At this point Miley Cyrus is synonymous with controversy. Since her twerk heard around the world at this year’s VMAs, Cyrus has consistently dominated the media.

Her singles “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball” both dominated the charts, while Bangerz, her fourth studio album, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. Whether we like it or not we are all just riding the wave of Miley mania.

The latest Cyrus-centric fad has been a string of open letters to the singer, penned by her fellow celebs. The letter that started it all was written by the iconic and unabashedly outspoken Sinead O’Connor.

In her original letter, O’Connor warned Cyrus about letting the music industry “prostitute” her for all she’s worth. She also warned Cyrus of the dangers of letting herself be exploited by playing into her sexual appeal at the expense of showcasing her true talents.

This letter was, of course, in response to Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” video. If you don’t know about that little gem then you best get out from under that rock and go educate yourself.

The conversation quickly devolved once Cyrus and O’Connor started to argue back and forth in a series of escalating tweets and letters. Cyrus made fun of O’Connor’s struggles with bipolar disorder and took a shot at Amanda Bynes, who was recently submitted for inpatient psychiatric treatment.

This was a low blow on Cyrus’s part. It is inappropriate and insensitive to laugh at people with mental disorders. O’Connor’s subsequent letters where intent on making Cyrus apologize for her transgressions.

It is easy to lose sight of the original issue in the exchange between Cyrus and O’Connor. Fortunately, artists like Amanda Palmer and Charlotte Church added their own letters to the mix. Sufjan Stevens even added his own letter correcting Cyrus’s use of “laying” vs “lying” in Wrecking Ball. It’s an appropriate grammatical correction that helped provide a bit of comic relief, tinged with hints of pretension, to an otherwise tense discussion.

While Palmer’s and Church’s letters address Cyrus, the issues they discuss transcend Cyrus and her current antics. This is not a critique of Miley Cyrus. This conversation is about the status of women in the music industry and pop culture.

The music industry has always been male-dominated and has made billions of dollars off turning women into sex objects. Sex sells. We all know this because we’re the ones who are buying. The problem here, or at least one of them, is the alarming over-sexualization of young female pop stars.

This is something that we have seen time and time again. Once a talented young female pop star hits 18, all her clothes start to come off and she morphs into this voracious sex kitten.

Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera did it.

Rihanna did it and did it well.

Most recently Selena Gomez and Cyrus did it too. Even Justin Bieber has begun to abstain from clothing, but then again he’s just a huge tool.

This is a problem. It has become not only accepted but expected that young female pop stars will showcase their sexuality and dance around in skimpy outfits for our delight. These young women shouldn’t be demonized for their actions when we have no right to police them; rather, we should use them as a mirror for our society and question what that says about how we, as a society, see and treat women.

It has never been easy to discuss these issues and tease out where the exploitation ends and the empowerment begins. Women are entitled to the expression of our sexuality, but at the same time we have to face the inevitable questions that arise when we do. When are we being exploited and when are we acting as empowered individuals?

It is not always clear. The conversations are hard and can get controversial, but they are necessary for progress. To abandon them because they are hard is to give up, it is to passively accept inequality in a country that promises equality for all.