Why did the sex doll become the ideal?

Paris Hilton is famous for starring in a home-made sex video seen by tens of millions and for wearing next-to-nothing on her nightly forays into the public eye. Half the female inhabitants of Big Brother, now 'promoted' to Celebrity D-list status, appear in public wearing so little they make regular underwear look overdressed.

Jessica Simpson in her music video for These Boots Are Made for Walking performs the classic soft porn ritual of washing a car practically using her breasts as dusters, and apparently attracts the envy of millions of teenagers.

Recently, pole-dancing has been promoted as the new women's 'liberation'. Girls are allegedly doing what they really, really want by behaving like strippers from the 1950s. So-called 'raunch culture' has given women the right to objectify their own bodies.

Once upon a time, girls wanted to be surgeons and pilots. Now, they long to be (famous) sex dolls. Or do they?

Once upon a time, girls wanted to be surgeons and pilots

The San Francisco-based Women's Foundation of California recently held nine focus groups with female teens, 90 young women in total. They also conducted an online survey of 700 women and 300 men aged 13 to 18.

While the findings have yet to be fully analysed (a report is due in 2007), almost all the teenagers polled said highly sexualised images in the media were "no big deal", just part of their daily lives.

"I know in my head the images are excessive, but to me they feel normal," said one 17-year-old. "Sex is what sells, even to me," said an 18-year-old, "even though I know it shouldn't because it is based on materialism and shallowness."

The young women polled in California can see the dangers of this raunch culture. Most of them noted