There's nothing like an unmarried pregnancy to settle the dust on a pageant scandal. At least in 2007.

Back in the 1950s, such an event would have been the START of a scandal, or would have been hushed up as even too incendiary for the mainstream press. But in 2007, the revelation that Miss New Jersey USA was giving up her crown due to pregnancy seemed like an echo of a more upright era. Ashley Harder expressed regret for breaking the rules, called the child a gift of God and said she was preparing to marry the father.

Ms. Harder's disclosure seemed so innocent because it capped off a series of more boisterous sexual antics. Tara Conner, Miss USA, was sent to rehab after allegedly "partying" with men, smooching with a teenage girl and dabbling in alcohol and drugs -- all just before turning 21! Katie Rees, Miss Nevada USA, was dumped after old photos surfaced showing her getting nearly naked with a crowd of friends and simulating sex acts.

Then the scandals led to a public row between Miss USA Pageant co-owner Donald Trump and TV host Rosie O'Donnell, with her blasting his marital history and him alluding to her affairs with women. Then Trump declared that he might let Ms. Conner pose for the cover of Playboy, if it was done "in good taste." Then Ms. Rees acknowledged that she had turned down Playboy but would headline a sexy Las Vegas show for millions of dollars. And then ... what's so bad about a nice girl getting pregnant?

We at PNB are often criticized for saying there has been a big change in American sexual morality -- or at least sexual sociology -- in the last few decades. Propriety is alive and well, these critics insist, and pageants are a bastion of the old-fashioned values.

But let's look back to 1956: Sex outside marriage was ignored in the news and entertainment media, except when it was treated as a menace to society. Nudity was banned. Women in an obvious state of pregnancy could not be depicted on film, and the word "pregnant" was only barely tolerated by Hollywood. Women's navels could not be shown on television. Homosexuality was considered so deviant it was unmentionable.

That world is gone. In today's pageant and entertainment culture, some things are forbidden, but little is shameful. If it's "in good taste" and not a felony, just about anything goes. To be really scandalous, a girl has to get pretty wild.

Some are no doubt happy about this evolution, and some are heartbroken. But after the winter of 2006-2007, it's time to admit that traditional sexual restraints among the pageant constituency have all but vanished. It's too late to pretend otherwise.

Wait, another Miss USA Pageant scandal!

Katie Rees has been stripped of her title as Miss Nevada USA after sexually oriented photos of her appeared on the Internet. Ms. Rees is 22, and the photos -- some of which show her engaging in "soft porn" behavior with men and women and "flashing" parts of her body -- reportedly were taken when she in her late teens. A spokesman Ms. Rees said she was unfairly penalized, since the photos predated her pageant career. She was replaced by runner-up Helen Salas, who previously competed at Miss Teen USA.

Hopefully the final twist in the Miss USA scandal

On Dec. 20, 2006, the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving severed its official connection with Miss Teen USA, Katie Blair. The organization, whose mission is obvious from its name, decided that Ms. Blair, 18, was not a suitable advocate for youthful abstinence from alcohol. For the previous week, the dispute about partying by Miss USA, Tara Conner, had also tarnished her roommate, Ms. Blair. Both reportedly had visited New York nightclubs, consumed alcohol while legally underage (Ms. Conner turned 21, the legal age, on Dec. 18) and exhibited "wild" behavior. Ms. Conner is now going to rehab as a condition of keeping her crown, and Ms. Blair is sipping something soft.

Confiscating crowns

Controversy about the "dethroning" of Miss USA 2006, Tara Conner, has led to a wave of media curiosity about how such things happen. We asked Gerdeen Dyer, who's a veteran newspaperman and the founding editor of www.pageant.com, to answer a few questions about these events.

Q. How often do beauty queens have their crowns taken away?

A. It happens about 2 percent or 3 percent of the time, judging from the fairly accessible records of large pageants. It has happened in most major pageant systems at least once. Sometimes more than once. With thousands of queens holding crowns at any given time around the world, it's not a shockingly rare occurrence.

Q. What is the most common reason for women to be stripped of their crowns?

A. Failure to fulfill a contract is the big one. Pageant organizers, for their own protection, tend to write contracts that are pretty restrictive. They specify what the queen can do and what she cannot do, because she is essentially their representative. When you get to the level of a Miss USA, the queen has a lot of obligations, traveling and making public appearances, and she is expected to be "on" most of the time.

