Critics argue that the "distress stems not from within the individual but from the infliction of societal standards, from the culture’s disapproval and aversion." To make this point, Bergner invokes "icons in heat" like "the model with swollen red lips gazing out with molten need from the billboard." From the libidinous lass selling cologne, aftershave, or [insert any product under the sun] to the exaggerated moans of porno flicks, we fetishize enthusiastic female availability. On a day-to-day basis, that degree of spontaneous chest-heaving -- not to mention multiple orgasms at the touch of a (cough) button --  isn't realistic, generally. By those standards, most women would feel "deficient."

There's an important distinction to make here, though: We fetishize eager female availability, but not self-directed female desire. When we talk about sex "icons in heat," we're specifically talking about women who are prone and receptive. Culturally, truly libidinous women are not only treated as unsexy, they're considered abnormal. They're fucking scary! Maybe for some women it isn't that they feel a lack of sexual desire, per se, but an absence of a particular type of desire they think they're supposed to have. (Nowhere in the article is masturbation mentioned, by the way.)

Lori Brotto is the 34-year-old psychologist tasked with defining hypoactive sexual desire disorder for the next D.S.M., and she's aware of the sticky issues. She has proposed adding the symptom of not being "receptive to a partner’s attempts to initiate" to the criteria for diagnosis -- which only raises the additional issue of the role a woman's partner plays. Brotto would also like to do away with the word "desire" altogether: She's consciously moving away from a "male" model for sexual desire toward her colleague Rosemary Basson's "Sexual Response Cycle," which characterizes female desire as coming after arousal. Basson argues that women often commit to the idea of sex and display a "willingness to be receptive" to their partners' advances. Only after foreplay gets a woman aroused does she become hungry with desire, says Basson.

The "male" and "female" model seem pretty interchangeable to me. In a long-term sexual relationship people often take turns being receptive to each other's advances. Sometimes you've had a crap day at the office and you're just not into it -- until your lovah touches you just like so. That isn't a strictly male or female thing -- it's just a human thing. On a similar note, both sexes are under pressure to perform in very different ways, and when there is all that play-acting going on, it's no surprise that some are left unsatisfied -- not to mention unenthusiastic about a repeat performance.

The truth is female sexuality isn't easily categorized into "normal" and "abnormal" -- it's variable and idiosyncratic. There is no definitive all-purpose map; the best we've got is a caricature. As is often the case with such things, many women will look at this sketch and exclaim: That doesn't look like me at all!

Unsurprisingly, Douglas McGeorge, past president of the the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, told the BBC he thinks the concern is "over the top. Essentially this is just about removing a bit of loose flesh, leaving behind an elegant-looking labia with minimum scarring." Oh, well if that's all it is! I mean, obviously, if you want to be taken seriously at a job interview or get a decent table at a hot restaurant, you can't just show up with inelegant-looking labia. Adds McGeorge, "Lads' mags are looked at by girlfriends, and make them think more about the way they look. We live in times where we are much more open about our bodies -- and changing them -- and labioplasty is simply a part of this."  By "this," you mean "a painfully sexist culture that encourages debilitating body shame," right? Because otherwise, you might want to think that one through a little more.

On the other hand, there are women out there who really do need genital reconstruction. Amanda Hess at The Sexist shares the stories of two of those, women who didn't just have "more than enough labia" but serious post-pregnancy complications described by one as "My vagina is falling out of my body!" (Actually, it was her uterus. Also, for the record, that woman had labioplasty while she was at it and reports that it "was brutal. All of 'Dr. 90210''s patients who say it doesn't hurt are lying. I'd rather get my teeth pulled out than do that again!") But after all that suffering, both women describe their new equipment as A) equivalent to a virginal young woman's and B) therefore incredibly desirable. Allison Henry, who nearly bled to death more than once: "We just had a cocktail party to celebrate me feeling healthy. And I do have the vagina of a 13-year-old virgin, with a perfect labia, as a bonus." MomLogic guest blogger Sara: "So now I'm on the mend, with a teenage-sized vagina ... The way things are at present, no man's apparatus, even of the Fisher Price variety, could ever fit down there. Still, I'll try to write a follow up report when it happens. That is, if my husband and I ever leave the bedroom again!"

To recap: These two women suffered severe trauma to their reproductive organs, but the big silver lining is that they now have vaginas reminiscent of girls too young to consent to sex. It's what every man wants, without the pesky statutory rape charges -- lucky hubbies! Sara even jokes (I hope) that her husband bought her cheerleader costumes to go with the new model. Look, I'm all for making inappropriate wisecracks about horrifying things, and any woman who has ever had to say or even think the words "my vagina is falling out of my body"  has earned the right to be seriously inappropriate,  but what the hell? Neither of you squicked yourself out, writing that? Hess puts it best: "I'm happy for you. I am. You went through some bad shit, and now your vagina is back inside your body, and I think that's wonderful. But I never, ever, ever, ever again want to have to think about a grown woman having a 'the vagina of a 13-year-old virgin.' That's some messed up heebie-jeebies shit."

