Unnatural

A 27-year-old local disc jockey who performs at private parties and dances was being held without bail after being charged with nine counts of performing sexual acts with a 15-year-old boy.Marc Scott Dawson, who lives in the 700 block of Eagles Court, Westminster, was arrested yesterday morning after a two-month investigation by Westminster police, according to Lt. Dean Brewer.Mr. Dawson, who uses the name "Marc the Shark" when playing music for hire, was indicted by the county grand jury on three counts of unnatural and perverted sexual practice in alleged contacts with the juvenile between September 1992 and July of this year.

Broadway, Virginia. -- It is regrettable that, on the issue of contraception, the Catholic Church remains unbending. It is also, to me, incomprehensible. To condemn contraception as ''unnatural'' does not withstand close logical scrutiny.The Church would align itself with ''natural law,'' and the natural purpose of sexual intercourse, it is argued, is reproduction. But a good deal more is known now than in an earlier era about the sexuality of humans and other creatures. And it is clear that what is special about human sexuality is that, with our kind, nature has gone out of her way to use sex for other purposes.

A 52-year-old former Green Beret apologized in Anne Arundel Circuit Court yesterday for molesting his daughter and his former wife's sister at his mother's home in Glen Burnie 15 years ago, for which he received a two-year sentence."

The day before he was scheduled to tape an appearance on "Geraldo!" a Northeast High School teacher charged with having sexual relations with one teen-age student was charged with sexually abusing two more yesterday and ordered held in the Anne Arundel County Detention Center without bail.Outraged attorneys for Ronald Walter Price, 49, held a news conference in front of the Glen Burnie courthouse as the social studies teacher and softball coach was being handcuffed and led away to jail."What has happened to Mr. Price is nothing more than a bald-faced attempt to gag our client," attorney Jonathan Resnick said.

WESTMINSTER -- A Baltimore man pleaded guilty last week to one count of bestiality. He was given a suspended five-year sentence and placed on five years of supervised probation.James Allan Nickoles, 26, entered his guilty plea in front of Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. on Wednesday.According to court records, Mr. Nickoles dropped off a dog at the Carroll County Humane Society with an attached letter describing "unnatural and perverted acts" last summer. In November, Mr. Nickoles dropped off photographs, a videotape and a letter further describing the acts, records show.

Vinyl miniskirts. Rubber handbags. Plastic trim in a Chanel collection. And horror of horrors -- Calvin Klein, the king of natural fibers, using polyester. What is fashion coming to?In short, a revolution of sorts is under way: Fake fabrics are no longer considered outcasts. Fancy clothing boutiques that once prided themselves on offering only 100 percent natural fibers have been letting in greater numbers of synthetics -- and with increasingly positive responses from customers who like the looks and easy maintenance of the newest polyesters.

Fashion's continuing infatuation with eras past has brought the synthetics of the '70s back into vogue.We're talking plastic trench coats, patent leather go-go boots, vinyl skirts, virtually anything with a shiny surface.The more extreme versions vinyl hot pants or a plastic jumpsuit, for instance generally are limited to the junior departments. But mature, realistic, rational women can also buy into this playful trend. What could be more practical than a plastic raincoat? In a whimsical pattern or a crayon-bright color, it can even make a rainy day seem a little less dreary.

(Mike Royko is on vacation. While he is away, we ar repeating some of his favorite columns from the past.)HE WAS BENT over a sink in the office men's room, poking a finger into his eye and muttering.I asked him what his problem was."The air. Must be a lot of pollution or something. It goofs up my contact lenses."No, I scoffed, his problem wasn't the air. His problem was the vanity of those who insist on wearing contact lenses because they think it makes them look better and conceals a minor physical flaw.