REGULARS
Crush of the Week
In the middle of a recent, somber interview with a Canadian math teacher who'd had sex with a teenage student, Larry King announced that he was bringing on a psychologist to discuss the case. We expected a bearded talking head to lecture on boundaries and responsibility, blah blah blah. But instead, there suddenly appeared a vision in professional clothing: the New York psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig. Her message? Teenagers are hot. "What's interesting," she said, flipping her blonde hair happily, "is that organizationally, teachers are not prepared to know how to deal with these feelings like therapists are. You know, adolescents are very sexual and seductive, and there's a lot of hormones in the air. And how do you deal with a student that comes on to you? ... Very often adolescents don't know that they're being seductive. They have hormones. The sex is just in the air. You can see it. You can taste it. You can smell it ... It's very tempting." The Canadian teacher nodded eagerly in assent, and Larry King looked like he was in fact feeling pretty tempted right that second. And for that, Dr. Ludwig is our crush of the week. — Ada Calhoun
Photos of the Week

Britney, ever-classy.
From Jessica "Washingtonienne" Cutler's Playboy spread.

From the Olympics: the winning beach volleyballers and taekwondo gold medalist celebrate.

Don't the Finnish engineering students in this photo from the Times business section look fantastically kinky?
Crazy Quote of the Week

"Now we have total liberation of sexual things but we also have the Patriot Act," Erica Jong told the New York Times for a recent article on the upcoming documentary on the film Deep Throat. "We have never made the connection between sexual speech and political speech. Sex today has nothing to do with revolution anymore. It's about capitalism and protecting little profit centers."

Moral Decay Alert

The New York Times reports that it's hard to sit down in a miniskirt. "The goal is to avoid having your bottom 'touch too much of the seat,' said Jessica Oser, 24 ... While more than a dozen women interviewed said they had never spoken about their subway miniskirt etiquette with friends, they were effusive in their explanations to this reporter, motioning and bending in every direction for the sake of clarity. (Only one subject was off limits. Choice undergarments for skirts that bare skin? No comment.)"
Product Placement

What we bought when we visited the Vatican's gift shop. We have a little crush on Father October.

Pimps & Ho's halloween costumes. For kids.

Haribo's candy wrappers are pornographic, graduates of St. Blasien Jesuit College insisted in a letter to the firm: "We are shocked at the shameless presentation of sexual practices on the wrapping, which includes not only sexual intercourse but also fellatio and cunnilingus." Proving that "just because you're paranoid/don't mean they're not after you," the wrappers are, the company admits, "very racy."

Make a diamond ring out of your dead husband's cremated remains with Life Gem.
 

Naked Assets, Inc. offers wealth training for strippers.

Those smart-asses over at The Smoking Gun took the U.S. Postal System up on its offer to create personalized official stamps. A few of their requests were rejected, but they got these two by: Monica Lewinsky's stained dress and a snapshot of James E. McGreevey with purported lover Golan Cipel.
Tabloid Fodder

People
Cover: "Baby Love!"
Babies: 34.
Boobs: 40.
Sex promised/delivered: 4/3. Presumably in an effort to be topical, People provides a yikes!-worthy article called "Honey, I'm Gay" about how one spouse's coming out sometimes changes a marriage.

In Touch
Cover: "Mary-Kate Update: Fighting Back!"
Babies: 11.
Boobs: 104.
Sex promised/delivered: 5/6. In Touch actually, ickily asks Gwyneth if she has plans to "make another baby." In one photo-spread introduction, they use all of these words: bootie, butt, glutes, asset, booty-licious, derriere, backside. But we give them two bonus points for the two photos of our beloved Kelly Ripa.

Us Weekly
Cover: "2004 Fashion Winners & Sinners"
Babies: 7.
Boobs: 266.
Sex promised/delivered: 7/9. Homewrecker Britney looking hungover in a "Move Bitch" T-shirt is worth the cover price.

Star
Cover: "25 Best & Worst Beach Bodies!"
Babies: 11.
Boobs: 218.
Sex promised/delivered: 10/10. A must-read: a convincing two-page article entitled "The Curse of Madonna's Kiss!" Star insists it's no coincidence Britney, Guy, Vanilla, Warren, Sean, and Dennis all suffered career nosedives after encountering "Madge's lethal lips." Plus, exclusive photos of Britney's ex-husband making out with a transsexual. Does it get any better than this?

 

 

Scanner appears every Tuesday.
Research assistants: Sarah Harrison, Gwynne Watkins.
Send tips to ada@nerve.com.

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