Whatever Happened to Chastity Chic?

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Waiting for marriage wasn't Britney's invention. At the time, chastity was enjoying a faddish popularity, and the young women wanted, or thought it would be a smart marketing move, to support it. But having jumped on the virginity bandwagon, it now looks like they're looking for a way off.

Each has hoed, so to speak, her own row. After Britney made the cover of Rolling Stone in her underwear, Christina upped the ante by posing wearing not much besides a guitar. Soon afterward Aguilera adopted a persona she named "Xtina"--she's the one covered with mud, sporting chaps and rutting in front of a hundred mud-spattered lads in last year's MTV-award nominated video "Dirrty." Meanwhile, Jessica Simpson, by all accounts, did hold off until she was married to Justin Timberlake knock-off Nick Lachey, though on their MTV reality show, "Newlyweds," Simpson makes no secret of the fact that she and Nick are, as her dad blurts out, "doing it until she's blue in the face." Mandy Moore is the only one who seems to have kept her libido offstage. (Anyway, she is dating tennis ace Andy Roddick, and everyone knows touring tennis stars have no time for that sort of thing.)

Britney has already proclaimed herself "ashamed" of the appearing in 95 percent of her glory in Esquire. In her ambivalence, she embodies our own apparent mixed feelings. Nobody was surprised exactly when Britney revealed to W Magazine earlier this summer that she was no longer a virgin, yet, somehow, the reaction was one of disappointment when the pure pop princess was not so, well, pure. Alternately, some news outlets that mocked Britney's proclaimed innocence are now mocking her attempts to explain her loss of it. But almost anyone who saw the Esquire shots was left wondering: What in the world is she doing that for?

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