Camel Toes Vs. Penal Thrusts

In the beginning of the summer I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite artists Ashlyne Huff open up for the New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys on their comeback summer tour. This was a cool opportunity for her because it was her first big tour and it was so surreal for me to see this artist who I saw play tiny club stages just a year before performing in giant, sold out stadiums. Everyone, however, wasn’t this enthusiastic about her position as opening act.

Being one of Ashlyne’s street team leaders I like to search her name and @replies on Twitter to find positive things people say about her to retweet. During tour I spent a lot of nights commanding these searches. More often than not I found extremely negative things. People called her a “talentless twat” and criticized her leotard calling her the girl who forgot her pants. Someone even called her out for having a camel toe.

While these comments made me sad, they also sparked a little contemplation. Why were all these girls (most of NKOTBSB’s fans are female) so critical of Ashlyne’s mildly provocative dance moves and outfits, but not critical of NKOTBSB’s sexually suggestive dance moves and lyrics? If the New Kids and Backstreet Boys had been two bands of girls and Ashlyne had been a boy, would the female performers still have been sluts and the male performers still have been “sexy”?

That seems to be the curious thing about the music business, sexuality that is. It’s such a double edged sword. Men just step up on stage and play a guitar or sing lyrics they didn’t even write and women swoon and throw their panties at their dream boats. Then woman steps up on stage singing her own songs and playing the same guitar in skinny jeans and a t-shirt and she’s “not quite as talented.” Or she shows up singing her songs and dancing her own choreo in a leotard and “she’s trying too hard to be Britney (or Gaga or Madonna), who does she think she is?”

When will we as music consumers begin to judge artists with the same rules no matter what gender he or she is? When we will as music consumers accept artists for who they are and base our opinions of them on their musical abilities rather than surface features?

And seriously can someone explain to me the difference between

This

And This?