Miley Cyrus and the Post-Gender Generation

Solomon was meant to be taken generally, not literally.  And when he says there is nothing new under the sun, we are almost led to believe him entirely – if it hadn't been for automobiles and the internet and America.  About the rest of it he was right.  You can always expect the best and worst out of humanity, because the loves and hates of human nature have always remained the same, which leads us to do the same kinds of things we've always been doing.  And if he was right about anything in particular, it was about the recurring existence of Miley Cyrus.

Some people think that Miley Cyrus is something new, and they think it only because they've forgotten about David Bowie and Johnny Rotten.  We've already had someone who dressed like a transsexual space alien and threw his middle finger at masculinity, and we've already had a movement of people who were completely averse to good manners and taste.  Miley Cyrus isn't for our children, but for our parents.  The difference is that our parents had the better music.

Glam and punk were the expressions of a '70s too intoxicated to remain sensible, and too tired of hippie sermonizing to even pretend morality.  And before them the Indians had their cross-dressers named berdaches, and before them the Canaanites had their gay temple prostitutes whom the Israelites called qedeshim.  Gay marriage disgusted Tacitus when it was performed by Nero, and pederasty was openly performed by the Athenians to the disgust of the Spartans, who confused everyone with their unhusbandly approach to marriage.

The point of the matter is that bucking sexual norms can be novel only to someone unfamiliar with history.  And people are always bucking, because the norms are eternal.  Nearly every great and ancient nation's had a generation of people who were terrible at being men and women – or perhaps too bored with being spiritually great in general.  It usually happens after a period of safety and luxury, before they're conquered by a nation that takes manhood very seriously – who are usually referred to as barbarians.  The major difference between the last time this happened and the present is that today's invading "barbarians" call masculinity machismo, and our deviants are considered by our intelligentsia not as deviants, but as moralists.

And perhaps this is why Miley's so shocking: not because what she's doing is actually anything new, but because she's backed by an army of militant pantsuits who say that what she's doing is right.  The New York Times has gone so far as to call her the avatar of the post-gender generation – as if the overwhelming majority of youngsters these days had already been polled and said they were tired of seeing pretty girls.  Of course, there are some of them who are sick of seeing pretty girls – and they are probably all ugly girls.  They're the minority of our children who've been so terribly cursed with terrible taste and minimal talents that they want to be themselves without anyone left to criticize them.  And they are getting what they want – almost.  They're getting it from the authorities, from their professors, and from the president.  Whom they are not getting it from (if they are straight) is everyone they really want to have sex with, because the people they want to have sex with are having sex with people who are sexually attractive.

The reason that the "post-gender generation" is temporary (and hopefully only a generation) is because the one thing they never should have bucked is the one thing they did, and it happens to be beauty.  There's nothing attractive about Miley Cyrus, nothing that makes you say I want this woman living in my house with me forever.  She's already ruined her looks with androgyny and bad fashion.  She's unsuitable for any pursuit of tranquility (which every single one of us eventually needs), useless for any kind of actual production (which most of us are forced by circumstances into doing), and even worse for the raising of children (which is the biological purpose and statistically unavoidable result of having sex).  And if children aren't ready to begin searching for these qualities intently, they'll feel themselves drawn magically to them by their guts – which are eternal, unlike the tastes of our intelligentsia.

The irony of the post-gender generation is that it claims to be getting a minority out of the closet, while forcing the majority back into another.  It demands that the majority of people celebrate things they don't really feel like celebrating – unless they have to celebrate it for the purpose of fitting in.  And this is because a person who's post-gender or transsexual has never really left his sex.  He's just terrible at being it.  He straddles the infinite chasm between two ideals, and he cheapens both of them while getting neither.  Children instinctively know this, and teachers know that they know it – and we know this because teachers are spending a lot of time telling children to say that they don't know it.

The post-gender movement is against the things all generations of healthy people have recognized as masculine and feminine, which means that in a universal sense, it's profoundly anti-democratic.  It's about pretending the forces of nature never existed, and that all the healthy people in fiction and in history, from the Nephilim to Lord Byron, were wrong about their feelings.  The movement isn't about the minority who wants to wear makeup and still be respected as manly; it's about the people who know he isn't manly and are forced to celebrate him because he isn't.  It asks people whether they would rather be "individuals" or be beautiful – and it not only asks them to pick the option they'd rather not, but chastises them when they refuse to conform to the celebrations of tasteless individuality.  Everyone is beautiful, they say – especially when they're responsible for making themselves ugly.

While it's worth mentioning that almost every valuable sermon is a calling to either fight or employ your instincts usefully, sometimes our most timely sermons are about telling us our sermonizing has gone horribly wrong (which is why Jesus was hated by the Pharisees).  In our case, it has gone wrong because we tried to protect the outcasts and in the process buried our winners.  And now we know that we can be post-gender only by mass indoctrination and thought control and persecution.  We can avoid gender only by keeping children away from romance, and if the men and women of our day aren't good enough to rebel against our intelligentsia as they should and fight them with every ounce of our sexual vitality, we will have to wait – for our children to do it for us.

And their protests will be unlike any protests the left has ever imagined.  They might be made in dirty looks and angry comments at priggish individualists in ugly costumes.  But they will more likely be silent.  They will more likely be accidental.  They'll be a return to good art and good fashion and pictures of beautiful women posted on bedroom walls of adolescent boys.  They'll be an unspoken evasion of all the post-gender possibilities for the beautiful maidens and muscular champions we always wanted.  It's our desire for good lovers that will make us into men and women – and there is nobody in the world who can keep us from doing it.  And this is because romance is bigger than bad social constructions.

How Miley Cyrus Buried Hannah Montana and Reinvented Herself: Why She Can't—and Shouldn't—Be Stopped!

Miley Cyrus killed Hannah Montana using a potent combination of sexuality, foam fingers and marijuana. And it happened right in front of our eyes.

Her transformation began exactly two years ago, when she caused international outrage by twerking her butt off against Robin Thicke's crotch during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. The performance came across as desperate, a suggestion that she was willing to do anything to break free from the shackles of her Disney-sweetheart alter ego.

But two years later, as she gears up to host tonight's VMAs ceremony, we know how wrong we were. It has become remarkably clear that Miley is much smarter than anyone initially gave her credit for.

Scott Gries/Invision/AP

She may have stuck a fork in Hannah Montana that night, but she reinvented Miley Cyrus.

Here are five things we're loving about Miley 2.0:

Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Clear Channel

She Outwitted Her Critics:

For a while, Miley's spree of candid marijuana talk, twerking and tongue-wagging gave the impression she needed to come with a permanent NC-17 warning. And we weren't the only ones who thought so. In her recent New York Times interview, Miley admitted: "People that I really loved and thought were my friends judged me for it. They were like, ‘You were on drugs when you did that performance.' I did nothing! I still don't get it."

But Miley decided to use the harsh response to her advantage: "I knew who I was, and I knew the power that I held, but I don't think I realized my full power until that show," she told the NYT. "I didn't realize I could make such a big reaction. I didn't think that many people would care. I knew I was famous, but I didn't know what that meant. Everything was coming to an end and starting a new beginning. In every way."

A friend of Miley's explains to E! News, "She has a big picture view of everything. It's all perfectly planned out. She is very aware of what she is doing and how it's going to be perceived publicly. She knows her own mind very well."

Courtesy Paola Kudacki/Paper Magazine

She's 100 Percent Comfortable in Her Own Skin (and Nothing but Her Skin):

When Miley posed for her Paper Magazine cover shoot in June, you'd be forgiven for thinking she was just trying to copy Kim Kardashian (who memorably attempted to #BreakTheInternet with her oiled-up derriere). The reality is, Miley's shoot was worlds apart. Her choice of prop (a snorting farm animal rather than a burst of champagne) aside, there was a deeper meaning to it.

She sometimes wants to look a mess. Rather than try to be traditionally sexy, she covered herself in grubby mud. The message is clear, even if the choice of body paint is not: I am comfortable with me and I don't give a s--t what you think.

It was quite refreshing, considering we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by picture-perfect celebrities, whether it's Taylor Swift dressed impeccably every time she leaves her apartment or Reese Witherspoon working out without a bead of sweat on her brow.

