Sex & the Singles Girl

Image credit: Britney and Justin: Tammie Aroyo/Retna

PUPPY LOVE Timberlake and Spears went public with their romance last year

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Britney Spears

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In short, the polite and unjaded Spears looks nothing like the come-hither, going-on-20 Britney pouting on the cover of her new album -- an album whose sultry, deep-groove single ''I'm a Slave 4 U'' contains the following defiant declaration: ''I know I may be young/ But I've got feelings too/ And I need to do what I feel like doin'/ So let me go...'' But then you notice Spears' hands. Her nails are lacquered with an expensive-looking French manicure. Very adult. And yet, on one of her fingers sits a plastic gumball-machine trinket -- a pink heart-shaped ring that flips open to reveal a tiny cache of lip gloss.

Like a boxer who's actually a soft-spoken pussycat outside of the ring, Spears is a complex contradiction: Is she a girl or a woman? The fact that her particular contradiction traffics in sex has helped make her both a times-22 platinum superstar and a lightning rod for parental concern. It's a fine line to dance on -- with or without a snake. Just ask Madonna. And Spears doesn't exactly help clear things up. ''I find it so funny that people find me so interesting,'' she says, laughing. ''And I hate when they're, like, 'Define your image.''' In fact, the thought of answering this question one more time makes Spears shriek like a schoolgirl getting her pigtails yanked. ''I don't know what my freakin' image is! I just do my thing.''

To be honest, it's hard to tell if ''doing her thing'' includes playing coy or if she's swept up in some cultural debate even she can't begin to fathom. Her ''Crossroads'' director, Tamra Davis, thinks Spears is an active participant in the virgin-whore gambit: ''She definitely plays with that duality.'' But for her part, Spears wants you to believe that she's shocked -- shocked! -- by the barely legal brouhaha that has been swirling around her ever since she shook her moneymaker through the Lolita-in-a-plaid-skirt ''…Baby One More Time'' video. ''I guess it's because I do have a younger audience that, you know, parents worry about the role model thing…. But when I was younger, I looked up to people, but I never wanted to be them. I always had my own identity. I'm an entertainer when I'm on stage... and they need to explain that to their kids. That's not my job to do that.''

She pauses to collect herself. ''There are so many other teenagers out there that dress more provocatively than I do and no one says anything about them.'' Maybe she's right. Maybe the Bubble Yum debate says more about us than it does about her. ''How can I explain this?'' She exhales and focuses her thoughts. ''I don't see myself -- hand on the Bible -- I know I'm not ugly, but I don't see myself as a sex symbol or this goddess-attractive-beautiful person at all. When I'm on stage, that's my time to do my thing and go there and be that -- and it's fun. It's exhilarating just to be something that you're not. And people tend to believe it.'' Then Spears begins to crack up. ''I guess I just pull it off very well.''

This story is excerpted from Entertainment Weekly's Nov. 9, 2001, cover story. See the magazine to read this story in its entirety.

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