Miley Comes in Like a Wrecking Ball

Freudian Sexual Rights.
We've learned that Freud believed that all societies need sexual prohibition to function. However, Freud also believed that all societies do it too much. People who are restricted too much in their sexual freedom are often the ones who end up becoming a neurosis case.

Essentially, we need to find an equilibrium to how much freedom we can have before everyone starts going crazy. With no sexual prohibition, the Oedipus complex would lead to the sons overthrowing patriarchs in society and getting with their mothers, and who really wants that?

To link this to pop culture, I wanted to look at Miley Cyrus's latest adventure with her sexuality. In her video "Wrecking Ball" we see the nude singer riding a wrecking ball, while also, what seems to be sexually, licking a hammer. On a side note, this hammer licking goes back to Freud's theory of infantile sexuality with the first phase of it being that one finds a sexual object and is orally fascinated with it. Getting back to the overall video, however, the amount of disgust and backlash that came from society was huge. Images and videos circled the web on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and so on mocking and putting the pop star down. On the other hand, we saw several people who liked the video and expression of her broken heart in artistic ways. I would like to see how Freud would react to this, and quite essentially how much sexual freedom society is given today compared to while he was alive. Would he believe it is too much and society is on the verge of crashing? Would he feel if Miley were not able to express herself in this manner she would become neurotic? (Although, I'm sure many would argue she is already there, possibly by the sexual prohibition she was forced into with having a Disney Channel contract, but that's a story for another post.) Overall, I think this happening is a good test of how much sexual freedom one should have in today's society.