And it's the same messed-up shit that drives perfectly healthy women to pay someone to cut into their genitals for purely aesthetic reasons. Oh wait, I'm sorry, did I say "messed-up shit"? I meant openness about our bodies. Now that our culture is much less repressive, we've learned important information that used to be hidden away -- like that pubic hair is disgusting (on a woman), which means we must wax it all off to avoid offending our sexual partners, after which we might just discover our vulvas are kind of funny-looking and thus require surgery to give us the "elegant labia" of ... children. Such progress we've made! Why, if people had never broken the silence, we'd all still be walking around assuming adult-looking vaginas are perfectly fine! Instead, we've completely eliminated all that old-fashioned shame about our bodies and backward thinking about sexuality. Whew. 

Flogging her book "Still Standing" on the "Today" show this morning, Prejean brushed off the term "sex tape." She described the footage as "me by myself, there was no one else with me. I was not having sex," failing to consider that "me by myself" qualifies as sex for roughly 80 percent of the Internet population.

The news of Prejean's one-woman show comes the same week Jennifer Lopez hit her ex-husband with a fat $10 million lawsuit over his attempts to peddle footage from their 1997 honeymoon and Colin Farrell's antics with a Playboy model have resurfaced. In a world where Fred Durst has a sex tape, is there anybody left who doesn't?

Kids, back in the day, a sex tape used to mean something. There was expensive equipment to set up and hide, cassettes to load, storyboards to be drawn. It was a big freaking deal when Rob Lowe had a romp with underage girls or Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee enjoyed connubial bliss (if that's what you call it). Sex in front of a camera was still considered something porn stars did, and breaking that barrier was exciting -- and blurry.

Today, anybody can just aim the phone at the interesting bits and upload the results before they even finish. So much for our happy ending. 

The celebrity sex tape -- as well as its close kin, the much forwarded naked snapshot -- started veering toward that fabled shark tank in June of 2004. That's when "1 Night in Paris" made its Web debut. Unlike other stars who'd been caught knocking boots, Paris Hilton didn't adopt a demeanor of scandalized abasement when her video emerged. Instead, she shrugged it off with the same bored lack of interest she'd displayed during her coital performance. Her career didn't suffer. Her fame didn't abate. On the contrary -- it skyrocketed.

In the ensuing years, compromising footage of the quasi-famous has become as commonplace as conspiracy theorists at a town meeting. And amazingly, it's proved an effective way of giving Hollywood has-beens a jolt of, well, exposure. Are you a Dirty Sanchez-dispensing, former "Saved by the Bell" cast member? Are you a man whose most famous role is playing a character called "McSteamy"? Smoke a little weed, head for the hot tub and don't forget to invite a friend. (Sweeps week crossovers await! ) Is your last name "Kardashian"? That and a little raw footage can get you your own perfume line. Excuse me, I have to go roll my eyes and yawn in an exaggerated manner now.

With each new revelation of a dirty video lurking in a famous closet, the shock at the genre itself dies a little more. Had honeymoon movies of J.Lo emerged when she married her ex in 1997, it might have been a cause célèbre. Now? Big whoop. The explicit sex tape and the compromising photo are no longer potential career ruiners, nor are they the hallmark of a wild, anything-goes character -- not when so many of us, famous and not, have been there and done that. It's a fair assumption that if there aren't explicit images of you floating around somewhere, you may not have a sex life. Or a phone.

While it's easy to enjoy a moment of delectable schadenfreude watching right-wing sweetheart Carrie Prejean, who says in her new memoir that "We should earn respect and admiration for our hearts, not for showing skin to look sexy," tell Meredith Vieira about "the biggest mistake of my life," it shouldn't really come as any surprise. Prejean may be a smug, backward-thinking idiot, but she's not the whore of Babylon. So when Prejean kvetched on the "Today" show that "nothing is private," she may have sounded whiny -- but she wasn't wrong. Some people learn it in more public and embarrassing ways than others, of course (like having your mom and some lawyers watch the footage you made for her boyfriend). But what Prejean did isn't different from anything many, many people are doing in their homes and hotels and dorms right this minute, alone or with a friend or two. Deviants, perverts, married couples, teenagers and "normal, churchgoing" folks like Carrie Prejean -- we are all sexual beings, and we don't need to send our images to the Fotomat for processing anymore. Stuff's bound to happen. Prejean wanted to be Miss USA. Turns out she's everywoman after all.

