E-Mail This Article to a Friend THE KARMA FACTOR A child’s garden of O’Reilly BY ADAM REILLY

As Bill O’Reilly knows, the modern workplace can be a sensitive place. Tell a woman about the wild time you had with two Scandinavian stewardesses, or what you’d like to do to her with a loofa sponge, and all of a sudden you’re staring at a lawsuit!

Right now, though, the conservative darling and host of Fox TV’s The O’Reilly Factor isn’t just worrying about defending the suit brought by his former co-worker Andrea Mackris. He also has a new book on the shelves — The O’Reilly Factor for Kids: A Survival Guide for America’s Families (HarperEntertainment) — and news of his disturbing sexual proclivities comes as we’re entering prime shopping season. Stalwart O’Reilly viewers will, undoubtedly, keep tuning in to his rants during the coming months. But will they still buy his book for their teenagers?

Rest assured, potential customers — The O’Reilly Factor for Kids, co-written with Charles Flowers, is an innocuous and occasionally engaging read. In it, we learn, for example, that O’Reilly knows his instant-messaging slang, FWIW; that he had no "moves" (his quotes) with the ladies back in the day; and that he thinks young people should try listening to "oldies" (his quotes) instead of gangsta rap. But the most fascinating part of The O’Reilly Factor for Kids is that at several points it seems as if the strait-laced O’Reilly we thought we knew is giving a stern lecture to his inner superfreak.

"Bullies are losers," O’Reilly says at one point. "Often, they’re out of shape, awkward physically, or can’t afford new or stylish clothes. They’re not happy.... No one should bully, and no one should have to suffer through it, either."

"Healthy sex is a combination of sensible behavior and sincere affection," he says later. "Listen to me: no matter how much you know about bodies, positions, practices, and preferences, you are nowhere near having the combination of maturity and insight that meaningful sex requires."

This, however, may be the best O’Reilly-scolds-O’Reilly moment of all: "Here’s a big word for today: dehumanization. When you are interested in someone only on the basis of physique, you’re dehumanizing him or her, seeing that person only as an attractive object. If you are doing that, remember, good sex occurs between two human beings, not between two objects.... And guys, if you exploit a girl, it will come back to get you. That’s called ‘karma.’"

So it is, Bill.