As Leveson trundles on, we've reached a point where tabloids watch their backs with a dedication usually reserved for Kelly Brook's breasts. In this purgatory, tabloids hand showbiz PRs copy approval, and patch together sensationalism through court reports of grotesque intra-familial maulings or impending apocalypse – petrol, pasties, the wettest drought imagined. So when the the Sun's splash is "JESSIE GAY" next to a photo of Jessie J, we must be appalled that a paper would "out" a pop star, and we must insist that her sexuality is irrelevant. Nobody should care who she sleeps with, because she's a musician and it's about the music and her love life is none of our business. But I do care.
People should not be outed before they are ready – coming out is a personal process. I know this too well, having spent part of my teens depressed. At a mixed secondary school, not only could I no longer be an active participant in games of kiss-chase, but no one told me that I was normal, and that lesbians existed. "Lesbo" was merely an insult. Teachers were distant, and I thought better than to broach the subject with my overworked single mum. Beyond the strangers in internet chatrooms, where I discussed the subtextual relationship between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and evil slayer Faith, no one said I was allowed to feel like this.
You might think society has progressed. But teens are a tough crowd: Stonewall's latest schools' report found that more than half of lesbian and gay pupils don't feel able to be themselves at school. This could change if they spoke to someone about who they are, yet the same report found that 60% of young gay and lesbian people feel there is "no one at home or school they can talk to about their sexuality". As pathetic as it might seem, is it so bad to look to celebrities for affirmation? For young lesbians to need a role model?
"Role model" is hazardous to define, but in this context, I'm not asking for much. Just one British lesbian in the public eye who's not Sue Perkins, Claire Balding, Mary Portas or Sandi Toksvig. As great as they are, they're invisible to young people. Even though the splash seemed like news, Jessie J is used to the being a non-heterosexual role model. Though her subsequent releases are hardly as Sapphic as her debut single Do It Like A Dude, she's never hidden her bisexuality. And she enjoys proselytising to her fans, spreading cloying mantras through her music, onstage banter, interviews and tweets, like a bobbed Deepak Chopra for the Twilight generation. She advises through Twitter: "Make today the day you do something for YOUR life. Go and make something happen for YOU", and her top 10 song Who You Are is practically an anthem for the downtrodden and pustular: "Sometimes it's hard/To follow your heart/Tears don't mean you're losing/Everybody's bruising/Just be true to who you are."
There's no pressure for Jessie J to be a good role model – she already is, and it seems she wants to be. All I ask is that she be happy about her sexuality, in spite of an unauthorised biographer (one of the few sources from where tabloids can still borrow potentially litigious information) enabling the Sun to out her with all the horny indignity of a rejected ex-lover.
It is wasteful to cast aspersions on Jessie J's desires and quantify her sexuality into a sort of swingometer. It is scandalous if Chloe Govan's claim, that Jessie "was advised not to come out … [but] being bi was trendy, exotic and a fashion statement", denied by Jessie on Twitter, is true for anyone in the entertainment industry. It is a shame that a young woman must tread carefully when discussing part of her identity, for fear of the press declaring open season on her private life. But her sexuality is valuable: for every young girl in Britain too scared to go to school for fear of being called a dyke, for those unsure of themselves because they're not drawn to men, for women who want to look to someone, anyone, to know that not all women are straight, and that this does happen and this is normal.
• Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree
