School lessons about porn may backfire badly
IS BROADCASTER Jenni Murray’s idea of analysing pornography in our schools’ sex or relationship education really the answer (Mail)?
I applaud her desire to bring the issue into the open and agree that watching pornography can affect the ability of the young to make caring relationships. But I have reservations over its use in the classroom.
Jenni says: ‘ someone needs to tell them that it’s not normal . . .’ and here lies the dilemma.
What is ‘ normal’, outside of personal perception? Where is the dividing line between what is and is not normal? Who decides?
Are we dealing with majority opinion or identifying something as right because we recognise it to be so? Is it ‘normal’ to be sexually promiscuous, or have we made it so because, gradually, the majority have indulged in it at some time?
Can there be a norm for humanity, identified by whatever produces the best outcomes, or are we left only with personal norms?
As a secondary headteacher who contributed to the relationship curriculum in the classroom, I discovered that girls in particular breathed a sigh of relief when informed they didn’t have to be sexually active in their teens and that there were advantages in waiting until they were capable of taking responsibility for the possible outcomes of an intimate relationship. This was the challenge of retaining personal integrity.
One of the key purposes of education is the development of responsible citizens: young people who, as adults, respect themselves and can respect others.
In this context, within a relationship programme we have to face up to the existence of pornography. But introducing it into the classroom might give it a credence it doesn’t deserve, risking making it appear ‘normal’.
‘Everyone has seen it’ can quickly become ‘ everybody has done it’, either in reality or in fantasy. ARTHUR CORNELL, Eastbourne, E. Sussex.
Keep churches open
I’M APPALLED at some of the changes suggested by the Church of England’s simplification Task Group led by the Bishop of Willesden, including services at some rural churches only at Christmas and Easter, and amending the services in others. That bishop has never worked in a rural parish. Who’ll pay for the maintenance of churches which are closed most of the time, especially when the Church takes money from them annually in the form of the ‘parish share’?
Once again the Church of England is failing to address the root causes of its excess expenditure. Every office in every diocese should be subject to an independent audit in an effort to reduce the cost of staffing levels so more priests can return to rural parishes.
The Church must realise thousands of overseas visitors love our villages, including the churches and pubs supporting the local community. It has an obligation to maintain these churches. A different plan is needed urgently.
DAVID KAY, Blackburn, Lancs.
Help for horses
AN AD for World Horse Welfare includes a picture of a hardworking, malnourished horse in Honduras, one of hundreds having to work like this daily. We’re asked to donate £25 to help the charity alleviate their suffering.
next to this ad in the Mail was a double-page spread of appealing photos of some lovely dogs belonging to various celebrities with the information that the cost of keeping these 14 dogs in comfort was an amazing annual total of £ 1.3 million. I’m sure these pampered pets would willingly forgo some luxuries to help make life a little easier for other four-legged creatures. Their owners should take note.
Mrs I. KINGE, Cranbrook, Kent.
Hair-raising recipe
SEVENTY years ago, I was an apprentice at a barber’s, and my boss would send me to Boots the chemists with a sealed envelope and half-a-crown (2s/6d).
At Boots I would be given a bottle of liquid to be passed on to an alopecia sufferer (Mail) and the instruction to rub it on the affected area until they got a burning sensation.
I overheard my boss telling his grandson (also a hairdresser) that a secret recipe had been given to him by an old gypsy, in payment for a favour, many years before. It was based on the juice of a common hedgerow plant.
In later months, both my grandmother and I suffered from alopecia, and for 2s/6d each we were cured within two or three weeks. My old boss and his grandson could have made a fortune.
C. LAMBERT, Morley, Leeds.
Building up trouble
I FIND the problems caused by wet wipes (Mail) far more interesting than the U.s. presidential election.
predictably, the wet wipe industry insists its products are flushable, and so they are — but so are false teeth, cotton buds and disposable razors. The trouble starts when they get into the underground pipes.
Regular soft toilet tissue breaks up simply by soaking in water. Wet wipes don’t break up easily. Razors, teeth and cotton buds don’t break up at all, but they’re still ‘flushable’ — they’ll go down the pan and eventually cause problems.
Modern building regulations allow up to ten properties to be connected to one 10cm (4in) plastic sewage pipe which then connects to a larger pipe under the road.
In many cases, housing is built on level ground, so there’s very little ‘fall’ available, and the sewage in the 10cm pipe simply meanders on its way to the main sewer.
The slightest restriction, such as a piece of solidified cooking fat stuck to the inside of the pipe, can ‘catch’ a wet wipe and then the effect is cumulative.
In most cases, sewage builds up and invariably reaches a sufficient weight to break free, sending a torrent of it into the main sewer until the wet wipes invariably create another, bigger blockage.
JACK LUXON, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
OAP scapegoats
I HAD a hip replacement two years ago and can’t begin to explain the difference it has made, thanks to a wonderful surgeon at Guy’s Hospital, london.
Before the operation, I could barely walk two or three hundred yards before having to sit down. I could now walk all day. A year later, I visited Athens and was able to climb the steps at the Acropolis with no discomfort whatsoever.
When you’re discharged after surgery, you’re given a booklet of exercises to do daily for six weeks.
I stuck to these rigidly and made a full recovery with no setbacks or after- effects. I returned to work after four weeks. I’m now 70.
I hope the latest report about the ineffectiveness of hip operations (Mail) isn’t an attempt to cut costs by reducing treatment to older people, who have paid into the system all their lives and now seem to be blamed for all the nHs’s problems. VERONICA STRANGE, Chadwell Heath, Essex.
Magyar memory
TALK of the Hungarian Uprising (letters) took me back to 1956.
I was only five, and I remember an appeal for clothes, especially children’s clothes, for the Hungarian refugees.
My mum sorted out some of my brother’s and my clothes to send to these poor people. she asked if I had any small toys, and I recall her tacking these into the pockets.
I still like to think that some little girl got my duffel coat with a dolly in the pocket.
LIZ LEWIS, Blaenavon, Gwent.
Big-screen reality
HERE’S how to solve the ‘migrant problem’: big screens in all the camps showing the film I, Daniel Blake, followed by lectures by ken loach detailing why Britain is such a horrific place for the poor, disabled and unemployed.
They’ll be amazed at the rubbish they’ve been fed about the Uk being a land of milk and honey with benefits available to everyone, even those who haven’t paid a penny (unlike me and millions of others who’ve paid in all our lives, with no prospect of any relief).
CHRIS BARWISE, Widnes, Cheshire.