I met Olympia by surprise at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. I turned the corner, and there she… I met Olympia by surprise at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. I turned the corner, and there she was, in all her glory, naked save a black choker and a smirk. She was young-looking, 15 or 16 at the most, but her one concession to modesty was placing a hand between her legs, ineffectively hiding her pubic hair.

I met Judith on the Internet. In her picture, she was standing in a doorway, her black hair flowing, with her sheer dressing gown open to the waist, exposing one gleaming, rosy nipple.

I wasn’t yet 18 when I went to Paris, and I certainly didn’t need to verify my name or supply a credit card number to get on Judith’s Web site, yet I could see these images.

But before the prude patrol get their padlocked knickers in a twist, I should mention that Olympia is the title of an Edouard Manet painting, and Judith that of a Gustav Klimt. The Musee d’Orsay is open to the public, and Judith was displayed on www.art.com, which anyone with a computer and a modem can access.

Loath as I am to give Janet Jackson’s nipple, which you have to squint to see behind a silver doodad, more press, I find it amusing that people don’t realize that exposed nipples are everywhere. They’re part of our heritage, our culture, what made this nation the great one it is today. Would Lady Justice have such power without her winking headlight? I don’t think so.

This is, of course, not to confuse Jackson’s accident with art, but whenever the obscenity police — in this case, possibly the Federal Communications Commission — start declaring everything dirty, I wonder how far we’re willing to take this, and why we think that nudity equals sex equals badness.

Raising kids and teaching them proper values is difficult. I, for example, could not teach my houseplant Winslow II proper values despite months of trying. Children — who are actually motile — must be even trickier. Deciding what to tell them about this scary, dirty world is something that parents face, and few get a second chance if they screw it up.

So how do parents teach children the distinction between art and pornography, between sexualized nudity and accidental exposure?

I was talking on AIM to a friend, who mentioned something about NippleGate, to which I responded, “Do these people take their children to art museums? They have nipples up to their tympanums.” I don’t mean to imply that people who can be scandalized by a mere nipple have no appreciation for art.

What I do mean to imply is that, if they teach their children that nipples are scandalous, then their kids will only associate nudity with sex, when it can be used in a variety of other contexts.

Nudity equals sex only when there is intent involved. Jackson’s nipple was flashed during a song in which Justin Timberlake vowed to have all her clothes off by the end of the song, which contains far more connotations than a mere body part.

Perhaps someone should have told John Ashcroft that before he covered up Lady Justice’s breast. Her breast was in no way prurient, until he assigned intent to it. In covering up the breast of a concept’s personification, he showed that, when he looked at her, he saw sex, and didn’t approve. News flash to Ashcroft: you can’t have sex with a concept, or with the statue of its personification.

And then there’s the “family entertainment” billing that’s getting kicked around. The idea of letting men in rather tight pants beat the crap of each other for a shiny trophy seems to contradict the notion of wholesome family fun. Moreover, people say they were surprised by the nipple, and therefore couldn’t prepare their children for its horrifying impact.

Yet both Judith and Olympia are available on the Internet at art.com, which is surely within the limits of parental control software. Perhaps children should be taught to understand that, yes, sometimes accidents happen, and yes, people are naked under their clothes. And also teach them that no, sexualized gyratory dancing isn’t appropriate, but pretty paintings made by dead Frenchmen that changed art history are.

But if art’s not for sensitive, impressionable children, try reading them the Bible. Flipping through my favorite searchable Bible, www.bible.com, I find that the word “breast” is used 13 times in the Old and New Testaments, and the word “war” 111 times, so already it seems to be espousing American values.

Oh, wait, what’s this: “Thy two breasts are like two young roes [deer] that are twins, which feed among the lilies”? That, my friends, is Song of Solomon 4:5. It’s one of the most beautiful love poems ever written, famous for its simple, sensual descriptions of two lovers romping about among the forests and in the gardens, which allegorically translates into a poem about the pious’ relationship with God.

It’s long, it’s dirty, and it’s available to anyone with a copy of the Bible. Yes, that means young, impressionable children, as well as old, Bible-loving perverts like myself.

The point is that, rather than shielding children from every mention of a bared breast, learn to teach kids the difference between artistic nudity, symbolic nudity, accidental nudity and plain, old porn. And that will make all the difference.

E-mail Sydney at [email protected].