The body grows older; the mind, one hopes, grows softer. Justin Bieber steps onto the Grammys stage wearing little more than boxer shorts and black socks, and suddenly we declare him grown. A raw act, we’re told—an offering of honesty, of soul laid bare. Others call it baffling, even disturbing, unsettled by a performance that flirts so closely with undress. But who are we to protest?

Once, the disdain came loudest from older men who sneered at his pre-pubescent voice, his softness, his prettiness—at the very things that made him desirable. He was easy on the eye, a doll to be admired and dismantled in the same breath. It was fashionable to hate him.

Then came the litany of recklessness: urinating in a restaurant mop bucket, the abandoned monkey in Germany, the tabloid parade of bratty excess. Legal troubles piled up, stories of disrespect followed close behind, and obscene wealth insulated him from consequence, from the slow education of ordinary life. Entitlement clung to him like cologne.

And yet here we are. A sharp crew cut, a half-naked body under the glare of millions, and absolution arrives. Forgiveness, it seems, does not always come through music. Sometimes it comes through the body.