"She's very real," says a Miley source. "She doesn't aspire to be a pretty princess. That doesn't matter to her. It's more important to be authentic."

Larry Busacca/Getty Images

She Knows Her Worth When It Comes to Love:

When Miley started dating Patrick Schwarzenegger, she unwittingly became a half of the hope for a Brangelina 2.0, young-Hollywood edition. Here was the bad girl snagging the clean-cut good boy. It was an unexpected union and they looked hot together, Miley being an entirely worthy member of the political dynasty and yet someone who might raise a few eyebrows among the Kennedy set.

But six months ago, Patrick was snapped living it up a little too much with bikini clad members of the opposite sex while on spring break and the dream romanceunraveled fast. Miley had enough self-confidence to know she could do better. Patrick denied engaging in any inappropriate behavior on his vacation, but...why would Miley want to even lose a night's sleep (or, better yet, a night's partying) wondering?

"She learned her lesson from previous relationships," says a friend. "Now she has a better sense of what she needs and who she deserves." Not to say that Miley's self-absorbed. "Far from it," the friend added. "It's just that she has learned to really value herself and expects the same from the people around her."

Damn straight!

Since that very public split, Miley has been linked to various people, including Victoria's Secret model Stella Maxwell. Miley told Elle UK: "I'm 22, I'm going on dates, but I change my style every two weeks, let alone who I'm with."

Instagram/Twitter

She Gets Off Her Ass and Gets Out There:

And we don't just mean she works out to maintain her ridiculous bod. At the 2014 VMAs, Miley ditched the foam finger and used her new platform to take a 22-year-old homeless man with a troubled past as her date. And when she won Video of the Year for "Wrecking Ball," it was Jesse Helt who took those tentative steps up to the podium to accept the award on her behalf.

Rather than just walk a red carpet or lend her name to something, she knows the real power of her fame and how to share it. Earlier this year she launched theHappy Hippie Foundation to help homeless, LGBT and otherwise vulnerable young people who need support to get back on their feet.

Says our source: "She is incredibly socially conscious, more so than her peers. She really does know how famous she is. Not in an egotistical way, but she knows she has a voice and is in a privileged position."

Miley is determined to use her fame for a deeper purpose. And while most of us do not have the platform she has, she is inspiring. "If I'm going to be noticed by this many people, what am I really going to say?" she explained to the NYT about her metamorphosis. "What I want to say isn't 'shake your ass.' But even if you listen to 'Can't Stop,' it isn't how I'd say it now, but it is still saying the same thing: 'I'm going to do whatever I want.' Now I know how to say that in my own words, not just in the way that's a hit."

Rocstar/FAMEFLYNET PICTURES

She Can Be Anything She Wants to Be:

Miley is the new normal. Or should be, at least. In her Paper interview, she was very clear about who she is and her philosophy that anything goes. "I don't relate to being boy or girl, and I don't have to have my partner relate to boy or girl," she said.

Instead, she describes herself as pansexual, meaning she's open to wherever her attractions lead her, regardless of sexuality or gender identity. By being honest about who she is, she is hoping she can encourage others to do the same and she's helped blaze the trail for others to do the same. She's teaching her generation that you don't need a label to have an identity and she's leading by example.

Overall, Miley is redefining what it means to be a celebrity. She is the opposite of the seemingly perfect role models like Taylor. She's raw and in your face. She doesn't have a slew of supermodel girlfriends, and she doesn't always look perfect. Her Instagram feed stands out: There are no touch-ups, her camera angles and lighting can suck. She is more interested in inserting random pictures of pizza, making her own memes and showing off the underarm hair she sports from time to time.

Growing up is hard enough, but doing it in front of the world is far harder. Two years ago, we misinterpreted Miley. We believed her outrageous behavior was a sign of being out of control. But ultimately she was more in control than we could have imagined.

And if you aren't convinced yet, prepare to eat your critical words because the pot-loving rebel who wears pasties on Jimmy Kimmel Live! is on course to become one of the most influential leaders of her generation.

She will not be stopped.