How sexy is too sexy at work? Casual Fridays are one thing, but wearing clothes to your 9-to-5 that are better suited for Saturday night clubbing is another--yet it's happening all over the country. Find out what's behind the flesh-baring trend and whether you could be an offender.(YOU YOU YOU)

* A funny thing has been happening on the way to the office recently: A lot of young women have been shedding their clothes ... or sexing up the clothes they do wear. Even chicks in normally conservative Washington, D.C., are getting into the act. Seductively dressed interns on Capitol Hill are now called skinterns. The term apparently was coined in the summer of 2005, around the same time that President Bush smiled for a photo op with a group of female college lacrosse players dressed, if not sexily, then way too casually. Several of the girls in the front row were wearing flip-flops--at the White House!

Skinterns got even more press when the irreverent political Web site Wonkette.com sponsored a contest they dubbed "Hill Intern Hotties" to crown the sexiest summer intern.

This dressing-down-and-daringly craze is certainly raising eyebrows. Last summer, several employers--including large companies such as Nationwide and Lazard--reinforced or updated dress codes to ban midriff-baring tops, flip-flops, sundresses, halter tops, mini-skirts, and "Spandex-type materials," among other things.

And last fall, Advertising Age magazine published a survey of a cross section of 1,000 American adults in which almost 7 in 10 respondents (68 percent) said they think women are showing more cleavage in the workplace.

Maybe those chicks are taking their cues from working women on TV these days (think of the hot young investigators on CSI: Miami or the shapely hospital administrator on House, whose skirts provocatively hug her hips). FHM, a prominent men's magazine, even published a lingerie spread featuring women executives from the reality show The Apprentice.

Dressed to Thrill

Some career experts think this trend of dressing sexy for work has as much to do with showing independence and nonconformance as with choosing purposely provocative clothing.