The celebrity gossip my parents grew up with talked about the love lives of their teen idols. The celebrity gossip Gen Y is hearing about involves sex tapes, paparazzi pictures and drug binges. What effect is this going to have?

Antonella Barba from American Idol, Disney’s Vanessa Hudgens and “Hannah Montana” Miley Cyrus. Celebrities designed to be wholesome, talented role models. Celebrities whose reputations were tainted by having sexually explicit material from their past leak to the media.

It’s a sign that the tides of sexual attitudes are changing. Indiscretions are willingly being captured. In fact, some sex scandals are entirely manufactured with the intent of drumming up PR (why, Screech, why?).

Us normal, every day folk may not have our dirty laundry aired on Entertainment Tonight — but we’re choosing to put last weekend’s bar shenanigans and other potentially incriminating pictures on Facebook. It’s the inevitable inflation of sexual message thresholds that occurs in every generation.

The stakes are raised with every generation. Some Boomers grew up to the sight of Elvis’ hips being censored. My kids won’t even blink at a sex tape being released.