I'm 23 so I grew up with pop singers like Beyonce, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj as societal role models and I would most definitely say it affected me and the way I perceived myself, the things I wore and the way I interacted with the opposite sex in negative ways. The more I learned the more I realized that this wasn't healthy and tried to understand the reasons why I would model these people- to gain shallow self-esteem, it was trendy, to get attention etc. When I first saw the headline about Ariana I reacted really emotionally with anger directed at her and other women who say similar things, maybe the strong reaction came because I used to model that and it's kind of horrifying?!
After reading the comments here I feel abit embarrassed now because I think I adopted that mindset of 'blaming the victim' as Beau mentioned, this is what I posted on facebook when I first saw the headline:
I am sickkkk to death of women who claim to be promoting women's rights going on and on about how they feel objectified when they objectify themselves for a living. It's these kind of 'liberal and progressive' values that can destroy a society, I probably sound like a granny but what happened to respecting yourself and having modesty? IMO parading around half naked and being sexy is not fighting inequality, it's only adding to the problem and sustaining the idea that women are sex objects!?!?!
Taking into account what Beau said, Ariana like many others is a product of society so can she be blamed for not knowing any better? Well, no. Which kind of takes away the anger that I felt towards her, and the comments the guy made were rude and did objectify her. However I still feel that the way she chooses to express her 'art' in the public arena isn't helping the issue.
This topic reminds me of what the C's said a while back about self-presentation in relation to what you're aligning yourself with:
[quote author=http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,39785.0.html]Q: (L) Alright. So, when I gave these talks here at these meetings we had a few years ago, and I described making a decision to help and just do one thing after another, day after day; in making such choices one day after the other, will this gradually move you step-by-step to a different timeline?
A: Yes
Q: (L) So it's accumulation of daily steps, daily choices, daily activities?
A: Yes and it would be extremely beneficial if more of your members learned and practiced this.
Q: (L) Can you be more specific about that?
A: For those who find themselves in a life situation that is less than desirable or optimal, small daily acts that declare their affinity for another reality will accumulate and trigger a phase transition.
Q: (L) Well, okay... You've said steps, daily steps. You don't like the reality that you're in so you look around yourself and you see things about your reality that you don't like... I mean, what kind of first daily steps can you take? If you're in a reality that's freaking controlling you and everything around you, how can you take steps? So many people are in situations where they can't even do that sort of thing. What kind of steps can people take at the most basic level?
A:
Changing the mode of self-presentation and self-representation is the most basic.
Q: (Galatea) So like, changing habits?
A: Yes
Q: (Galatea) Changes in lifestyle here and there.
(L) Yeah, changes in your lifestyle?
(Perceval)
Changes in your mode of self-presentation is kind of like what you identify with, ya know? It gets into what we were just talking about earlier. If a person is wearing clothes that identify him with a certain aspect of common popular culture, then if you are at odds with the world at large because of the insanity and suffering, that would be one of the first things to change: you identification with “popular culture”.
(L) So in other words, if you are not at home in the world the way it is and the way it has grown and the way it has developed, you need to put yourself into a different world NOW with small changes.
(Perceval) And at least stop identifying with this one. All the aspects that popular culture today pushes on people as means to identify with the reality of this world and what makes it tick - which is all kind of depraved and dysfunctional...
And people absorb that and they start wearing clothes, and speaking differently, and that's all nothing but identifying with a manufactured aspect of this world and culture.
(L) Hairdos, clothing...
(Perceval) Anything.
(L) If you want to be part of a completely different world... In a sense, it's kinda like some of these people that belong to these organizations that like medieval stuff. So, they all get dressed up, and they have meetings, they have mock battles or whatever.
(Perceval) If there's enough bleedthrough, those people are gonna find themselves living 400 years ago! [laughter]
(L) And then dress: the whole Gothic thing, painting their nails black, and that identifies them with that “Goth” reality, so that's the timeline that they'll go into...
(Galatea)
So basically, be the change that you want to see.
(L) Yeah. Be the change you want to see. I guess begin to model yourself on the people that you want to be LIKE or be WITH.
(Pierre) It goes beyond presentation and appearances. With those medieval guys, for example, that's the visible manifestation of what they like, what they think about...
(L) Yeah,
how you present yourself is about what the values are that go with certain ways of appearing, like having self-respect, care for yourself, external considering, and so on. I mean, some of the hairdos these days are just completely... They disrespect the fact that they're a woman or the fact that they're a man and most of all that they are human beings.
(Pierre) And even the fundamental notion of beauty. It's almost like disrespecting the universe.
(L) So these are the kinds of small changes people can make. And by making these changes, what then happens?
A: Will attract the new reality incrementally.
Q: (Chu) I guess it's like becoming a better antenna for what you want to attract. Your outward appearance and how you present yourself... But then they said self-representation? That would attract the reality. It already exists somewhere, so it's not like you create it.
(L) You move yourself towards it by activating it in your own life.[/quote]
Ariana and her friends are probably spending a lot of effort, time and money to have a body that does make them comfortable to show almost naked in public. On the other hand, most women will wear a swimsuit and go to the beach no problem. So why not their underwear? Especially where I come from, we spend days on end from morning till night in our swimwear, when we are in a city by the beach. But none of us would wear a swimsuit to go to school, office, for groceries or to a neighbour's house in a swimsuit. Nobody told us not to, but it is like this unwritten rule of the society/community we live in. And I think it is the same with wearing one's underwear in public. Some things are socially accepted at certain places and others are best kept within the walls of one's private space, like a couple's intimate moments. It is the externally considerate thing to do. In the end it might not be so much about "showing skin", but how and where is done I think. 
