Miley Cyrus is getting the attention she wanted. No one doubts that people do perverted things. Since time immemorial sinners and saints alike have done in private that they would not dare do in public. People think before they speak, hold back anger when they would like to retaliate, and keep a check on what would otherwise be unacceptable behavior. It was expected, and most people complied.

For example, during John F. Kennedy’s presidency the media knew some of the late president’s sexual dalliances but chose not to report on them. Camelot was too big of a thing to bring down. The nation was spared bringing the private sexual escapades to the fawning public. This all changed when it was learned that there a semen-stained blue dress that had an encounter with then President Bill Clinton.

Now the world knew what the Clinton had done in private and sexual genie was out of the bottle. Oral sex among teenagers went up. There were rumors that young girls were wearing colored wrist bands that indicated what type of sex they had engaged in. Fact or fiction, it was the public discussion that made the difference.

Things have gotten a lot worse. Sexual perversion has been made legal to such an extent that if a company refuses to photography a public display of “what we do privately we want the world to know” same-sex wedding the company is forced to pay a hefty fine.

There were always stories of who might be engaging in same-sex sex behind closed doors, but rarely did the same-sexers turn it into parades down the main streets of major US cities where same-sex sex is flaunted, public officials walk in agreement, and large corporations donate millions of dollars for the “cause.” What was once done in private has been brought out into the open.

So it’s not surprising that a Lady Gaga and a Miley Cyrus can strut their sexual stuff before millions of people and get paid big bucks for it. If these women can make a career of what was once done in private, then why can’t everybody — paid or not — do the same thing any time and any place? How can anyone say no?

The Will Smith family looked genuinely horrified as they watched Lady Gaga lift the bar of sexual innuendo to a public art form. What came next by Cyrus left the passé Gaga in the proverbial sexual dust. We have since learned that the Smiths were not horrified. They were enjoying the public display, and their two children were being desensitized to it all.

I wonder if the Smiths are aware of Hollywood’s “dirty sexual secret” when it comes to child actors. If not, they should read this article.

One more thing. Cyrus was on the stage with Robin Thicke whose Blurred Lines hit has garnered a lot of attention “for the song’s purportedly sexist video and ‘rapey’ lyrics.” Robin is the son of Growing Pains star Alan Thicke.

The elder Thicke had this to say about his son’s public sexual simulation act at the MTV VMA awards show:

“Anyone expecting the VMAs to have ‘Growing Pains’ sensibilities does not watch videos and should be familiar with content before watching with children,” the 66-year-old actor tweeted. “Don’t complain, supervise!”

I wonder if he gave that warning to Will and Jada Smith for exposing their children to his son’s public display of sexual perversion.

It wasn’t too long ago that the elder Thicke pounced on his former Growing Pains co-star Kirk Cameron for his anti-same-sex sex comments. In fact, nearly all of Hollywood jumped on Cameron because of his comments.

So it’s perverse to speak out against same-sex sex, but it’s not perverse to engage in a public display of simulated and not-so-simulated acts of sexual perversion in front of millions of television viewers. One thing has led to the other. Expect a lot more since our courts have legalized perversion and forced all of us to ascent to it or pay a heavy cost.

Gaga, Cyrus, and the Thickes of this world can only say “supervise” your children. OK. Done that, but what about the tens of millions of kids who get no supervision and then are let loose on society where they will define deviancy down a few notches more? Their minds are a running sewer. All you have to do is look at the expressions on the faces of the Smith children, Jaden (15), and Willow (12). Their parents brought them to the public display of perversion.

Here’s what Robin Thicke’s mother said about what she saw:

“I just keep thinking of her mother and father watching this. Oh, Lord, have mercy. … I was not expecting her to be putting her butt that close to my son. The problem is now I can never ‘unsee’ it.”

Millions of American young people won’t be able to “unsee” it and might even try to replicate it behind closed doors. And the parents will wonder where they learned to do “that.”