More schools should give lessons in porn

NEWS that pupils at Fettes College in Edinburgh, Tony Blair’s old school, are to receive lessons in ‘porn awareness’ raised eyebrows over the weekend. But the idea is not as daft as it sounds.

It’s terrible to admit, but the most degrading of material is accessible to almost anyone, free to view and just a few clicks away.

For parents such as myself, this is an intensely depressing scenario. If the latest statistics are to be believed, it seems almost inevitable that my children will view sex online long before they are ready — or likely — to experience it for real. No slowly unfolding sexual awakening, no intimacy in the context of a loving relationship: just raw, rutting flesh, devoid of all dignity, glimpsed on a laptop or smartphone.

This is having huge repercussions on the sexual health of our nation. Just last week, Nottingham University Hospitals reported that many young men are so conditioned by pornography that normal sexual behaviour no longer arouses them.

As a result, they are starting to experience erectile dysfunction normally seen in much older men. This has profound implications for both sexes. For young women, it means pressure to conform to a twisted porn aesthetic in the bedroom; for men, an inability to partake in a loving sexual relationship.

That is why Fettes is right to run awareness classes — and all secondary schools should consider following suit.

If we can’t protect our young people from this tsunami of filth, we at least have a duty to educate them about its corrosive influence.