New York ? Christina Aguilera considers her new disc, “Stripped,” a chance for people to finally get to know who she really is to “see the bare me.”

Fans are getting an eyeful.

The album’s first single, “Dirrty,” shocked the usually unshockable audience for music videos by featuring the former Mousketeer, dressed in a tiny bikini, grinding against other dancers. The cover of her new disc shows her topless, covered only by her long locks. And she’s completely naked on the new cover of Rolling Stone save for a strategically placed guitar.

“I don’t see anything wrong with being comfortable with my own skin,” the 21-year-old said ahead of the CD’s release Tuesday.

Not everyone is as comfortable with her skin as she is. Reaction to the teen-pop idol’s transformation into a sexually charged diva has been decidedly mixed.

While the “Dirrty” video has been at or near No. 1 on MTV’s “Total Request Live,” the song peaked at No. 48 on the Billboard singles chart. “Saturday Night Live” skewered the video’s raunch. And Aguilera’s scanty outfits have drawn barbs in the press (including the barely-there halter top she wore to the MTV Video Music Awards in August).

Aguilera acknowledges that “obviously, jaws are dropping.”

“People like to see (singers) play it safe and it scares people if we go beyond the boundaries sometimes,” she explains.

A graduate of the new Mickey Mouse Club along with Britney Spears and members of ‘N Sync, Aguilera shot to fame three years ago as part of a teen pop craze. She scored instant success with songs such as “Genie in a Bottle” and “Come on Over Baby.”

Christina Aguilera shown in this Aug. 29 file photo, wants to transform her image from teen pop princess to Dirrty.

While she had a sexy side she showed her navel, and the lyrics to “Genie” were mildly suggestive (“you’ve gotta rub me the right way”) her image was sweet. That plus her music were a successful combination, selling 7.9 million copies of her debut disc and netting her a Grammy for best new artist in 2000.

But Aguilera says living up to that picture-perfect image made her miserable. “The label (RCA Records) wanted to push the cookie-cutter, kind of play-it-safe, almost virginal kind of imagery that wasn’t me,” she says.

“I really wanted to squirm away from that, because I really thought it was really fake and superficial and untrue of what I was about, and it was really really hard for me to live up to that anymore.”

So instead of cheerful, pleasing pop tunes, the new disc has brooding ballads, introspective songs and hip-hop collaborations with Redman and Lil’ Kim. Aguilera co-wrote most of the songs. Her changed look includes black streaks and braids in her blond hair, and piercings in her nose and underneath her lip, among other places.

In moving away from more sugary pop, Aguilera is not alone. The teen craze has faded, and those who made their name on that sound have branched out. The Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter goes for a rock sound on his debut disc, also released Tuesday; ‘N Sync’s Justin Timberlake moves towards R&B on his solo effort, which bows next week. Spears experimented with urban dance grooves on her latest disc.

But Aguilera says her new look and sound are genuine.

“I thought by this time the teen pop thing would still be here. But I see now it is changing anyway,” she says. “To keep my own sanity, regardless of where the music industry was going to go, I needed to be myself.”