“Sexpresso,” a unique form of caffeine delivery,

is here to stay. Imagine this scene:

Frank pulls up to the window at Venti-Sumptuous Espresso. The pink shack is decked out in lace, with menus in slinky cursive. Frank doesn’t notice the girl’s face at the body-length window, but he does notice it’s “Fantasy Friday” judging from her revealing “Rapunzel” outfit and hair attachments. He’s stunned. He doesn’t know whether to order a “Creamy Dream” or a “Tawdry Temptress” off the extensive, innuendo-laden menu. She winks at him. “Want me to make ya somethin’ special?” Frank nods dumbly. Five dollars in the tip jar, some widened pupils and a towering bucket of cocoa-coffee later, he drives off with a dazed grin on his face.

Sexpresso entails plunging necklines, short skirts and flirtatious customer service. At many all-female espresso stands across our area, such as Natte Latte, Cowgirls Espresso and Best Friend Espresso, you can get all of these perks. Some even have themed costume days, when the bouncy staff cavorts in all manners of suggestive outfits. Many men get their daily jollies ogling the baristas while their coffee is made. Tips are extremely high, and some baristas make between $80 and $150 a day in cash.

The fact that we need exposed women to pour our milk says some frightening things about our culture. Is skin exposure really that pertinent to the acquisition of caffeine? It would have been hard to imagine this 10 years ago, but strong coffee competition in Seattle has made the ground ripe for innovation.

Call it oversaturation or general boredom, but somewhere in between a cup of Folgers and cleavage-borne cappuccinos, we’ve become impatient. First, we wanted flavors in our steamed milk, and then we wanted grande frappuccinos with caramel and raspberry. Now the drive-thru coffee scene is like professional wrestling: cleavage-filled, entertainment-obsessed and wildly popular in places like Kent.

I wouldn’t mind trying this job out. Put me in a bowtie and some cufflinks and let me romp around making mochas. I’d flirt with sugar mamas who would pay my way through school on their tips. Put me in a police outfit and I’d make americanos all day with a sly grin over my aviator glasses and fake mustache. There’s hundreds of lonely cougars out there.

It’d be fun until some admirer in a trench coat pulled up in a black Lincoln and offered me a tip to do further role-playing. “No, sorry sir, it’s not that kind of a stand.” But I can’t help imagining what it’s like for sexpresso baristas on a daily basis. How many smarmy remarks must they endure? How many off-color propositions get thrown their way? But they know what they’re getting themselves into when they apply, I suppose.

Our society’s proliferation of skin is linked to that old adage: sex sells. It sells to lonely men who want more than caffeine in the morning and look for places to spend their cash at night: Déjà Vu anyone? It sells to teenage boys who are glued to computer screens when their parents aren’t around. It sells millions of dollars of Superbowl ad space. It’s inevitable that sex will drive part of our economy.

But why sexpresso? Is it for the visual high that men receive when looking at a woman? Is that worth the extra tip money spent and the bodies objectified? Of course, they’re objectified on purpose, but the question remains. You aren’t really paying for coffee in these cases. What’s the big deal with half-nakedness, anyway? For me, it’s boring. It’s the equivalent of running downstairs at Christmas time to find out somebody unwrapped all your presents ahead of time: no mystery, no wonderment.

I’m curious to find out where this tendency to disrobe will take us. Are we going to start buying burritos from girls with plunging necklines, or replace the McDonald’s ball pit with a stage and pole?

Are there going to be other drive-thru “services” that don’t even involve espresso, but still employ tip-hungry vixens? I just know that if I have kids, the world they’re living in will be a lot fleshier than ours.

[Reach columnist Jackson Rohrbaugh at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]