Porn meets pop: Cher has a lot to answer for

Shot on the deck of the gigantic USS Missouri battleship, the video to Cher's 1989 hit If I Could Turn Back Time featured her surrounded by hundreds of panting sailors and sitting astride a gigantic cannon. Music may have died when Buddy Holly’s plane crashed in Clear Lake in 1959 but If I Could Turn Back Time marked the moment the subtle use of sexual innuendo in pop music was butchered in its prime.

What made the video even more hysterical was what the 43-year-old singer was wearing. Or rather what she wasn't. MTV briefly banned the promo because of a close-up of the butterfly she has tattooed across her buttocks. Back then tattoos on buttocks were a rarity, but Cher's see-through outfit left little to the imagination and in an unprecedented role reversal provided a nightmare scenario for teenagers across the globe: what if my Mum goes out dressed like that?

Twenty years on and once again female singers are pushing the murky boundaries of how little you can wear before you're actually naked. The difference is that today, unlike Cher, their videos aren't banned and their live performances don't cause moral outrage - it's just how pop music is.

Last week, nude photos of the R&B singer Rihanna were leaked on the internet by an ex-partner. You would imagine such an event would pique the curiosity of the online population but barely a ripple was registered by Google's almighty search engines. The reason why is clear - we've seen enough already.

Despite its adult nature Rihanna's latest album Rated R doesn't come with a Parental Advisory sticker (possibly because the music industry has given up on the notion of anyone under 18 ever buying a CD again) but it should have one for the CD booklet photos of the basque-wearing star in a variety of pornographic poses.

Unlike Cher 20 years ago, Rihanna is not alone: Lady Gaga, Fergie, Britney, Beyonce, Shakira, Pink, Katy Perry and,