What does Miley Cyrus have to do with a polygamist sect of Mormons from West Texas?

Actually, it turns out that they share at least two things in common. Both are currently at the epi-centre of highly publicized scandals, and both epitomize our society's continued fascination with the sexualization of young girls.

Let's start with poor little Miley, the 15-year-old daughter of Billy Ray whose starring role as Hannah Montana on the Disney channel's hit TV show of the same name has earned her legions of tween fans and an absolutely insane amount of money.

Cyrus has stepped into a maelstrom of controversy on the heels of a recent Vanity Fair photo shoot during which famed photographer Annie Leibovitz convinced her to remove her top and clutch a rumpled bed sheet to her chest, a move that resulted in a quasi-topless shot that has a distinctly post-coital vibe, complete with tousled hair and pouty lips.

The damage control began as soon as the picture was leaked onto the Internet. Miley now says she's "embarrassed" by it, while Disney released a statement suggesting that "a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old girl in order to sell magazines."

You can understand the outrage, because, you know, Disney NEVER manipulates children to make money.

Now then, moving on to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the shenanigans that have come to light as a result of an April 3 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in El Dorado, Texas, in which 463 minors were apprehended, i.e.: underage marriages, sexual assaults, and the indoctrination of young girls into believing that their sole purpose in life is to be obedient wives and sire as many children as possible.

Apparently, the threat of eternal damnation is an effective tool of social control, as Texas authorities have reported that 31 out of the 53 girls between the ages of 14 to 17 are pregnant or have already been pregnant in the past.

Ironically, in their ankle-length pioneer-era dresses, the FLDS girls appear to be significantly more modest and virginal than Miley Cyrus - a girl who, also ironically, has been marketed as a squeaky-clean role model (hence the furor over her recent 'tarnishing') despite the fact that her professional wardrobe has always included a lot of micro-minis and knee socks, a look that positively reeks of kiddie-porn.

But of course, appearances can be deceiving. Indeed, the gleeful schadenfreude that's now swirling around both of these situations proves that ultimately, it doesn't really matter what a young girl wears or what her thoughts and feelings are.

Multi-millionaire pop-tart or cloistered chattel, it would seem that to be female and pubescent is to be denied any sort of sexual agency over one's own body while simultaneously being fetishized as a prized object of desire - a problematic juxtaposition in that it encourages a lot of misguided blame and judgement.

In other words, if you're an adolescent girl, you're pretty much damned if you do and damned if you don't - and either way, you'll probably be forced to bear the brunt of the inevitable fall-out.

Marlo Campbell would have kept her top on, Annie Leibovitz or no Annie Leibovitz.