“Skins,” a crass teen dramedy from MTV, has little nudity and no explicit sex scenes.

But it has struck a nerve with its portrayal of a world where teens attach as much emotional value to sex as to skateboarding.

“Skins,” a remake of a British hit, follows a group of high school students who seem to spend most of their free time hooking up, going to parties and doing drugs.

If that weren’t bad enough, their parents and teachers are incompetent fools. It’s “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” meets “Red Shoe Diaries.”

In the two weeks since its premiere, conservatives and liberals alike have blasted “Skins” as irresponsible, heaping upon it scorn and moral outrage.

Why is the show so objectionable?

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Some social scientists and family-values folks say it distorts real life, twists human sexuality, and will have a pernicious effect on kids.

But what if it doesn’t twist things? What if it’s shocking precisely because it’s accurate — a “rude awakening” to oblivious parents, as one 14-year-old “Skins” fan from Texas puts it?

Or maybe adults are enraged because the series reminds us that we’ve all been complicit in creating a hyper-sexual consumer culture in which all things, including our bodies — and now, our children — are reduced to commodities.

Conservative watchdog organization the Parents Television Council says “Skins” doesn’t just show a pornographic culture, it is itself a form of child pornography.

“The fact that they have minors in these highly sexualized, highly eroticized . . . situations is particularly disturbing,” says PTC communications director Melissa Henson.

“Skins” is the creation of British writer-producer Bryan Elsley, 49, and his son, Jamie Brittain, 25, who drew on his own experience as a teen.

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Elsley anticipated the controversy in a phone interview on the eve of the show’s MTV premiere.

“People keep saying there’s a lot of nudity. Well, our cast is never naked,” he said. “It’s actually a very traditional, old-fashioned narrative.”

Elsley said he tries to keep the show real by consulting teen writers, who suggest plot lines from their own lives.

MTV seems undaunted that eight sponsors have pulled out of the show, including GM, Taco Bell, and H&R Block. A spokesman said Wednesday that the network fully supports Elsley.

Teens who watch the drama agree it’s exaggerated, but some insist that it does reflect teenage lives. “Kids in all the other TV shows seem so innocent,” says one, contacted through one of the show’s Facebook pages. “(‘Skins’ is) a lot more . . . truthful.”

Her classmate says she and her mother have been watching “Skins” together. “Usually we end up having a serious conversation after,” she says.

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‘iCarly’ star hits road for first concert tour

DETROIT – Having enjoyed a long career in front of the camera, the 17-year-old Nickelodeon star Miranda Cosgrove is learning about life in front of a concert crowd. Nine months after releasing “Sparks Fly,” her debut album of bubbly guitar-pop, Cosgrove has hit the road for her first tour. The month-long run will take her across the Eastern Seaboard before heading back to her native California.

Cosgrove can expect an eager reception from young fans enamored of her show “iCarly,” the high-spirited, high-rated Nick comedy. And you can bet that more than a few have caught her turn in the 2003 film “School of Rock,” where her precocious Summer Hathaway helped stage a battle of the bands.

Cosgrove knows that hitting the road for a month of real concerts is a whole different proposition.

“It’s my first time ever being on a tour bus,” she says. “I’ve never done anything like this before. So it’s a little bit of everything — mainly excitement, but a little nervous.”

In the past year Cosgrave has been in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, performed on “Christmas in Washington” and acted in the CBS drama “The Good Wife,” among other things.


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