Bare facts are that it's not nudity, it's marketing Singers Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus perform at the MTV Video Music Awards. GET your gear off, go on. Get it off. It's not a proposition; it's serious career advice. Nudity, it seems, is the latest career-defining move for young women who want to cement their place in the spotlight. Recently, we've seen singers Miley Cyrus and Rickie-Lee Coulter, Aussie rapper Iggy Azalea, and even model Lara Bingle getting their kit off in public. There's a good reason for all these lady-bits on display. Nudity sells movies, magazines, newspapers and songs and nudity arouses interest (among other things). Don't be fooled. It's not about sexual expression; it's just exploitation of the market power of a naked pair of young, pert boobs. If you don't want to make a sex tape to gain publicity, then you take your clothes off instead. I don't think it's outrageous or alarming. I just think it's a bit sad that there is such a pressure on young women to draw attention to themselves in this way. Clearly, they don't feel secure enough to just let their singing or modelling do the job. Nudity is also very restrictive. You've got a better chance of getting the reaction you want if you look like Lara Bingle rather than Clive Palmer, for instance. Of course, Miley Cyrus takes the craze to a whole new level, appearing totally naked in her latest film clip, straddling a wrecking ball and performing oral pleasure on a sledge hammer. It's hard to see where can she go to from here. What's next for you when you are only 20 and you've appeared totally naked in a film clip? Live sex on stage? Please, no. While many commentators are viewing Cyrus's performance as evidence of her burgeoning womanhood, I disagree. I'd suggest it's nothing deeper than a publicity stunt designed to draw attention to her new film clip. She's not naked because she wants to celebrate her adult sexuality and fancies garden tools; it's because she and her managers know it's a great marketing. We're talking about it and so are millions of others. The Wrecking Ball film clip has attracted more than ten million hits on YouTube and is now the most viewed clip on Vevo. Of course, Cyrus is not the only Disney princess to take this route. Former Mouseketeer Britney Spears appeared semi-nude in a number of film clips. She also stopped wearing underwear, which gave the paparazzi a lot to shoot as she was getting in and out of cars. Also using nudity as a promotional tool is Aussie rapper Azalea, who flashes her near-naked breasts as she emerges from a pool in her new video. Ricky-Lee Coulter did the same thing, riding a horse in the buff to promote her new single a few weeks ago. You won't be surprised to learn Azalea's debut song was called Pussy. I'll bet it wasn't about cats. Coulter's latest song is called Come and Get in Trouble With Me. Can you see a theme emerging here? In each case, the naked clips have been phenomenally successful. So who can blame Cyrus for jumping on the bandwagon - or wrecking ball? We should also mention Lara Bingle's appearance in the latest Oyster magazine wearing nothing but a pair of designer cargo pants. Bingle's manager tells us she wouldn't ever do gratuitous nudity, but she doesn't mind exposing her bod for "high fashion." Since when is leaving your top off completely high fashion? Again, nudity works - especially when you look like Bingle. She's back in the headlines and the magazine is selling fast. I think this tells us a lot about how we value young women. It tells us that young women's naked arses and breasts are their most valuable - and saleable - assets. I notice that no one is no one calling for the guys to do the same thing. Where's the pressure on Justin Timberlake or the One D boys to get their kit off and let their moobs hang out for a bit of cheap publicity? Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against nudity per se. I actually posed naked in this very paper to make a point about body image. But I chose to do it with the full knowledge that readers knew enough about me to not write me off as "just that chick who was naked in the paper." If I'd done the nude shoot starting out 20 years ago in journalism, things may have gone differently. I would be conceding that what I said, wrote or did was less important that what my naked body looked like. In time, these young women will get it. They will learn that nudity will get you some short-term attention, but lasting fame is more than skin deep. In the end, it's just a race to the bottom - and the boobs.