A nation of hookers.

Prostitution is the selling of one's person for money. I think we can all agree on that; it seems a safe enough definition. Matters turn inconvenient only when we start considering that a person can offer himself or herself as an entire self or personality for sale. The prostitution of the whole person is, after all, a far more thorough spectacle of corruption than the merely sexual. As a matter of fact, the literal streetwalker often tries to disengage himself or herself from the sex act itself in order to salvage vestiges of self-respect.

I emphasize these comparisons and call attention to the pertinent metaphor going the rounds in the world of advertising and entertainment, especially television. Celebrities who resist the sale of themselves for commercials are called "virgins."

All kinds of celebrities and people are included. I am not talking only of entertainers - although many come to mind who recruit spouse and children as well in a comprehensive family abasement for any and all products. Athletes qualify just as well, and astronauts and - well, anybody. However, it is not absolutely essential that we focus on public personalities. One of our superlatively American democratic perversions is that anyone can qualify as a moral prostitute, even or especially "ordinary" people - or actors posing as such - in their testimony about a dish detergent or a car or an antacid tablet. Average men confess and advertise love for their wives and sweethearts under the influence of a gerontological patent medicine; normal but aging executives press ancient "formula" into their hair in order to stay young-looking, quite literally prostituting at least part of their body for business and social purposes. And so on.

Still, the spectacle of celebrities in brazen cynical self-devaluation has had a certain undeniable force over the years. A lovable comedian, trading on warmth, kept saying, "Believe me ..." about anything from coffee crystals to sweepstake lotteries. And a certain famous and rotund actor and former movie director with a deep compelling voice solemnly linked Beethoven and California wine. One of my all-time favorites, however, comes from the world of sports. A fresh-faced champion skier changed her last name, in an ad featuring her, to "Chapstick," obliging the company by wiping herself out utterly - not quite on the ski slopes, only in life.

As to our general population itself, "Miss America" winners are programmed to laugh or cry at exact moments, especially at victory - a necessary forfeiture of the emotional self for the spectacle. And game-show contestants must pass virtual rehearsals demonstrating their capacity to emote in wide-mouthed commodity joy. And there are programs like "The Newlywed Game," where our scrubbed young brides and grooms recall - or should we say, expose - private and often intimate moments for public exhibition, for a price or a prize.

Let's not forget a species of child prostitution, to round things out. Separately, countless children advertise breakfast cereals, toys, puppy food, and the like. Or they are all put together, as by a prominent entertainer who used to mimic kids around the block but has graduated to the simpler and easier use of them in cute dessert ads. My favorite combinative ad, however, features a one-time kid now grown up to a kind of professional celebrityhood himself, as the look-alike son of one of America's most beloved twentieth-century comedians; in an endearing flashback, he recalls his father's supposed advice about natural foods - and then advertises the whole-grain cereal himself. It is brilliant reversalism: grown kids trading on their deceased parents, neatly closing the familial circle by the selling of private and precious affections.

There are other subtle variations of the nostalgia effect. An aging movie actor, who long ago made his name as a Frank Capra - styled honest American character, has touted the tires of the one company accused of criminal negligence in steel radials. And another all-American movie actor, dressed in his Naval Reserve uniform, has advertised for a commercial "Veterans Insurance Company," in a soft-spoken sincere exploitation of his own patriotism. As we veer toward politics, let's not overlook the former mayors, former governors, former House Speakers, and even former presidents who have sold their authority in one commercial forum or another.

Nothing is sacred - least of an religion. There is a whole network dedicated to smiling, glamorized personalities in slick witness to the Lord. Sooner or later I expect the ultimate ad, which will begin with a medium shot of Jesus on the crucifix. Suddenly he awakens, tears himself off the cross, and descends to us. In closeup, he plucks out a nail and says, "Only at - 's can you find old-fashioned, truly tempered precision nails. Buy some - today!"

Few will even object. Because by that time we shall have become so used to the vulgar sale of self, so ready to barter our most precious values, models, and icons, that any prostitution will seem only natural - the logical end of a long series.

We can do one thing, though. We can still look down on the call girl and out-and-out hooker. When we're slipping so far ourselves, we need any sense of superiority we can get.

Jesse Bier is a professor of English at the University of Montana. He lectured on the "Theory of Humor" at the Sorbonne in May 1995.