SEXUAL FREEDOM NOT REALLY LIBERATING.

Byline: GAIL TZIPPORAH SAUNDERS Local View

THERE are certain questions that define our times and the days of our lives. For example, is margarine healthier than butter? Are hybrid cars really going to help the environment? And most important, what happened to women's lib?

Because if some of the goings-on of today are the result of all those women in the '60s rallying in sensible shoes, then we're all in trouble.

Take Shakira, the singer who lately sounds like she has been inhaling helium. In her most recent song, ``Hips Don't Lie,'' all the poor guy in the duet has to do is warble her name a few times to get her to launch into, ``Oh, baby when you talk like that, you make a woman go mad.''

Maybe it's the coffee she's been drinking, or maybe it's some vitamin she's privy to, because it would take more than that to launch most women into an emotional frenzy.

Or Beyonce Knowles, who in her latest video crawls around on all fours while hollering about her cheating man before really deciding to get even and dress like Sharon Stone a la ``Fatal Attraction.''

It is also not unusual to see up-and-coming actresses on magazine covers wearing little more than a Boy Scout badge, if even that much in some cases.

The irony is that most men in the entertainment business would never behave this way. Most up-and-coming actors wouldn't jog along the beach in a swimsuit with a come-hither smile plastered onto their faces. Most men wouldn't prance around in their boxers while playing the role of a cuckoo psycho. And most men, even rap stars, wouldn't warble about their hips not lying while singing, ``Oh, baby when you talk like that, you make a man go mad.''

What the founders of that movement didn't know was that total sexual freedom means no freedom at all; it just means the chance to turn oneself into an object where the parts overshadow the whole.

They didn't know that by encouraging a woman to act like a lothario, she would come out looking like Lolita instead.

And they didn't know that the teachings of Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan would morph into Carmen Electra and Paris Hilton.

If they did, they may have stayed home and baked brownies.

And while sex does sell, there is a difference between being sexy and sultry and just being plain overexposed. Peggy Lee was sexy in a flowing gown as she sang ``Fever.'' She sang it in a way that made every man think she was singing to him, and every woman believe that she was the one singing about love.

Marilyn Monroe, one of the most famous sex symbols of all time, is still an icon 42 years after her death. It's not solely because of her astonishing beauty but because underneath people saw a sensitive, vulnerable soul who had been hurt, and they somehow understood.

The same can't be said for a woman who will bare everything for a little fame or attention; everything, except for her mind and heart and soul. And this is something that our sisters in that movement should have seen coming.