Bikini

Build a better condom, A.V.K. Reddy figured, and the world will beat a path to your door. And so the physician and inventor came up with one of the oddest creations in the history of contraception - the female bikini condom. It looks like something you'd find on a shelf at the local porn store: a pair of beige latex bikini panties with a rolled-up condom built into the crotch. During sex, the condom part unfurls and - voila! - the woman has her own instant protection against pregnancy and AIDS.

Back in the day, you only needed a bikini to be beach-ready. Simple, right? Today we are under so much pressure to be buff, bronze, busty, and bootylicious, the idea of lying by the pool has become laden with strife. "I certainly go out of my way to avoid any place where I need to wear a bathing suit," said Nicole Wolverton, 39, a freelance fitness writer and rower from Aldan, who admits to being toned yet terrified of donning skimpy swimwear. "If there is a pool party, I'll go, but I refuse to put on a bathing suit.

"The bikini," taste dictator Diana Vreeland once howled with classic restraint, "is the most important invention since the atom bomb. " It was 40 years ago today that the blast was heard around the world. That means 40 years of exposed female flesh. That means 40 years of lust and envy, anxiety and depression, horror and hubris. Actually, Vreeland, one-time editor of Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, was onto something: The bomb did have something to do with it all. The bikini, constructed of two next-to-nothing strips of cloth, was named after the Pacific atoll where nuclear bombs were tested.

One might have thought that those sadisti- er, inventive folks who design women's swimwear had already explored virtually every way that the female body could be exposed, short of indecently. They'd cut up to here and down to there. They'd used see-through lace and transparent-when-wet synthetics. They'd ruffled, draped and twisted. They'd added so many ties, laces and zippers at strategic spots that fallout became a greater hazard for many wearers than sunburn. Still, after they'd worked every possible variation on the one-piece suit and the two-piece suit - what else was there?

When we were growing up, my sister and I lived with a few indisputable rules: Little girls didn't wear black, ever; absolutely no makeup until we turned 16; and a bikini? No way. These were things reserved for grown women, not 7-year-olds. Today that clear line between childhood and adulthood is blurry and pink in a Hello Kitty kind of way. Technology is a major culprit (parents are friends with their kids on Facebook); however, fashion - with her sequins, skinny jeans, and pouting glossy lips - is the top offender.

Rabbi Izzy Wolmark arrived in a panic. "The limo to the airport was late," he said to his wife, Moriah. "Hurry up, Izzy!" she reprimanded. "We were worried you wouldn't make it. " The rabbi raced inside to change his clothes. No time for modesty, he started to undress right there in Room 141, a math classroom at Northeast High School. "I'm nervous," he said to Moriah. "I need some oil. " All of the other 60 men competing Saturday night in the Mr. & Ms. Greater Philadelphia Body-Building Championships had already finished their routines.

CBS3 anchor Alycia Lane says she is "mortified" over a gossip item in yesterday's New York Post that she had sent private e-mails and suggestive "bikini" photos to NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen, which were intercepted by his wife. The story, which Lane said was not what it appeared, quickly became the talk of a celebrity-starved town and even mushroomed into national fodder as scandal-sniffing bloggers inveighed against Lane. In an exclusive interview yesterday with The Inquirer, Lane insisted she was not a home-wrecker.

Thanks to all of the merchants who provided clothing to make this year's Sexy Singles look so great. Here is what they are wearing: G-N Kang : Betsey Johnson bikini ($98 top and $86 bottom) available at Shirley & Co. Jessica Boyington : Dress by BB Dakota ($73) available at Maxwell James, Haddonfield; satin-wrap sandals by Pucci ($535) available at ViVi G. Shoes, Glen Mills. Shari Smith : Dress by Theory ($275) available at Per Lei Boutique, Media; sandals ($135)

THIS COULD BE NEW START OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP He wasn't looking for letters of transit. Just directions. But when a visitor from France went into a shop in Maine to ask for those directions, he inadvertently booked passage to a long-lost friendship, first forged in Morocco more than 50 years ago. Emile Roche of Lyon, France, and electronics shop owner Emile Ohayon broke into tears and hugged after being reunited by chance. Roche, who retired this year from his job in a Lyon bank, had been visiting his daughters in Montreal when the family decided to make a side trip to Old Orchard Beach, a southern Maine resort town.