Q. That was the case with Miss Russia a few years ago?

A. Oxana Fedorova of Russia won Miss Universe 2002, but the crown was taken away because she didn't meet all her obligations. That's what the pageant said, and that apparently was what happened. There were sensationalized reports of some more scandalous reason, but those reports were generally discredited.

Q. So it's easy for a pageant to take a crown?

A. I think under most contracts, it's pretty much "fire at will," to use a term from the labor market. But no system wants to resort to letting a queen go. It tends to depress recruiting. Sometimes queens are even given a cover story and an honorable exit.

Q. Don't queens sometimes just quit because they feel pageant officials treated them unfairly ?

A. Yes, but it's more common for a woman to be asked to leave. A queen's complaints about her treatment -- whether they are justified or not -- can be enough to get her bounced anyway.

Q. Do disputes like that ever lead to lawsuits?

A. Yes, but they're mostly settled out of court.

Q. Why is that?

A. I'm no legal analyst, but I suspect that disgruntled beauty queens and domineering pageant organizers wouldn't want to face juries. The sympathy factor would be low.

Q. The pageant "scandals" that cost queens their crowns are mostly sex scandals, right?

A. Broadly speaking, yes. The most common scandals used to involve queens who got married or concealed a past marriage. Those cases don't crop up much in the United States these days, and they seem almost quaint. But they still happen in many other countries.

Q. Vanessa Williams lost the Miss America crown in 1984 over soft porn photos. Do you think she would get the same punishment today?

A. Yes, in the sense that pageant rules about involvement in pornography are now very explicit. But in today's social climate she would get a lot of public sympathy, too. Attitudes have liberalized enormously in the United States. Criticizing female celebrities about their sex lives is now a risky tactic, and can sometimes provoke a backlash.

Q. What kinds of things do you believe will cause pageant scandals in the future?

A. It's certainly been hinted in the Tara Conner case that the issue is substance abuse. That doesn't mean she is guilty of any such thing. But that is what has been hinted, and that is what is influencing public opinion and media coverage. Sex laws have been largely repealed, but drug laws are still very much in force, so I suspect future scandals may turn on drug allegations.

Q. Can a queen turn a dethroning to her advantage?

A. Certainly. Vanessa Williams and Oxana Fedorova have done so, though they were ousted under very different circumstances. The right publicity strategy can turn almost anything into an advantage. But not everybody knows how to do that, so it's not something to count on. Notoriety has a limited shelf life.

Gerdeen Dyer can be reached at gerdeen@pageant.com or at 888-643-9526. Brief excerpts from this online interview can be quoted by media if full attribution is given.

A leaked report on Dec. 14, 2006, indicated that Miss USA 2006, Tara Conner, might be stripped of her crown over "personal" problems. The reports were deliberately vague, indicating only that she might be too much of a party girl for Miss Universe Inc. This struck many observers as extraordinary. Miss Universe co-owner Donald Trump, while denying that any decision had been made, said publicly that dethroning Ms. Conner was not out of the question. Rumors that the whole thing was a publicity stunt timed to overshadow the December buildup to Miss America were generally discounted, but the real reason for Ms. Conner's perilous position remained a matter of intense speculation.

Better than the Derby

Tara Elizabeth Conner of Kentucky was crowned Miss USA on April 21, 2006, in Baltimore. Tamiko Nash of California was the first runner-up, and Lisa Wilson of Georgia was the second runner-up. The third runner-up was Stacy Offenberger of Ohio, and the fourth runner-up was Cristin Duren of Florida, who was also the Photogenic winner.

Others in the top 10 were Lacie Lybrand of South Carolina, Lauren Lanning of Texas, Haleigh Stidham of Alabama, Candace Allen of the District of Columbia and Leann Tingley of Rhode Island. Others in the top 15 were Brenna Katheleen Sakas of Arizona, Lauren Grissom of Tennessee, Katee Stearns of Maine, Catherine Warren of Illinois and the suspiciously familiar-looking Lauren Paige Scyphers of Nevada. (Suspicious in a good way.)