I don’t get out much.

And I doggedly refuse to watch Miley Cyrus videos.

So my only real encounter with twerking was at a quincenera years ago.

My husband and I were youth ministers at the time and when we saw a group of teenage girls doing this “dance” with their butts towards the center of gathering our jaws dropped.

What is this thing?

We asked incredulously. Back then–or at least in our corner of the hinterlands–they called it “booty dancing.”

Truthfully, not an attractive sight.

And these girls were doing it without the added “allure” of direct-contact partners.

We talked about it in youth group. I said, emphatically, that the litmus test for dancing needed to be–would you do this with your sibling?!

I thought this was logical and humane. Most of us would be grossed out by highly sexualized dancing with a sibling….

That was how naive I was then. It pains me now to know that what we adults may ignore as a fad of youth culture will one day come to back to haunt us.

I haven’t watched Miley Cyrus pimp herself out for a few hits. I already have enough scars on my soul. But if I could talk to her over some peach tea I would tell her to put her clothes on and dance like a lady and work on her poor little starved self-esteem.

I remember when every girl wanted to be Hannah Montana…

Ugh.