Know who else has responded to the study just as feverishly? A religious leader on campus, whose blood pressure has risen for an entirely different reason: He's pissed. Father Joe Vetter, director of the Duke Catholic Center, said: "I think it can give the impression that the university is endorsing behavior that I don't think the university should endorse." God forbid the university allow its researchers to issue an open call for women -- that's right, adult women -- who are interested in attending a sex toy party to help further the study of sex. No one's being forced into a sex den filled with vibrating silicone and rubber. Women are volunteering to check out some naughty novelty items and, both before and after, speak openly with researchers about their attitudes toward sex.

The school's vice president for public affairs, Michael Schoenfeld, bless him, has issued an utterly rational response to Vetter's public outrage: "Not all research will make people comfortable," he said. "In fact, there's a lot of things, there are a lot of questions, there are a lot of issues that are studied at a university that make people uncomfortable. That's how we get an understanding of things like ethics [and] behavior." Science -- not always politically correct!

Vetter is under the impression, although he doesn't say why and researchers have remained mum on the topic, that the study is driven by a "concern about promiscuity on campus." He seems to believe that the study is looking at sex toys as an alternative to partnered sex. If you think a man like Vetter would celebrate such an goal, you're wrong. While he is "concerned about promiscuity," he's more concerned that "these students are in this developmental phase," he told The News & Observer. "I don't think it's a good developmental practice to just tell somebody to just sit around and masturbate. I don't think that promotes relationships."

I'm 99.9 percent sure the researchers aren't asking young women to "just sit around and masturbate." But you gotta love the apocalyptic fear of sexuality on display here; the assumption seems to be that self-pleasuring women will lock themselves in their rooms with no more motivation to relate to the opposite sex.

Now, PTC has finally stumbled upon something it can really sink its teeth into. Those of you who have already seen the promo for next week's "Gossip Girl" episode (posted below) may remember that we've been promised a "3s0me." The ad shuffles through the (now mostly college-age) main characters' images like a slot machine, begging us to guess which trio will hook up. That's all we know about what's to come... and that seems to be all PTC knows, too. But that hasn't stopped them from writing a lengthy letter (reproduced in full at EW.com) to CW affiliates promising that there will be hell to pay if they air the episode in question.

The arguments are pretty much what you'd expect. Here are some highlights:

• "To include a story line like this on a program that is expressly targeted to impressionable teenagers is reckless and irresponsible."

• "When television portrays attractive, popular teenage characters as sexually active, it sends a powerful message to young viewers that they, too, should be sexually active and in fact, there might be something wrong with them if they aren’t."

• "Gossip Girl routinely depicts teenage characters engaging in promiscuous and consequence-free sexual behavior, and that’s bad enough.  But will you now be complicit in establishing a precedent and expectation that teenagers should engage in behaviors heretofore associated primarily with adult films?  Behaviors that not only increase health risks, but which are emotionally and psychologically damaging to participants, as well?"

Oh, and in case PTC's implicit threat wasn't clear enough, the group offers the following helpful hint: "May I also remind you that it is the affiliate, not the CW network, that will bear the financial burden of an FCC fine should any of the content of the November 9th episode be found to violate broadcast decency laws." (I think the lack of a question mark at the end of that sentence pretty much speaks for itself.)

Am I the only one who finds it strange that PTC has so much to say about the episode, sight unseen? How do they know that the threesome in question will a) occur on-screen; b) be as sexually explicit as they fear; and c) actually come to fruition? TV promos are, after all, pretty well known for making mountains of molehills. And as for the idea that ménages à trois are a porn-only phenomenon, well... perhaps PTC should talk to some real college students for a reality check on that assumption.

Even if the episode is as bad as PTC assumes, what will pulling it accomplish? Despite being a "Gossip Girl" fan myself, I would never argue that the kids on the series  are great role models. But I also don't think censoring the show -- which attracts a sizable adult following --  is a particularly effective way of keeping teens safe. It's ridiculous to imagine we can (or should) shield high schoolers from any and all unsavory influences. What we can do is help them interpret the messages they're getting. With that in mind, parents might want to consider actually watching and discussing "Gossip Girl" with their kids. Sure, most episodes are a blur of pretty clothes and soap-opera plot points. Yet the series has also raised a slew of issues relevant to teens' real lives, from eating disorders to coming out of the closet to virginity loss. Hell, earlier this season "Gossip Girl's" debauched villain-turned-devoted boyfriend Chuck Bass kissed another man and was totally fine with it. ("Do you really think I've never kissed a guy before?" he asked his girlfriend.) Parents searching for an excuse to start a conversation with their offspring about homophobia or Gen Y's unprecedented sexual fluidity need look no further.