At the same time, in her latest Rolling Stone cover story, Spears insists that sex is wonderful and should be shared with everyone, and she maintains that she is the one who is wholly responsible for engineering her drool-worthy image. "What would you say to people who say of you, 'Oh, she's all constructed by other people, she's just selling sex'?" Mim Udovitch asked. Replied the singer: "If I wanna show my belly in a video or show a little bit of cleavage, I just don't see anything wrong with that. ... I come up with the concepts for all my tour ideas, all of my videos. It's just so lame that people wouldn't understand that."

Spears has a point. Why should we assume, as Saroyan did in her essay, that some man designed the pedophiliac fantasy that has propelled her career thus far (and which is a heck of a lot more complicated than a glimpse of belly button in a video)? Her telechat unwittingly displayed her shallow knowledge of the musical traditions she references, but she may be completely aware of the how to use sex as a sales tool. After all, she was brought up to be expert at it, schooled by a stage mom since before she could walk, just like JonBenet Ramsey.

In the liner notes to "Britney," the singer writes, "Mama -- thanks for being the best role model in the world. I want to be just like you when I'm older." In an interview, the singer Natalie Merchant recently told me a revealing story about being stuck in a line of golf carts backstage at a music awards show. Someone behind her kept frantically leaning on the horn, and finally she turned around to look. There was Spears in the passenger seat, sitting beside her mom, who was pounding on the horn and shouting, "Get out of the way! Britney goes first! Britney's got to go first!"

And here is Lynne Spears in "Britney Spears' Heart to Heart" (Three Rivers Press), the autobiography that she co-wrote with her daughter last year:

"The way we saw it, our family was making an investment in Brit's future. How could we not help her realize her goals? It was so clear that Brit loved performing, and it would have broken my heart to get in her way. I always used to tell her, 'Don't worry about what it costs. Just do your very best.' Dreams should never have a price tag on them. I believe that if you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to do it. And we did."

Mind you, Mama Spears is discussing dance lessons for a 2-year-old in that passage. When my own daughter was 2, the dreams she had for the future involved not having to pee in a diaper. Whenever it addresses the mother-daughter relationship, the Spears' book reminds me of Louis Malle's pedophiliac-prostitute fantasy, "Pretty Baby." When Susan Sarandon turns her daughter out to trick, it's with a mixture of pride, jealousy and self-loathing. For her part, Brooke Shields tries her damnedest at the job, partly because she doesn't want to let her mother down, and partly because she wants to prove she can be a much better lay.

There's a sort of panicked desperation to the attempted seduction of "Britney"; rarely has a coldly calculated sexual come-on been so plainly unsexy. As producers the Neptunes and Rodney Jerkins nudge the grooves away from Swedish pop perfection toward generically glossy and soulless R&B, Spears tries to update her lyrical concerns by whining about the hard life of a superstar ("Overprotected," "What It's Like to Be Me") and bemoaning the difficulties of growing up and coming of age ("I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman"). This is all a bid to stay ahead of her audience as it moves from pre-teen to puberty, of course. But for all her talk of self-empowerment, the submissive sex toy is still the role Spears plays best. She returns to it again and again ("Boys" and "I'm A Slave 4 U"), and it's certainly the pose that's being used to peddle the disc.

In Chicago, the Clear Channel Communications dance-pop station Kiss-FM celebrated the release of "Britney" with a contest offering young female listeners the chance to win Brit's tits. Engineered by the station's general manager and marketing director (both women), the tag line ran, "Wanna be like Britney? You first met her on 'The Mickey Mouse Club.' You've watched her grow into every guy's fantasy slave. Now you want what she's got! Enter to win 'Boobies Like Britney' and the $5,000 grand prize!"

In defending themselves after they were criticized by local media columnist Robert Feder, the contest's architects maintained that it was all in good fun, and their listeners knew that the prize money could be used for clothes or a makeover, not necessarily new, massive mammaries. The executives were probably right; the teenyboppers who listen to their station and tune in to MTV's "Total Request Live" have been effectively programmed almost since birth. The message, as it's been paraphrased by many a feminist critic, is: You will never be smart or sexy enough as you are; the only hope of being like Barbie or Britney is to buy, buy, buy. So start spending!

Sex has always been an inextricable part of pop music; it was thus long before Elvis (wherever he was from), and it will be so long after Spears is cast off onto the slag heap of fallen idols somewhere between Twiggy and Tiffany. And while I celebrate rock 'n' roll at its best as one of popular culture's last forums for "truth" and (only marginally commodified) rebellion, I won't deny that selling has always been a big part of the mix, too. The Beatles blew the minds of a generation and changed the music forever, but they happily moved a whole lot of boots, haircuts, posters, etc.

Spears is notable for temporarily marking a new low in the crass shamelessness of both the commercialism and the koochie-flaunting. But she isn't the first singer to emphasize tits over talent, or to shake her hips to move designer jeans and plastic dolls. And she won't be the last.

As for this dad's particular dilemma, my daughter has thankfully shown no interest in Spears as yet. If she ever does, I plan to follow the singer's advice and not only explain that she is playing dress-up, but lay bare the whole insidious con job. Then I'll offer some alternatives.

My daughter may not go right away for X-Ray Spex or Hole, Salt-N-Pepa or Angie Stone's new album, "Mahogany Soul" (which ends with the memorable declaration, "It's that time of the month, don't even mess with me!"). But I bet I could convince her that "M!ssundaztood" by Pink is a whole heckuva lot better than "Britney." No one's submissive sex toy, the former Alicia Moore is a real and complex young woman, albeit one with artificially colored chartreuse hair. I love it when she sings, "Tired of being compared to damn Britney Spears/She's so pretty, that just ain't me."

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