Should we raise the age of consent?
The minimum age to play the National Lottery could rise from 16 to 18, ministers have said, in an attempt to protect vulnerable consumers from the harms of gambling.
In unrelated news, the author Ian Mcewan has spoken out about the dangers of pornography, and how it has “warped” teenagers’ ideas of what sex should mean.
“Sixteen- or 17-year-olds today are battered by social media and peer pressure,” Mcewan told the Telegraph this week. “And online athletic pornography is completely warping their expectations of what the act of love could be. I see magazines for girls in their late teens saying, ‘Are you getting enough?’ or ‘Are your orgasms this or that?’. It just seems like a vulgar pressure that must be very intimidating. So I can imagine they might well say: ‘Well, I’ll collect stamps instead’.”
Mcewan was speaking as the film adaptation of his book, On Chesil Beach, opens. The film, which stars Saoirse Ronan, is based on a book, which sees a young couple in 1962 navigating their wedding night with no knowledge of sex. It is a moving reminder of how innocent times used to be.
Recent research found that one in eight millennials were still virgins at the age of 26.
Good for them, I say. All too often sex is something we rush into long before we are actually ready.
I applaud plans to raise the age at which people can play the Lottery; but given the era of sexualisation we live in, would it harm ministers to also have a look at the age of consent?