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Don't you just want to smack wonder-boy pop singer James Blunt over and over until his rosy cheeks turn as purple as plums? When the cherubic lark sings "You're Beautiful," he just sounds too naive to live. Does he think the angel he sees on the subway with another man just popped into existence like Venus on the half shell?

Earth to Blunt: That man is most likely a pimp, and your so-called angel a prostitute en route to get filled out like an envelope by German businessmen. How do you like her now?

If we know anything these days, it's that delusions of innocence are out -- way out. The Da Vinci Code enthralled millions of readers with the alarmingly mind-blowing notion that the coolest broad in history might have been a chick with secrets and sexuality. By the way, virgins are out, too.

But let's not crawl too far out of our Puritan shells. Many times, we think we've met a potential match, only to realize that this person has skeletons in his closet that we just can't stomach. They may be tainted like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate or Joey Lauren Adams in Chasing Amy. Their partners may love them yet cringe at their touch.

With all the temptation available in bars near you, it would be surprising to bump into a taint-free individual. Love is a necessary illusion, and it sucks that just about all of us have to adjust our minds to the stomach-churning reality of real people.

For example, I'm not big on group sex. If I were dating a total dream of a guy and found out that he'd been in an orgy, I think I'd just about barf. What would I do? Probably bow out with an, "It's not you, it's me."

To investigate this phenomenon further, I recently headed out with my friend Bridge to talk to some locals about tainted love. I figured this was a question for people at Capone's, a downtown Fort Lauderdale drinking spot that's so sexualized that, well, even hanging out there may give some people the wrong impression of you.

As we walked into the bar, Bridge helped me overcome another taint issue I have. I steer clear of generic hotties with their clean-cut hair and sleek clothes. Their polished good looks smack of a self-important, unoriginal masculinity that just makes me squirm.

Yet Bridge proved to me that nothing can pep a girl up like talking to the hottest guys in the bar. So we approached a couple of tall, good-looking and well-dressed guys: Kyle, a 26-year-old blond in a green-and-white-striped, short-sleeve button-down; and Danny, a 31-year-old cutie with a fuzzy buzz cut in a long-sleeve white shirt buttoned right up to the neck -- the way Mom likes it.

I asked Kyle and Danny what taints a woman for them, and Danny answered with a story. "I was hanging out with this girl, and she was wearing a skirt," he recalled. "Her skirt came up above her knees and she hadn't shaved her upper legs. They were really hairy. She was just doing enough to keep up appearances."

Feeling self-conscious, I looked down at my chipped blue nail polish and remembered why I never flirt with exacting businessmen. If they're that particular with themselves, what are they going to expect from me?

"Would you not date a girl who had dated your friend?" I asked the boys.

"That's the cardinal rule," Kyle said.

Danny didn't agree. One person's taint is apparently not another's. "If Kyle said OK, I'd be OK with it," he admitted.

But Kyle knew better from experience. "I got drunk and stupid and hooked up with a girl who had dated one of my friends," he said. "I felt terrible about it. I had to talk to the guy the next day. He called me in tears."

Danny offered another taint: "Being an evangelical Christian or any kind of fundamentalist taints a woman.

"But obviously it depends on the woman," he added. "The right woman can violate the rules. Generally, when you make rules, you meet the woman who can break them."

The boys then bought us a shot called a red snapper, and we all shared a digestive moment of silence before I continued prodding them for more information. I threw this question onto the table for discussion: How about if you know that a woman is a cheater?

Kyle wasn't even slightly feeling the cheating kind of women. "A woman will think she can change a cheater," he said. "A man will not invest in a woman he knows to be a cheater."

Danny interjected: "I'm not contesting what he said, but I believe in a little reverse psychology. A girl who is trying to deceive you from the get-go is kind of hot. If you're smart enough to see it, she's admitting what confines her. She lies about things I could handle the truth about."

In the world of Bennifer and Tomkat, we could probably handle most truths that celebrity culture lies about. For one, I have a hunch that Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston are not a real couple. They have a new movie coming out, so isn't it just convenient that they're together?

"He totally hates her," Bridge said as I read a tabloid quote from Oprah Winfrey's interview with Vaughn.

" 'She's just really smart and funny and easy to be with,' " I read, quoting Vaughn. " 'Very considerate. And just great.' "

That doesn't sound like a man in love to me. But dating -- or appearing to date -- Brad Pitt's ex-wife probably places you a couple of notches higher on the celebrity-hottie scale.

Even in the real world, it seems to be true that something rubs off on you when you date someone. People start to associate you with that person, which can taint you according to their impression of that person. But if it's good, it could work to your benefit.

Kyle claimed to have experienced this phenomenon on a recent date. "If you're dating a girl, other girls want you more because you're with someone," he said. "It happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was out with a girl, and then I got a call from a girl I haven't spoken to in eight months."

Was Kyle more attractive because he was dating? I suppose it's possible, and I've heard other guys say women find them more attractive when they're taken. I, for one, prefer to prey on single men. Guys who use girls to cruise other girls? So tainted.

Courtney Hambright's column appears every other week.