It's getting tough to open a magazine, turn on the TV or watch a movie these days without being confronted by some desperate housewife with a crazy libido and great abs. As a cultural phenomenon, all the "hot mom" movement has lacked is a heated legal battle, and now it has one: Trouble is brewing over ownership of the very term "hot mom."

Jessica Denay, a single mom from Los Angeles who has a celebrity following, is in a dispute with TV marketing firm Buzznation and Medicis, the manufacturer of the dermal filler Restylane, Botox's so-called sister product. The company is producing a reality-TV pilot that, Denay maintains, co-opts a brand she created.

Medicis isn't fazed by her claims, calling them "unfounded" and "false," and sees this aging demographic as too good to pass up. Consequently, trademark applications have been submitted. Testy lawyer letters have been exchanged. High-profile litigation firms have been retained. And an awkward chapter in feminist history unfolds.

The fight erupted last summer around "Hottest Mom in America," a pilot paid for entirely by the pharmaceutical company. The show's producers auditioned thousands of moms in six cities and say they will award the "hottest" one $50,000 in scholarship and prize money, a year's supply of Restylane and an interview with a modeling agency. Denay, who left her job as a tutor for Pierce Brosnan's kids to promote her own "hot mom" brand through a Web site and a book, says the pilot cheapens her carefully crafted "movement" and risks her hard-won celebrity endorsements.

"Hottest Mom" producers haven't completed the U.S. pilot and already they're trademarking the name in other markets. Denay, who co-founded an online community www.hotmomsclub .com and published "The Hot Mom's Handbook: Moms Have More Fun!," said she has two TV shows and a radio program in development.

Both parties know the first reality-TV show out the gate has a clear advantage. "The phenomenon is something that the networks have wanted to get their hands on for a very long time," said Jeff Greenfield, an executive producer of "Hottest Mom in America" and Buzznation's executive vice president.

Unfortunately, he conceded, the whole motherhood/sexiness thing is delicate turf. "There's a fine line between porn and regular stuff," he said. "This is a show that is sexy enough to satisfy the people that are looking for that, but it is definitely not that at all."

TIP OF ICEBERG

All the elements of the "hot mom" phenomenon were richly on display at the "Hottest Mom" auditions on a Sunday morning in Los Angeles last month. Ladies in belly-baring tops and skintight jeans were lined up in the lobby of El Rey Theater in the mid-Wilshire district, ready to pose provocatively for a photographer in a makeshift studio and audition for one of four computer monitors equipped with cameras. One woman with waist-length platinum hair and wearing a halter top gushed, "I'm multicultural! Multitalented! I'm a stay-at-home mom! I work part time as a makeup artist! And I also sing!" Then she broke into "Part of Your World," a song from the "Little Mermaid" soundtrack.

"Even though you're a mom, you don't have to be dowdy, especially nowadays," said contestant Xia Boyd, a mother of three who wouldn't reveal her age but who wore an enviable pair of sparkly gold stilettos. "We're not the women of before who let things go."

As Medicis Chairman and Chief Executive Jonah Shacknai explained later, this show "is all about market expansion. We don't think we've even hit the tip of the iceberg."

This focus on a cosmetic procedure is anathema to Denay, who says her club members include 300,000 women in the U.S. and Canada. In her book, she writes that a hot mom can be "eighteen or ninety-eight, a size 2 or a size 22, have one child or 15!" However, the silhouette on the book cover (and on the T-shirts and the Web site) is definitely closer to a size 2 and it sports belled pants, high-heeled boots and a Farrah Fawcett feathered 'do.

For her, she said, "hot mom" means "confident, empowered. That's what we stand for. That's why so many celebrity moms have come and rallied behind us. We get e-mails constantly telling how much this book has changed their life. We don't have an agenda. Our only mission is to help create a network of moms."

Denay and Joy Bergin, a stylist for "Entertainment Tonight" and "The Insider," launched their site in February 2005, and soon they had a whole team pitching their brand to Hollywood. Actress Lauren Holly wrote the introduction to Denay's book. Last month, Mariska Hargitay hosted a star-studded "Hot Mom's Soiree" charity benefit. Britney Spears donated maternity clothes to the group to distribute to needy moms, Denay said.

MOMENTUM BUILDING

Denay said she and Bergin were approached last month to join "Hottest Mom in America," but they declined. Denay said she was already moving ahead with her own reality-TV show and had launched a "hottest moms" radio contest, sponsored by the shampoo brand Suave, in 10 cities. When applicants confused the radio program with the "Hottest Mom" pilot, she had her lawyer send a letter to Medicis. Medicis pushed ahead with auditions.

Nearly two years ago, Denay applied to trademark the terms "hot mom" and "hot mom's club," she said, but she had not applied for the rights to those terms in TV. So, Denay said, in August she applied to expand her trademark to include use of "hot moms" in all media. A week later, Medicis and the "Hottest Mom" producers filed their own application to trademark the term "Hottest Mom in America." Both applications are pending approval. Medicis attorneys wouldn't comment on details of the dispute but in a company statement said Medicis with Buzznation "created and developed the concept for this program entirely independently, and this individual's unfounded allegation to the contrary is false. As substantial momentum builds for this program, it is unfortunate, though hardly surprising, that this sort of opportunism would occur."

Denay responded: "We have gained nothing from this. This has only hurt our company." The Hot Moms Club was "started by moms, not a big corporation, not a marketing firm, not men — real moms who know what it is like to juggle our own needs and the needs of our families."

The concept of a hot mom seems ever more entrenched, largely due to booming birth rates among women in their 30s and 40s who have expendable incomes and the desire to stay current.

In some ways, the phenomenon — and the scramble to capitalize on it — taps into something lodged irrevocably in our psyches (Mrs. Robinson, anyone?). Perhaps it's just a part of the species' natural attraction to those who can perpetuate it.

Even the makers of "Hottest Mom in America" embrace the ideal of the traditional mom. The show's logo is a silhouette of a Donna Reed double in a 1950s housedress, her arms thrown heavenward like the ladies on "The Price Is Right."

"She looks like a mom!" exclaimed Greenfield. "We didn't want people to think that this is a contest that dealt entirely with looks. We wanted to emphasize that the show had more to do with your life and managing your life." Reed, he added, exemplifies the nostalgic mother ideal, a woman from a simpler time, but one who is in more control of her sphere than today's haggard workhorses. The hot mom, he said, "didn't get that way overnight. There's a story there. It's a lot of work to get there."