‘Let’s show the world what two little Latin girls can do,’ exclaimed Jennifer Lopez to Shakira on her Instagram page before their Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday.

J-Lo added the hashtag #GirlPower to emphasize their duet was going to be an emphatic statement of feminist empowerment.

And she further explained: ‘For me, it’s an opportunity to really bring people together in a moment of celebration, in joy, in love, in unity and happiness. That’s what I feel that we’re going to provide.’

Fine words from a fine lady.

But whatever you think of the actual performance that followed, one thing it most definitely failed to provide was unity.

J-Lo basically reprised her Ramona role from Hustlers at the Super Bowl, hurling herself around a giant pole in a skimpy silver flesh coloured outfit

In fact, it’s already become the second most divisive Super Bowl halftime show in history, after Janet Jackson’s ‘accidental’ nipple-gate fiasco in 2004.

J-Lo’s most recent movie Hustlers features her as a ruthless aggressive pole-dancer named Ramona working in a sleazy men’s strip club.

It’s a good film and she is excellent in the lead role.

But it also carries an R restriction age limit because, amongst other things, it contains ‘severe’ sex and nudity.

Yet J-Lo basically reprised her Ramona role at the Super Bowl, hurling herself around a giant pole in a skimpy silver flesh coloured outfit, having stripped off a studded black leather costume, and repeatedly flashed her crotch to the cameras (She was also joined by Colombian rapper J Balvin who gyrated into her from behind as he sang about booties).

Shakira, meanwhile, belly-danced and tied herself up in what looked like bondage ropes.

She stripped off a studded black leather costume, and repeatedly flashed her crotch to the cameras. Much of the online reaction was instantly and fiercely critical. ‘Trashy burlesque show with stripper pole and multiple J-Lo crotch shots and ass shaking at the halftime show,’ tweeted one viewer

And both ladies appeared to be in some kind of competition to show us as much of their butts as possible.

It was an electrifyingly eye-catching and overtly sexual performance - but it outraged as many viewers as it delighted.

Much of the online reaction was instantly and fiercely critical.

‘Trashy burlesque show with stripper pole and multiple J-Lo crotch shots and ass shaking at the halftime show,’ tweeted one viewer. ‘Guess family time is no more for Super Bowl Sunday.’

Another raged: ‘I love me some J-Lo and Shakira, but the Super Bowl is supposed to be family friendly and I personally don’t think it’s the place for crotch shots, barely any clothes, bending over to show your butt, and stripper poles.’

A third wrote this reverse Q&A:

‘Answer: Lewd. Crude, Disgusting. Nasty. Vulgar. Crossed the line. Glorified porn. Crass. Inappropriate. Gross. Sickening.

Question: what was the halftime show?’

It wasn’t just social media users who were disconcerted by what they saw.

Gil Smart wrote in an USA Today opinion piece: ‘To some, the show was a joyful Miami-infused explosion of dance and high-energy music that got you out of your seat – to others, it looked a lot like soft-core porn.’

Shakira, meanwhile, belly-danced and tied herself up in what looked like bondage ropes. Gil Smart wrote in an USA Today opinion piece: ‘To some, the show was a joyful Miami-infused explosion of dance and high-energy music that got you out of your seat – to others, it looked a lot like soft-core porn’

She added that the NFL should have had a ‘parental warning’ for the show.

‘If the Super Bowl is going to be touted as family entertainment,’ she argued, or at least not marketed as adult entertainment, perhaps the NFL has an obligation to warn people with children that what they’re about to see may be upsetting to some viewers.’

Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider was less circumspect with his critique:

‘Beginning to pole humping, ass slapping, ass shaking end,’ he tweeted. ‘If that’s the requirements for a half-time show, none of the rock bands I know can or will do that. #justsaying.’

Now, at this stage let me make two things absolutely clear:

First, I love J-Lo and Shakira. They’re not just fabulous singers and performers, I’ve met them both and they’re also genuinely nice people.

‘Trashy burlesque show with stripper pole and multiple J-Lo crotch shots and ass shaking at the halftime show,’ tweeted one viewer. ‘Guess family time is no more for Super Bowl Sunday’

Another raged: ‘I love me some J-Lo and Shakira, but the Super Bowl is supposed to be family friendly and I personally don’t think it’s the place for crotch shots, barely any clothes, bending over to show your butt, and stripper poles’

Second, I personally found their halftime show fantastically entertaining.

It was hot, sizzling, sensual and sexy as hell – exactly as I would expect from two stunningly beautiful and talented women who’ve been strutting their stuff like this for several decades to huge deserved acclaim and success.

