Sisterly Sex Talk

Two producers rushed around the waiting rooms of the Burbank studio, breathlessly asking after the welfare of their guests. “Are you all right? Do you need anything? Are you thirsty? Hungry?” When one woman asked for water, she was led to a kitchen, where several tables were piled high with vegetables, and Wolfgang Puck’s cooking crew worked frantically to prepare dishes for the chef’s Food Network show, next in line for the sound stage.

Meanwhile, sex columnist Anka Radakovich waited her turn in the greenroom, a tiny place furnished with two black leather loveseats and a TV monitor. The columnist’s jet black hair, pale complexion, red lipstick and all-black ensemble suggested she was the lone Manhattanite in the room. She was waiting to be interviewed by sisters Jennifer Berman, 37, (a urologist) and Laura Berman, 33, (a sex therapist), the well-coiffed and bubbly hosts of the new Discovery Health Channel show “Berman & Berman: For Women Only,” which airs Friday evenings.

From the greenroom monitor, Radakovich was watching the Bermans ask two Playboy playmates, Ava Fabian (Miss August, 1986) and Julie McCullough (Miss September, 1986), why they believe sex sells. Their answers were drowned out by Radakovich’s response. “Because men are dogs,” she said to the television, without a smile. Moments later, the sex columnist was ushered into the studio past the two tanned and platinum blond models, who were on their way out. Soon, the Bermans were quizzing Radakovich, who writes for the provocative men’s magazine Razor, on why men respond to sex in the media. “Sex is a very powerful thing,” Radakovich said. “Really, I think we should sexually exploit men.” This prompted lots of nervous laughter from the all-female audience. Radakovich didn’t smile.

The Bermans relish this type of candid talk. The show is an outgrowth of their successful book “For Women Only: A Revolutionary Guide to Reclaiming Your Sex Life,” (Henry Holt and Co., 2001). “We’re trying to remove some of the taboos that have been associated with women ... the belief or societal perception that ‘nice girls don’t’ and that if you’re too entitled to your sexuality then you’re a slut,” said Jennifer Berman. “The goal of the show is to provide state-of-the-art, cutting-edge information in a down-to-earth, accessible way,” Laura Berman said.

The Bermans, who first earned fame in 1998 with published studies on the use of Viagra on women, were recruited last year from Boston by UCLA to open the Female Sexual Medicine Center on the Westwood campus. Soon, they were fielding TV show pitches, so they got an agent and developed their own talk show.

“We didn’t intend to do a television show,” Laura Berman said. “Clearly, there is a need.” Their Discovery Health show premiered in April. Now the sisters spend weekends in the studio and weekdays seeing patients. “I don’t know if I could pull this off in Boston ... be on television every day and then show up to work and be respected as a physician and scholar,” Jennifer Berman said. “But here in L.A.? We’ve got a lot of support.”

Their Day in Court

Former Third Eye Blind guitarist Kevin Cadogan and former bandmate Stephan Jenkins will share an audience this month for the first time since Cadogan left the band abruptly in January 2000. The venue: the Oakland courtroom of U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilkin.

Cadogan is suing Jenkins, the band and the band’s manager, Eric Godtland, to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid royalties for recording, producing and writing, as well as “shared mechanical royalties” for copyright ownership of the songs, according to Cadogan’s San Francisco attorney Geoffrey Spellberg.

Cadogan filed a separate lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court in April seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in performance royalties, Spellberg said.

At the time of the guitarist’s departure, the band had sold more than 4 million copies of its self-titled 1997 debut album. “The underlying theme [of the suits] is Kevin brought value to the band and then was kicked out,” said Spellberg. “Then the band capitalized on that value .... The lawsuit is basically about those amounts that weren’t paid.”

Cadogan says he was unlawfully fired from the band when members left him in Park City, Utah, after a performance. The next day, Third Eye Blind performed on the “Tonight Show” with a replacement guitarist but allowed the broadcast of a band photo that featured Cadogan, the attorney said.

The case, which was filed in June 2000, is scheduled to go to trial Monday, Spellberg said.

Jenkins did not return calls for comment. In a March 2000 interview by The Times, he refused to elaborate on Cadogan’s departure but said of his former bandmate: “He’s a really good guitarist.”

City of Angles runs Tuesday through Friday. E-mail: angles @latimes.com