Ariana Grande's Twitter letter addresses "objectifying" comments: "We are not prizes."

Pop star Ariana Grande took to Twitter Tuesday night to talk about an important issue: female objectification. 

Grande posted an open letter to her 43.2 million Twitter followers describing a recent incident in which a fan of Grande's boyfriend, rapper Mac Miller, said in front of her, "Ariana Grande is sexy as hell man I see you, I see you hitting that!"  She makes it clear that language like that towards women is simply not OK.

"This might not seem like a big deal to some of you," Grande said, "but I felt sick and objectified."

Grande said that she's felt "really quiet and hurt" since the incident and stressed that this is something that happens to women all the time. The "kinds of moments," Grande said, "that contributes to women's sense of fear and inadequacy."

"I am not a piece of meat that a man gets to utilize for his pleasure," said Grande. "I'm an adult human being in a relationship with a man who treats me with love and respect. It hurts my heart that so many young people are so comfortable enough using these phrases and objectifying women with such ease."

Grande spoke out about the incident, she said, because "most women know the sensation of being spoken about in an uncomfortable way publicly or taken advantage of publicly by a man.

"We need to talk about these moments openly because they are harmful and they live on inside of us as shame," Grande said. "We need to share and be vocal when something makes us feel uncomfortable because if we don't, it will just continue.

"We are not objects or prizes," Grande said. "We are QUEENS."

In response to the open letter, one fan pointed out that Grande could be seen as "hypocritical," given the objectifying messages in her own music. 

But, as Grande made clear in response, a woman freely expressing her own sexuality does not give a man the right to respond with disrespect. "Women expressing sexuality is often mistaken as 'hi come disrespect me!!!'" Grande tweeted, "[and] that's just not the case."

Most fans, however, responded to Grande's message with love and support. The pop star even received an important message of solidarity from her her mother, Joan Grande.