Jennifer Beals: It's Showtime!

Male and female, gay and straight, TV audiences are being seduced by Showtime's latest original series, The L Word, which chronicles the lathery lives of A-list lesbian ladies in Los Angeles. At the center of the capable cast of desirable and daring actors is Jennifer Beals. Twenty years after her explosive debut in the faddish '80s fiction Flashdance (and subsequent status as an icon of fashion of the time think frayed fleece) the actress is proud to be a part of another mainstream media milestone.

"I love the show," she exclaims. "It has its own identity. It normalizes what society has characterized as perverse or unacceptable. It makes you realize that at the end of the day, it's about love."

Love. And sex. The initial buzz and provocative pilot tantalized potential viewers with full-frontal nudity, louche liaisons and colorful conversation; featuring homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual relationships; monogamous and promiscuous pairings. Later episodes further explore the depth of the connections in a subtler tone and style.

Beals is Bette, a type-A workaholic in a seven-year relationship with Tina (Laurel Holloman), who has taken a hiatus from work in order to conceive a child through artificial insemination. Their cohorts include Shane (Katherine Moennig), a free-loving, loose-living hairstylist; Dana (Erin Daniels), a professional tennis player who's yet to exit the proverbial closet; bisexual journalist Alice (Leisha Hailey); Marina Karina Lombard), a beautiful, brilliant woman who owns the West Hollywood cafe where the gals assemble a la Friends; and Bette's half-sister, Kit (Pam Grier).