Sex's new rock-star status

What is the 21st-century Pornopolis?

It's "My Bare Lady," a Fox reality television show that will send female porn stars to London this year, where they will "act" in theater.

It's the "Next American Sex Star," an "Apprentice"-like production on the Playboy Channel, in which striving starlets vie to be part of Jenna Jameson's stable of entertainers.

It's nude celebrities brooding on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine in February.

It's even the disturbing images from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, broadcast for all the world to see in 2004.

It's publishing houses like Harlequin and HarperCollins starting lines of even steamier romance novels.

It's even the word "porn," which now is used to describe a variety of relationships consumers have with compelling things. The Canadian province of Quebec, for instance, promoted itself with the tag "Food Porn" in a recent advertising campaign. A Slate.com writer referred to The New York Times' "Vows" column as "bridal porn."

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