BUT, and it’s an important ‘but’, I’m a 54-year-old man unlikely to be overly perturbed by the spectacle of scantily clad women aged 50 and 43 wrapping themselves around poles and gyrating their crotches in front of the cameras.

If this show had taken place in Las Vegas, at an age-restricted venue, then I would laud it to the hills. It was world class adult entertainment.

However, I find it harder to defend given it aired during America’s annual most-watched family TV telecast.

The Super Bowl is something that’s supposed to be for people of all ages.

It’s one of the very few times of the year when whole American families sit down together to watch a football match, some fun commercials, and a halftime show by a major entertainment act.

Sunday’s Super Bowl was watched by 99 million people, and 103 million watched J-Lo and Shakira’s performance.

That’s a LOT of viewers, nearly a third of the entire population of the United States.

And many millions of those viewers would have been kids. What would THEY have made of that half-time show?

I’d imagine many would have been embarrassed, though not nearly as embarrassed as their parents and grandparents.

Both ladies appeared to be in some kind of competition to show us as much of their butts as possible. It was an electrifyingly eye-catching and overtly sexual performance - but it outraged as many viewers as it delighted

It’s just awkward for any adult to have to explain half-naked stripper pole and bondage rope belly dancing to young children.

And that brings me back to J-Lo’s mission statement for what she hoped to achieve with that show: ‘For me, it’s an opportunity to really bring people together in a moment of celebration, in joy, in love, in unity and happiness.’

Hmmm. I can certainly see how J-Lo and Shakira will today feel united in celebration joy, love, unity and happiness.

Ratings were significantly up for the Super Bowl thanks to them, their record sales have rocketed into the stratosphere since Sunday, and the whole world’s buzzing with raunchy photos and video clips from their undeniably electrifying performance.

So, on every conventional level by which we judge such shows, this was a triumph for the two stars.

But what it didn’t do was achieve its purpose.

America, already a very fractured country, hasn’t been brought together in celebration, joy, love, unity and happiness by what it saw.

No, America’s been split in two between those who loved the show, and those who hated it because they thought it totally inappropriate for a massive TV audience including millions of children.

Sunday’s Super Bowl was watched by 99 million people, and 103 million watched J-Lo and Shakira’s performance. And many millions of those viewers would have been kids. What would THEY have made of that half-time show?

Unusually, I find myself in both camps. I loved the show, and I also thought it was totally inappropriate.

It’s not a very regular occurrence for me to find myself in agreement with Franklin Graham, president of the Bill Graham Evangelistic Association.

But he has a point, surely, when he delivered this verdict: ‘I don’t expect the world to act like a church, but our country has had a sense of moral decency on prime-time television in order to protect our children. We see that disappearing before our eyes. It was demonstrated in tonight’s Pepsi Super Bowl halftime show – with millions of children watching. The exhibition was Pepsi showing young girls that sexual exploitation of women is okay. With the exploitation of women on the rise worldwide, instead of lowering the standard, we as a society should be raising it.’

It’s well documented that Super Bowl weekend is one of the worst magnets for sex trafficking and prostitution in America’s calendar, and the NFL has repeatedly stated its commitment to combating it.

Yet, as Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk said: ‘The NFL claims they are taking a stand against sex trafficking, yet they have a halftime show degrading and objectifying women with pole dancing.’

Another right-wing pundit, Abby Johnson, ridiculed any notion the show represented a great advancement for feminism: ‘On the day of the highest rate of sex trafficking, the NFL says, ‘Hey, let’s have two women dance half naked and get a bunch of zoomed in crotch shots of them. That’s female empowerment!’ Do they have no clue that they just contributed to the commodification of women?”

These views, I suspect, accurately reflect those of many millions more in Middle America.

In defence of the show, which also received a lot of praise, one person countered on Twitter that parents had the right to change the channel or discuss with their kids what they thought was wrong.

And that’s true.

But they shouldn’t have to do either of those things.

The Super Bowl, as Jennifer Lopez rightly said, is supposed to be an ‘opportunity to really bring people together in a moment of celebration, in joy, in love, in unity and happiness.’

Instead, many American parents have had to spend the past 48 hours explaining to their kids what a stripper does in a pole-dancing club.

And many young girls will be wondering if they should be doing that like their idols? (Don’t believe me? One commenter from Tulsa wrote below the current DailyMail.com story about the furore: ‘I teach middle school and several young girls were trying to emulate the pole dancing..children are extremely impressionable and this is just wrong!’

The bottom line is we didn’t need to see so much… bottom.

Great show J-Lo and Shakira - but wrong place to perform it.