Double Standards

There are many examples of bias when it comes to images of the human body in the media, but two recent events seem to stand out among the rest as the pinnacle of double standards regarding the subject. I'm talking about Miley Cyrus vs. Taylor Lautner.
You might remember the scandal ensuing Miley Cyrus' "racy" photo spreads in a 2008 issue of Vanity Fair. The entertainer, then 15, was criticized on almost every talk show for a month, and calls for her employer, Disney, to pull the plug on her were coming from every corner of the nation. Fast forward a year to the premier of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" with a shirtless picture of Taylor Lautner helping sell the saga to millions of fans and a new question arises: If both entertainers are minors, why not the same outcry? There is a double standard in the media and this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Think about Ray-J and Kim Kardashian and the results of their sex-tape scandal. Both come out in the end with a television show, and the creation of said tape may very well have been a ploy by the two to increase their market value, but the results speak volumes to the double standard. The talking heads on t.v. label her a tramp, and as for Ray-J? Well, boys will be boys.
As a new generation comes of age in an era of social networking websites and technology that places a video camera the size of a candy bar in the pockets of almost every boy and girl, the double standards that relate to images of the body increase the divide between what is acceptable based on gender. Will this new generation let themselves be defined by what their facebook profile image says they are, or will they let their true selves define their image?

-James Rutherford