If I put a dollar in your Treble Clef will you leave me alone?

Maybe, I'm getting old.

Isn't that what you're supposed to say when faced with a troubling cultural shift? Usually one involving sex?

Last night, while driving my sister's car after a frustrating and time gouging mistake, I took the opportunity to flip through the radio. I've mentioned before my love of radio, even as it lays dying at the feet of iTunes and XM. ( There's a weird level of responsibility with the new fangled music players. You and you alone are the arbiter of what goes into your ears. Fatigue sets in after a while - all the songs you KNOW pop up, cycling through the Merry-Go-Round of the same euphonic scenery, over and over. Once I've heard "Somebody to Love" 84 times, my heart just doesn't burst with passion the way it used to. With radio, I am not responsible for my play list. I can stumble across any old thing. And who cares if it's Roxette. I'm not responsible. I can belt "She's Got the Look" and never have to answer to my iTunes recommendations for having purchased it.)

Last night at around 1:30am, however, the radio was not my friend. In fact, it wasn't even an acquaintance. The radio, it turns out, was a hooker who hopped into my car at the intersection of Pulaski and Irving Park.

I have offered several iterations to the fact that I am not a sexual prude. If it rings your bell and nobody's getting hurt (without their consent), then full speed ahead, I say.

But do we have to be so, I don't know, On-The-Nose about it?

My friend E. has an unapologetic love for "Booty Music": sexually charged hip-hop that is at once exploitative and playful. Kinda angry, Kinda hungry. Usually, somebody done somebody wrong, but god knows, they can't help but want each other, up in the club or in the hot tub.

I have no problem with this. I'm not hot to listen to it all the time, but when I'm in the mood for pretending I have the wherewithal to head to the dance floor, it hits the spot.

But during a commercial free hour on B96, my ears were given an unwanted lap dance. From songs like "Birthday Sex" (You say you want passion/ I think you found it/ Get ready for action / Don't be astounded/ We switchin' positions/ You feel surrounded/ Tell me where you want your gift, girl Birthday Sex, Birthday Sex) to "Love Game" (Let's have some fun/ this beat is sick/ I want to take a ride on your disco stick.) to the elegant "Hotel Room Service" (oh, you're the healthy type/ Well, here goes some egg whites/ Now gimme that sweet, that nasty gushy stuff/ let me tell you what we gon' do.)

There's sexy and playful, and then there's unlicensed gynecological.

Remember when Madonna scandalized the public by humping a bridal veil on MTV?

Ha. Tepid. Tame. Downright puritanical.

I've puzzled over why I'm so grossed out by this. I'm about as liberal as you can get. Why do my eyebrows crinkle thus?

When I was a sophomore in high school, I was propositioned while using the computer in study hall.

"Go out with me." he said in a tinny, southern accent.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

"You make my nut hairs curl."

Yes. This is exactly what he said.

I think it took a week for my fallopian tubes to untangle.

The thing is, I've no objections to a man (or woman, sure) expressing urgent sexual interest. Terrific. But might you finesse it a little?

The conventional wisdom seems to veer towards "dispense with the games and just be honest" and how "we're all just animals anyway." The "just be honest" part I support in full. But aren't games (not the head ones) a little fun? Who out there, regardless of social status or education, couldn't use a good wooing every so often?

We can still go at it like the animals we are later on.

I may be getting old - that is certain sure for all of us. I'm not standing on any moral high ground and wagging my finger at this generation's "Egg Whites".

But the B96-ers are missing out.