After a lot of teasing, vestal virgin Destiny Ray Cyrus released the music video for her latest single, “Adore You.” It is the mainstream media equivalent of a low-ranked X-Art porno. It is also the latest piece of evidence in my new theory that Miley Cyrus has maybe, probably, never actually had sex.
It’s still pretty dirty. It’s four minutes and 38 seconds of half-naked writhing. It’s tough to watch if you, like I am now, are visiting your parents for the holidays. I watched it with my mom looking over the shoulder, and this is what I got.
Me: Miley Cyrus has a new music video out.
Mom: Another one?
Me: Yes. Will you live-chat watch it with me… for work?
Mom: No thanks, I’m in no position to judge other people’s daughters’ sex tapes.
The music video, which racked up 19 million views when it leaked a day early on Christmas, features Cyrus engaging in every high school female’s idea of what solo sex constitutes of: soft lights, flattering angles, lacy lingerie, and unlimited amounts of writhing.
It features none of what really happens during self-pleasure: untold amounts of time spent on finding free porn that doesn’t immediately cut to the blowjob portion of the video, constantly adjusting the volume in case your roommates come home, icing your nose after you drop your precariously balanced laptop on your face because it was too heavy to hold up one-handed.
In a nod to vintage technology and homemade pornography, Cyrus at times films herself with a Panasonic handheld camcorder. No explanation is given for why her version of the night-vision mode renders her in a soft and fuzzy blue glow. Most mid-aughts-era camcorders generally leave subjects looking like The Blair Witch Project.
There are a lot of fluttering bedsheets and wandering hands as Cyrus wiggles about, crooning about how much she needs her lover, while visually making the oh-so-bold statement that, thanks to those wandering hands slowly creeping down her waistband, she actually doesn’t need a lover at all. Eschewing conventional wisdom on dermatology, Cyrus continually caresses her face, oily T-zones be damned! She also engages in other tropes of female sexuality: lip biting, hip gyrating, and eyelash batting (all before getting into a bathtub while wearing a long-sleeved lace bodysuit, because sex).
As any female who has spent more than $24 at Victoria’s Secret on anything other than “Buy Five, Get One Free” cotton underpants can tell you, most of the things Cyrus acts out in the video generally don’t come off very sexy when you try them in real life (see: the one and half million YouTube hits that pop up under the search term “sexy fail” as veritable proof). But hey: maybe we’re all just doing sex wrong. Maybe we should be marginalizing little people, jiggling our ass cheeks on everything possible, and cavorting, fully clothed, in tepid water in an effort to get properly laid.
Screengrab via YouTube