Miley Cyrus, Steubenville and teen culture run amok

Illegal is sort of beside the point. Right, proper, nice, respectful, decent — you choose the word — is more apt. This is what got me: a teenage culture that was brutal and unfeeling, that treated the young woman as dirt. “ ‘She’s deader than O.J.’s wife. She’s deader than Caylee Anthony,’ ” one kid exulted in a YouTube posting. “ ‘They raped her harder than that cop raped Marsellus Wallace in “Pulp Fiction.”. . . She is so raped right now.’ ” Yes, I know, they were all drunk, woozy and disoriented from a tawdry cable TV and celebrity culture.

You could compare what happened in Steubenville, Ohio, to the notorious 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, 28, who was stabbed many times while her horrified neighbors in Queens, N.Y., allegedly watched and did nothing. Maybe. But the neighbors were scared or confused, not sure of what was happening. They were not taking pictures and having a jolly good time — and, besides, subsequent reporting greatly reduced the number of inert witnesses from an astounding 38 to far fewer (maybe none) who heard screams and did not actually see the killing. This was an urban legend that arose out of fear of urban living.

So now back to Miley Cyrus and her twerking. I run the risk of old-fogeyness for suggesting the girl’s a tasteless twit — especially that bit with the foam finger. (Look it up, if you must.) But let me also suggest that acts such as hers not only objectify women but debase them. They encourage a teenage culture that has set the women’s movement back on its heels.