ULLA SWENSEN never made it to the Super Bowl, and neither did her teammates Karin Kristensen, Hilgar Oblief, Eva Jacobsen and Uma Thorensen. But 20 years later, Swensen - in real life, Peggy Trentini - looks back on her shortened season as a member of the Swedish Bikini Team as one of highlights of her life. "We had our 15 minutes of fame," she said in a telephone conversation from her home in Orange County, Calif.

Lee Pockriss, 87, who wrote the music for midcentury pop hits such as "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," "Catch a Falling Star," and "Johnny Angel," died Monday at his home in Bridgewater, Conn. Perry Como made a hit of the gentle ballad "Catch a Falling Star" ("Put it in your pocket/Save it for a rainy day"), which Mr. Pockriss wrote with Paul Vance, in 1957. Shelley Fabares introduced Mr. Pockriss and Lynn Duddy's wistful love song "Johnny Angel" ("I dream of him and me/And how it's gonna be")

Back in the day, you only needed a bikini to be beach-ready. Simple, right? Today we are under so much pressure to be buff, bronze, busty, and bootylicious, the idea of lying by the pool has become laden with strife. "I certainly go out of my way to avoid any place where I need to wear a bathing suit," said Nicole Wolverton, 39, a freelance fitness writer and rower from Aldan, who admits to being toned yet terrified of donning skimpy swimwear. "If there is a pool party, I'll go, but I refuse to put on a bathing suit.

When we were growing up, my sister and I lived with a few indisputable rules: Little girls didn't wear black, ever; absolutely no makeup until we turned 16; and a bikini? No way. These were things reserved for grown women, not 7-year-olds. Today that clear line between childhood and adulthood is blurry and pink in a Hello Kitty kind of way. Technology is a major culprit (parents are friends with their kids on Facebook); however, fashion - with her sequins, skinny jeans, and pouting glossy lips - is the top offender.

After a long, cold winter filled with comfort food, wine and cheese, it's not hard to understand why our pooches are poking out. And that means a torturous time of bathing suit shopping and a spring subsisting on little more than salad - sans dressing. The fact is, you can keep eating, because help is on the way. For summer, a handful of companies have lightened the load by introducing swimwear with built-in shapewear. Labels sensitive to the plights of our expanding (and wiggly)

After a long, cold winter filled with comfort food, wine and cheese, it's not hard to understand why our pooches are poking out. And that means a torturous time of bathing suit shopping and a spring subsisting on little more than salad - sans dressing. The fact is, you can keep eating, because help is on the way. For summer, a handful of companies have lightened the load by introducing swimwear with built-in shapewear. Labels sensitive to the plights of our expanding (and wiggly)

Thanks to the all of the merchants who provided clothing to make this year's Sexy Singles look so great. Here is what they are wearing: Kendra G.: Bikini by Lucky ($54 top, $54 bottom), available at Shirley & Co., Cherry Hill. Carla Clarkson: Yoana Baraschi dress, available at Leehe Fai ($395), Philadelphia. Anjali Chainani: Nanette Lepore dress ($185), available at Leehe Fai; wedge-heel sandal by Rafe ($295), available at ViVi G. Shoes, Glen Mills. Rachel Tisera: Bikini by B. Swim ($52 top, $46 bottom)

In hard times such as these, government officials everywhere are at pains to appear indispensable. In other words, it's the perfect moment for a fit of flagrantly unnecessary bureaucracy. Enter the New Jersey Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling, which inadvertently took its obscure brand international this month by considering a crackdown on a popular (if merciless) kind of hair removal. Having collected complaints from no fewer than two women claiming injuries as a result of a so-called Brazilian bikini wax, the board put some of the state's indispensable bureaucrats on the case.

Are you experiencing disturbing, election-related thoughts? When you close your eyes at night, do the colors of CNN's "magic" electoral map dance in your head like red and blue sugarplums? Are you getting carpal tunnel syndrome from hitting "refresh" at political Web sites and blogs? Are you at once totally sick of election news and insatiably hungry for more? As a result, are you sick of yourself? Me, too, and I don't think we're alone. As much as we want to think and talk about subjects other than the election, we can't.