Prob I wouldn't have so many thoughts on the subject if it weren't happening before my eyes.

(In swellsy's defence i think he looked like that when he was D&C's age also)

>>I think that as well from a queer perspective Britney is interesting because she fits with a tradition of woman or girls who played there gender as a role.>>
I don't completely understand what you are trying to say, can you explain a little more? For instance I was reading a Vogue profile on Britney in which the writer observes that she is interesting precisely because she isn't playing a role at all, unlike the complex role-player who is Madonna, if you think Madonna is v complex, which I don't.
Also I tend to think gender = something you can role play, & playing w/gender roles points to how mostly socially constructed they are... & therefore this sort of performance would be showing that, in fact, the role of 'girly-girl' isn't connected by anything more than social convention to the female sex. But isn't it that Britney's image is appreciated because it's supposedly not an image, because guess what, people are attracted to the idea of girls/women who are.. uh, not that deep?
Sorry to go all Judith Butler on you, I don't think gender's social- constructedness is 100% true, more like 95%, but it's a useful enough theory to throw back at people who use 'girly' as an insult.

And one more thing: Christina Aguilera's 'skanky' image is exaggerated to the point that it's completely unattractive & scary (see Lady Marmelade vid), if the comments I've been reading about her in the past few months are any indication. Now THAT'S interesting.

Daria, I think Anthony's post was about gender performativity in the first place - by playing the "natural girl" angle, Britney demonstrates how much of being a girl is an act, a construction. That Vogue article, from the sounds of it, is way off anyway (surely Britney is v. close to Madonna circa. "Like A Virgin"?) - anyone who thinks Britney is actually like real teenage girls after seeing her videos is wack.

Thats exactly what i meant. I think that Britney is not stupid but playing up the i am just a girl schtick suggests something about how mutable gender is /

Roleplay is exactly what makes "Lucky" my fav. Britney song by far. Also, cf. my Inverse Bubblegum thread, could it be the young minx is purposefully leading older men on, also cf. "Oops, I did it again" where when she sez she's not that innocent she also means she's not that easy. & girls her age sometimes do that too, not just popstars. I actually think she's performing a more complex role than Madonna who had much less character than image & interplay between the "real" madge in interviews and the image madge on stage. On the other hand, after seeing the HBO concert, I suspect she's aiming more to be Prince than Madonna.

Sorry Tim, I didn't mean to ignore your questions - In regards to inherent suspectness - No, I don't think it's fair to say that any one person's motives could be *inherently* suspect. Mainly because there are so many variables that just no way to reasonably know a single mind. But I am thinking that demographic trends and aberrations from them are a different thing.

Basically, I'd say that while an individual is too unpredictable to level generalizations at with any kind of accuracy, the demographic group that the individual belongs to is *relatively* more consistent and so can be generalized about to a greater degree. Individual variables ought to average out to form an at least slightly predictable group behavioural model, which (before anyone says that generalizations are useless) could be either a formal marketing analysis or simply an informal personal opinion based on observance. We all do it all the time. Odd aberrations will likely be noted and rationalized in both cases - so if there's an extraordinary phenomena, we usually ask why. So when the explanation we receive doesn't mesh with what we already "know" and does NOT explain the aberration - I think that's the point we all go "Hmmmmmm" something else is going on here.

In this case, while we'd be perfectly willing to believe that straight 35 yr old John, or gay 20 yr old Bob might both sincerely like Britney for the music alone (if that's what they're claiming that is) and we'd believe it because we believe in the existence of personal idiosyncracies. Now perhaps what's happening here is that just too many thirty something males are claiming the exact same idosycratic quirk - and wisely, we're just not buying that *all of them* can possibly be telling the truth.

If that makes any sense, and answers the question in the slightest.

But of course the specific question of whether a thrity year old ogling a sixteen year old is actually paedophilia or icky or whatever, is another thing. Not another thing all together, but still, another thing.

It's the last gasp of a suffocating thinker - a person clawing culture for stimulation. The 'thirtysomething male' tries one place, and then another, but finds that other people have scribbled over everything, that the record has been scratched over thousands of times, so he returns to his starting point, the moment he began to desire something, not in order to begin again, but because he has decided not to try to find something new; he has decided to sow a second layer of himself over his old haunts. He has wandered into space, and he won't feel anything any more. It's a kind of existential emasculation, a suicide note which is performed, with the sadness that only dramatic irony can lend to action, instead of being written.

Like a lot of speculation on why people like teenpop, Luke's theories only make sense if you assume that these people are listening to nothing but teenpop.

"the last gasp of a suffocating thinker": I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?

Kim, I suspect you may be right, and I'm not about to make any claims that the majority of thirtysomethings who like Britney don't do so at least partly for sexual reasons.

*However*, these are areas I'd be reluctant to venture into myself with only logical suspicions and anecdotal evidence on my side - it was postulated as a largely *rational* and not empirical argument that men would have to lust after Britney to like her, and there's been very little empirical evidence (of the sort you allude to) put forward to justify the claim. Before cries of "but it's obvious men drool over Britney!" are hurled at me from all sides, I admit this is true, but, *crucially*, are they buying the albums?.

I think there's a huge difference between a thirtysomething guy thinking Britney's sexy when watching her video clips and a thirtysomething guy who actively buys her albums and enjoys the music, and I wonder if many of us actually know many people who fall into the second category (esteemed members of the beeyotches excepted, of course!), let alone understand or have proof of their motivations.

Personally, I can't imagine many guys who are going for the sex angle would actually bother with the albums when they can just buy a Rolling Stone mag with more revealing pictures... AND as Tom pointed out, if they *did* buy the album it would be the sexual motivation they'd be most likely to admit to straight off the bat.

