The Nipple Distinction

Miley Cyrus has been a fixture of this journal for years, which tracks—she tends to show up places without her clothes and say things nobody else would say, and that combination is basically an editorial policy. The Jimmy Kimmel appearance where she talked openly about her body was vintage Miley: not defensive, not defiant, just matter-of-fact, the way you’d explain a personal philosophy that happens to have worked out.

I’ve been a fan long enough to remember when she was still being managed like a Disney property, when the gap between the public character and the actual person was visibly straining under the pressure. When that gap finally closed—or when she at least stopped pretending it was there—what came out the other side was more interesting than almost any calculated pop star reinvention I can think of.

On nudity she was characteristically direct: I’m sure my dad would prefer I didn’t hang my tits out all the time, but he’d probably rather I show my tits and be a good person than wear a shirt and be an asshole. If you’re hanging your tits out, you can’t be an asshole. I’m not sure that’s philosophically watertight, but as personal ethics go it has a certain internal consistency.

Then she got more specific—the problem was never the breasts, it was always the nipples: People aren’t afraid of boobs. The problem is nipples. When I show my boobs, no one has a problem because my nipples are covered, so that’s okay. America loves tits. It’s the nipples they don’t like. The distinction is genuinely more interesting than it sounds. The nipple as the unit of American moral panic. You could write a thesis.

She also described herself as a vegan nudist who’s very environmentally conscious, which might be the most efficient sentence anyone has ever used to establish a personal brand without trying to establish one. Anyone who doesn’t love Miley is getting something wrong about what’s worth loving.