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This city has become the front line in the legal war between California communities and adult businesses. And although recent court decisions have dealt blows to the city's get-tough effort, neither side is backing down. The city, home to Disneyland and known as a family vacation paradise, has five nude cabarets and topless bars--more than any other community in Orange County. All have opened within the last six years.

With their pictures of reclining nudes and anatomically correct statues, the art books at the Pasadena Central Library were about as racy as it used to get in such hallowed institutions. Not anymore. Sitting with his back to those classic art volumes last week, one patron spent part of his afternoon staring at pornographic pictures on one of the library's 12 Internet terminals.

The Rev. Travis Smith bellows from the pulpit of the 3-month-old First Church of Deliverance: You can't live today successfully holding on to yesterday! Smith has built his congregation on those words. His church is a lesson in how a community can let go of a sordid past. The Gardena building that the church calls home was for 24 years known as the Little Fox Theater, an X-rated movie house where screenings of films were accompanied by lewd acts both inside and outside the building.

Senators in both political parties are squirming at the very notion of a long, graphic impeachment trial that brings to life on the Senate floor the explicit report prepared by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr. While some senators say that the occasionally X-rated details of the Starr report could be discussed in closed session or avoided entirely, the prospect of testimony dealing with President Clinton's liaisons with Monica S.

Think of it as academia meets "Boogie Nights." Porn stars and professors convened in Universal City on Friday morning for a three-day World Pornography Conference, a serious, occasionally X-rated exploration of eroticism and the 1st Amendment.

When you think of romance--don't forget Valentine's Day is approaching--a rhinoceros is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. It is, after all, a huge and clumsy animal with extremely rough skin and upright horns. So it may be tough to associate it with, say, passion. Well, surprise. Rhinos are actually very sexual animals that participate in lengthy foreplay, including lots of biting and licking, prior to marathon mating sessions.

The adult education principal hires an AIDS education representative to address a class, demystify the disease and explain modes of protection. The speaker brings a bagful of props, including condoms and bananas. Tension fills the classroom as he begins his discourse. Students squirm as he talks about the correct way to use and remove a condom and how to dispose of it. Eventually, he unwraps and opens a condom and brings out a rubber replica of an erect penis.