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Young Marvin had already seen "The Spy Who Shagged Me" -- whisked past the PG police by his father -- and now he was drawn to the bushy-chested doll in Union Jack underwear who asks the saucy question "Would you fancy a shag?" But it was the query on the packaging -- "Do I make you horny, baby?" -- that pricked the boy's curiosity. When he asked his mom what "horny" meant, she was ready with an explanation: "It's sort of like goose bumps that make your hair stand up," said Tamatha Brannon, rather creatively. But she didn't stop there. She did what any good American parent faced with such a situation would do: She sued Toys 'R Us, which admitted it accidentally stocked a PG-rated version of the doll instead of the fully clothed, G-rated figure it had intended.

But the flap over the Austin Powers doll is only the best-known summer outbreak of panic over a new social concern: rampant doll sexuality. Earlier this season the nation had to deal with a similar shock-horror over the new Tarzan toy. Seems this denizen of the Disney jungle can be made to raise his right hand, which normally rests against his loincloth. All well and good. But if you rapidly push a certain button, his fisted mitt will rapidly move up and down, adding piquancy to the ape man's cry: "Aiiiyaiiiyaaah!"

What's a parent to do? Those who worship at "The 700 Club" already know that there's a vast conspiracy to violate the innocence of tykes and toddlers. Leading this crusade is Disney, the agent of Satan that permits gay days at its theme parks and hides sexual innuendo in its cartoons. (Since this company is now run by a male Jew, it is the official home of the antichrist.) No wonder Mattel promptly recalled Tarzan, and did what generations of priests and counselors told parents to do when faced with such hand-jive: They tied the doll's arm down. "What we're doing is securing the arm so it doesn't get ..." a spokesperson for Mattel haltingly explained. "So it isn't in a position ... so it doesn't have ... how can I say this gracefully? So he's not in a pose with his hand."

Why are these kiddie icons raising so much adult heat? It's the latest round in a time-honored American ritual: obsessing over the sexuality of the young. Tinky Winky-phobia was only a start. Clearly, this plush purple plaything has no sexuality -- unless it's polyester perverse -- but that didn't stop Falwell from accusing PBS of foisting a gay icon on 3-year-olds. After all, Tinky Winky is lavender, sports a triangular headdress and carries a purse. Guys have been killed for less in God's country.

The Teletubby freakout was no surprise to me. I remember turning on the TV when I was 7 or so and happening upon a fierce debate about farm animals running around in the nude. This was in the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, so I was used to such panicked crusades. The creator of this one eventually admitted that it was a hoax, but not before his supporters posed the problem in stark and shocking terms. Children were seeing donkey dongs and cow udders brazenly displayed. Shouldn't these beasts wear clothes?

Such a wacky rap could only pass for real in an age when parents pondered the hidden sexual meanings in comic books. Thanks to a lurid survey called "The Seduction of the Innocents," parents in the 1950s were able to detect vaginas in the armpits of cartoon characters (something I, as a kid, had never noticed until the controversy). It didn't end until a comics code prevented any conceivable innuendo, so that Archie, Veronica and their pals had bodies as flat and featureless as, well, Teletubbies.

Next page | Don't worry: Jar Jar is "swinging straight"