Furthermore, this entire debate by its nature focuses on how Britney's music is different to the music a thirtysomething should be listening to (without specifying what the latter is - but that's a whole 'nother issue), but ignores the ways in which Britney's music is or can be similar to other non-contraband music. I know my Britney-inspired moment of truth occurred upon listening to "Born To Make You Happy", which seemed to me to perfectly encapsulate that sense of needing to belong to someone that I'm drawn to in many of my favourite songs, from The Smiths' "I Know It's Over" to Amira's "My Desire (Dreem Teem Mix)" to The Blue Nile's "Tinseltown In The Rain" - none of which are songs aimed at teenage girls, but in my head I group "Born..." with them.

The distinction I guess I'm trying to make is between Britney and her music. Britney as a physical (and visual) person may have one or many intended audiences, but Britney as a character expressed through the narrative of a song has many many more, because that character and that narrative are infinitely harder to pin down than Britney's age, looks and behaviour.

And *that's* ignoring her booty-shaking grooves, which add a whole new intended audience ("Oops... I Did It Again" and "I'm A Slave 4 U" are both at least partially designed for clubs, even if they're not the ones ILM regulars might be likely to frequent). Ultimately, there's just too many variables for me to even be comfortable with referring to a "significant proportion" of adult male listeners unless such a reference was trailed by a stream of caveats and disclaimers.

This is beginning to feel like nitpicking, which I apologise for... perhaps as a Britney-fan being faced with accepting that my appreciation is "more than likely" to be suspect makes me want to argue harder.

The question never asks for proof, only rationale for suspicion. Re: however many thirty-something men really are into teen pop, I have no empirical prrof there either, but I'll just point out that that those assumptions aren't mine either - they're implied by the question. I'm just being sporting. :)

Yeah sorry Kim I was aware of that but didn't make it clear enough I guess. As I think I stated before, I'm more interested in disproving the initial question than your argument... you just make my job harder :-)

P.S. Proof is not what I'd need really, but I'm genuinely interested in looking at some sort of real-life examples of the question's proposed connection, whether individual or statistical. Which is not to say they necessarily exist or are easy to get a hold of, of course...

Related question: why does Britney take the heat as opposed to any number of equally young "authentically" R&B singers? What makes her more controversial & more of a flashpoint? Race? Image? Lyrical content? Amount of clothing?

Sterling: She fired the opening shot ("Hit Me...") and then she won.

Luke: "the last gasp of a suffocating thinker."

Mark S.: I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?

Me: A thuffocating Sinker.

Pre-emptive italic end.

And yeah, I admit that didn't work. But wouldn't it have been way funny if I could have immediately followed up Mark's post with the "thuffocating Sinker" joke? Umm ... guys?

Palestrina = 476 this year. HOW SICK AM I!?!

Excuse me, this replies to something a bit earlier, but - of course I saw the arguement that Brit's performance = 'real girl' = thereby showing up how constructed the idea of 'real girl' is. Now, I'm the last person to criticize anyone for thinking too much, but... I seriously doubt the subtleties of such a performance & any angle for viewing it are picked up by the vast majority of her fans. Eh, I suppose if you find gender = socially constructed you'll see that in Britney too, but if you don't already think so I doubt she's going to point it out, or even make you rethink ideas on gender in any way whatsoever...
Since I'm otherwise unable to have anything interesting to say about Britney Spears, I guess it's best to assume there's an angle to what she's doing. I recall someone telling me his theory on Steven Seagal was that the guy was, in fact, a performance artist whose art was to be Steven Seagal. Otherwise.. they're just not that deep!

Sterling: Brit takes the heat b/c her image gets sexier yet she insists she's a virgin & doesn't understand why people associate all this with her, and in fact the more she refuses to talk about, the more people obsess on finding it out.
But if she said she knew exactly what was going on, everyone would get bored w/her, fast, all the 'she can't really be that naive, can she?' mystery would vanish.

Brit's image is of a piece with all the other images of impossibly beautiful/powerful chix all over advertising. Side effect of this explosion of positive images is that in the real world, 99% of actual females don't exist any more, or they're starving/exercising themselves to death. Wonder if Justin'll be able to get it up.

I'm with those saying that the Britney-fancying older crowd mostly aren't buying her CDs, which would sit uncomfortably next to Coldplay and Oasis (or Van Morrison or the Fatback Band or whatever) and have to be explained very carefully to the wife. Also: at 20, Britney clearly isn't jailbait anymore, which might be while the virgin angle remains so important to keeping the idea of her interesting.

Explaining CD purchases to the wife!??? Jesus. Anybody who has to do THAT has deeper problems than they know.

A guy I work with gets all his online bought CDs (mostly blues and soul reissues) sent to the office so the wife doesn't find out.

Idea for short story: Brit-clone in alternate universe sacrifices sexual pleasure *ever* for career and satisfaction of bringing whole nation to fever pitch of desire and debauched frenzy. Sounds like a Carol Lay cartoon, no?

Britney should do lesbian chic ... there's something very touching about Britney. It's so tempting to refer to her as Brit ... after all she always looks like she's on the brink of tears, and she never seems to know quite where to look ... not in a detached or embarrassed way, but in a bewildered way. It's revealing that this aura of harmlessness can percolate through even the most vulgar sexual display ... perhaps porn isn't quite so meaningful as I thought.

Would pornography work if you knew that none of the participants were doing it for the money - I mean, if all the subjects were genuinely enjoying themselves?

What, you mean like voyeurism?