Last month, teenage diva-du-jour Britney Spears crashed headfirst into an invisible guardrail on America's moral highway, literally without the recommended passive restraints.

It began innocently enough: Ms. Spears attended rehearsals for the Nickelodeon network's [censored]' Choice Awards in street clothes, hit her marks, sang reasonably on-key, and gave no indication that any significant matters remained undiscussed. During the live telecast, however, she shocked the show's producers by bounding on-stage braless in a tight, cropped T-shirt, her nipples mystically erect under the hot lights in the Orlando, Florida studio (which was, unsurprisingly, full of (CENSORED)ren).

The aftermath was perhaps even more intriguing than the math. As Nickelodeon executives rushed to publicly condemn Spears' wardrobe choice, the Nestlé company (ironically, a manufacturer of milk flavorings) withdrew its sponsorship of her concert tour, and various spokespeople -- claiming outrage on behalf of the show's younger viewers -- questioned the motives of Spears and her managers, who sometimes seem more interested in promoting her sweater-pets than her musical talents.

The intensity of the public's response to Ms. Spears' PG-rated exhibition at a primarily-for-[censored] event only hints at the social subtext of her transgression. While the American road to stardom for young women is notoriously slick with puddles of saline and silicone (among other things), Britney Spears broke a usually-unspoken taboo of our society: she shook 'em in front of the [censored].

NEWSNIPS GOOD MORNING, MADAME; I REPRESENT THE AUDUBON SOCIETY... When Norwegian ex- midwife Anne- Marit Smette was unable to convince one of her hens to nurse an abandoned curlew's egg found by a neighboring farmer, she decided to incubate the egg in her cleavage. Apparently, this is some sort of bizarre family tradition: Anne-Marit's mother once breast-fed a piglet that had been rejected by a sow. Smette's disgruntled husband Knut has been warned to keep his mittens to himself for the next few weeks. AND HERE'S ANOTHER THING YOU CAN'T REALLY DO WITH IMPLANTS... "They made me wear these big plastic boob things that you just shove in your bra. I could take them out and throw them around with people between scenes." -actress Leslie Mann, quoted in Esquire. BESIDES GIVES NEW MEANING TO THE PHRASE "SCHOOLBOY CRUSH"... Macrophiliac webculture: a serious look at really big women and the little tiny men who worship them. (Salon)

Ironically, most (CENSORED)ren begin life in intimate contact with breasts, then discover mere months later that all of them --not just mom's -- have suddenly been declared totally, absolutely, positively off-limits. That reversal has nothing to do with (CENSORED)ren's preferences, of course, and everything to do with the attitudes of parents; our society seems most comfortable with lots of empty, unconsidered distance between the concepts of nursing and sex. When a male (CENSORED) completes the transition to bottle-feeding, all breasts are ceremoniously tucked out of sight and mind for over a decade, until puberty delivers a renewed, non-nutritional attraction to them.

In that boobie-free zone between weaning and sexual maturity, traditional parents labor to preserve the innocence of their (CENSORED)ren, and to convince them that breasts -- and the many other aspects of sex to be found in a world that is deathly obsessed with the subject -- are none of their business. This denial does little more than soothe adults' discomfort about exposing (CENSORED)ren to concepts of sexuality. The protection probably isn't warranted, though: (CENSORED)ren are resilient and innocently shameless. They learn quickly, and easily digest even the strangest experiences, whether adults think the experiences are digestible or not.

All of which suggests that Britney Spears' rampant implants gave little or no offense to the (CENSORED)ren watching the [censored]' Choice Awards. If anything, a few may have perceived her as more nurturing or mature than she would have seemed in a baggy sweater. Spears is guilty only of shocking the sensibilities of adults, for only adults observe the social rule that she violated, and only adults fear what the rule prevents: the untimely maturation of their (CENSORED)ren.

A R T S
W A R S

A short time ago in a galaxy not so very far, far away, a feisty group of rebels from planet HotBox (also known as Danni's Hard Drive) sought to transport a crucial shipment of much-needed wood to the citizens of planet Earth. Their weapon was to be Bra Wars, a cheesecake- and- softcore- lesbian parody of Star Wars starring Danni Ashe, Europe DiChan, Julie Strain, Rayveness, Julia Parton, Mason Marconi, and Becky Sunshine, which they would tape in their secret subsurface Video Munitions Bunker and transmit to the good people of Earth.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

Unfortunately, the Empire (also known as LucasFilms) caught wind of the rebels' plan, constructed an enormous Cease And Desist Star in high orbit over planet Earth, and succeeded in blasting the title off of the incoming video with a Court Order Beam as it entered Earth's upper atmosphere. When the video finally reached Earth, its damaged title had been hastily changed to Boobs In Space (maybe a desperate, last-minute Muppet Show reference; maybe not), and the rebel offensive had lost a significant piece of its already meager satirical ordnance.

Eons from now, when galactic historians recount the battle, they will almost certainly mention the unusual dynamics of the conflict...

On one hand, the rebel video's superficial references to Star Wars' title, logo, and character names would not seem to constitute a significant threat to the Empire's strategies and propaganda, casting some doubt on the justification of the Empire's counterstrike.

On the other hand, there is little question that HotBox is an exemplar of profitability and professionalism among the porno-planets of the Web Galaxy, and it seems probable that the Empire chose to confront the rebels in order to prevent a multitude of similar insurrections in the future.

On yet another hand (I'm a native of the planet Mammograbbia, y'see, and have a couple more hands to go before I have to resort to counting on my genital cluster) (darn it), while the rebels' playful references to Star Wars should have been protected by the Fair Use Dampers of their Bill Of Rights Shielding, their video missile was configured with a weak Aesthetic Significance Yield and a strong Profit Motive Collateral Effect, impugning the purity of its satirical intent.

And on the final hand, it's probable that the rebels chose to yield to the Court Order Beam due to the sheer size of the Empire's Legal Defense Array, which is easily capable of sustaining a counterattack for decades. The uninhibited inhabitants of HotBox were clearly outgunned by the Empire, and would certainly have been defeated on this field of battle, where the ultimate weapons are money and influence.