Popular Feminism: how is it that nudity still creates an uproar?

SINGER SHOCKS IN A SHEER DRESS*

Or: *Singer celebrates her own body in a defiant protest against skewed conventions of conservative feminism.  Protest or exhibitionism? (And does it matter either way?)

As you will all know by now - unless you are one of the very few people who have not gazed despairingly at Rihanna's impossibly toned body having eaten 3 Cadbury Fruit and Nut bars within the space of 10 minutes and been made aware that bikini-body season is now undeniably upon us - Rihanna shocked the world (i.e the headline-hungry media) by wearing a dress made entirely of Swarovski crystals and a very small amount of fine gossamer thread - as far as I could work out.  Here is the image in case you cannot imagine such an outfit being feasibly possible (it very much is):

A field day for the media in one outfit

As you can imagine, the general reception was one of vocal outrage.  Apparently her daring outfit served to objectify herself (I didn't know that such a verb could be used in the passive tense but apparently so) and pollute the minds of her young fans.  By this standard I might ask why I am not a morally polluted and depraved young woman having grown up with images of a leather-clad Madonna kissing an equally scantily-clad Britney?  Likewise why don't  Hannah Montana fans wander around with permanently visible tongues and stripper heels on.  We don't (and yes I do include myself in the Hannah Montana/Miley fan community) because it does not take Stephen Hawking to work out that imitation is not the guaranteed product of admiration.  Such generalities are not only patronising -  in that they expect Rihanna-fans to be stripping off immediately in thoughtless imitation - but also damaging for the fragile reputation of feminism. 

Rihanna's appearance and Miley's general attitude towards her fashion choices and media backlash are both physical and visual examples of how women should be able to celebrate their own body and their own appearance and in doing so negate any claims that a woman's body is anybody's but her own.   Rihanna responded to one questioning reporter by saying 'Do my tits bother you? They're covered in Swarovski crystals girl.' This succinct and definitive line reminds me of that famous Maya Angelou poem Still I Rise in which Angelou defiantly asks:

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

How is it that such a poem, in celebrating the power of the female body and the unwillingness to stoop under the shame that may be forced upon such a power, was received with widespread support and veneration, yet when 35 years later a celebrity represents such ideas by wearing them rather than saying them, she is the focus of cruel and damaging backlash by the very media that should be promoting Angelou's philosophy?  People (and by people I mean men and women) need to understand that the word feminism should not bring to mind a troop of bra-less razor-less lesbians in Dr Martens, in fact it should be acknowledged and accepted that Ryan Gosling can be a feminist (arguably the antithesis of the aforementioned stereotype), that Barack Obama is definitely a feminist, that Rihanna can be a feminist even when twerking in a thong and some loosely strung together diamonds because after all a feminist is someone who believes that women are equal to men therefore this fragile word encompasses all the sane people in the world, be they white, 70-year-old grandpas or daring 20-something celebrities.