Best to ‘no’ before we all ‘know’ you

If someone asked me to pose in the nude, I would say, “Absolutely not, sir!”

Asked if I would allow the videotaping of my sex acts, I would staunchly reply, “Never!”

There are many reasons why I would respond in the negative to both questions, but at least one overlying consideration is that they might come back to haunt me. Even in my careless youth I’d have felt that it probably wasn’t a terrific idea.

No one has ever asked either question, by the way, and there are no videotapes of me floating around, except one where I am playing catch with the dog, fully clothed. The only exception might be a photograph of my bare behind taken by my playful wife while vacationing in France. It is a rear view of me at a hotel sink brushing my teeth.

She is more fearful of me making it public than I am of her showing it to anyone. The woman has never trusted either my sense of balance or judgment.

I mention this today only because there’s another videotaped sex act in the news. Following in the tradition of Paris Hilton, who is famous for being famous, actor Colin Farrell has gone to court in an effort to stop a former girlfriend from commercially exploiting, as they say, a 15-minute tape of them, well, doing ... it. It and other things. “Intimate matters” is what he calls them.

Farrell, 29, says the tape that included Playboy pinup Nicole Narain as his, er, costar was made only for their private pleasure and not for the enjoyment of Internet voyeurs or perverts who might come upon them in the media or in one of those private sex shop booths.

One would think that actors, models and others of questionable wit would nevertheless know better than to believe their videotaped intimacies, however awkward and mundane they might be, were not going to get out. Neither Hollywood love affairs nor Hollywood loyalties are noted for either their reliability or their endurance.

The video sex trail, if one can call it that, was blazed some years ago by “Baywatch” babe Pamela Anderson and her rocker then-husband, Tommy Lee. A video made of their erotic acrobatics was stolen from their home and subsequently made public. Oh, dear.

Interest in them faded faster than cheap red panties, as did the video of Paris Hilton and then-boyfriend Rick Solomon -- and others who, throughout the years, have enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame sans both scruples and clothing.

In the same vein, or half a vein, I guess, Cameron Diaz is in court objecting to any release of photographs of her in topless poses. (Not without her head, silly, but without anything covering her bosom.) The pictures were taken, she says, because she thought they might enhance her career, but she is absolutely mortified, mortified! that an evil man is trying to make the photographs public.

One wonders exactly what she expected them to be used for, but that gets into motivation, morality and the intellectual programming of an actress, and I don’t feel up to that.

Almost every living creature has sex. Men, women, writers, lawyers, grizzly bears, raccoons, coyotes and hummingbirds on the fly. But not everyone has those very private moments videotaped, except perhaps by National Geographic documentarians. And while everyone is in the nude at one time or another, it’s usually in the shower or the bathtub and not in front of a camera. Born-again Republicans, being the exception, are said to bathe fully clothed.

The reason that a few celebrities are featuring themselves in sex tapes or are posing nude or half-nude is due to their poor training as a child. It’s their mothers’ fault.

It’s too late for people like Paris, Pamela, Cameron, Colin and even radio-moralist Laura Schlessinger, whose extremely explicit nude photos made an appearance on the Internet five years ago. But there’s still time to save the little girls in our lives.

For young mothers, who are getting younger all the time, I have these snippets of advice:

When little Sally, who is not yet 5, asks if she can play outside in the safe environment of a fenced yard, it is all right to say, “Sure, honey.”

Later in life, if she wonders if her best friend, Mollie, can spend the night, Mom might respond in the affirmative, because Mollie is a sweet girl who doesn’t steal or wet the bed.

But, in her teens, if Sally asks Mommy if she can pose in the nude for Hustler magazine or a freelance photographer named Mickey the Rat, the answer should be a definitive, possibly shouted, “No!”

That goes for any kind of future requests for advice about videotaping a sex act with her good friend Nick. The answer should also be “No.” If she replies, “But you did,” explain that it was intended for private pleasure until your daddy, who drinks, lent it to a pal who sold it to MTV who resold it to America Online, Fox television and Mad magazine.

Mothers learn lessons that ought to be passed on to their sons and daughters.

My mother taught me nothing at all and my stepfather was depraved, so, what the heck, if anyone would like to buy photographs of my naked behind, they are available for $50 each. It’s a career move.