Why on earth do men send very intimate photographs to strangers?

AT THE risk of sounding like an aged aunt peering at the modern world through her eyeglass, pearls firmly clutched in one hand, scented handkerchief in the other, what is wrong with people these days?

Specifically, that young Conservative fellow, the gay one, Willy someone-or-other, who used the internet to send ‘intimate’ pictures of himself to someone he’d never met and who turned out to be a honeytrap blackmailing scumbag.

Ye gods, as my grandmother would have said, how different from the home life of our own dear (departed) Queen.

The fact that he is (soon to be ‘was’, I suspect) a member of Parliament is of course shocking, and the reason the story is all over the news.

One expects better, etc. Though God knows why: if a lifetime spent in and around politics and politicians has taught me anything, it’s that they are just as prone – if not more so – to the temptations that from time to time assail us all.

Money, sex, drink, drugs: very few are immune, except perhaps William Hague, who is the one politician I’ve ever met who genuinely seems to have no vices (unless you count being stupendously smug and self-satisfied). And maybe Ann Widdecombe. The rest are just as susceptible as the next person.

Years ago, when my ex was briefly Conservative chief whip, most of his time was taken up dealing with parliamentary peccadillos, some so bizarre they defied belief.

It was quite an eye-opener. Succumbing to temptation after a few lemonades on a night out, I can understand – especially given the intense pressures of the job. Long hours, late nights, chemistry: it’s easy to see how a chap (or chapette) might lose their head, especially when faced with the enticements of a professional trickster (as this seems to be).

But exposing oneself over the internet – that, I’m afraid, just baffles me.

Let’s face it, the male human reproductive organ is not the most photogenic of appendages. Arguably, the female equivalent even less so. But, for some reason, women are not nearly as prone as men to capturing their nether regions on camera.

This may have something to do with the fact that the male anatomy is somewhat more readily accessible than the female.

Still: what the hell is wrong with them? Though I’ve never had the displeasure of being sent a ‘d*** pic’, probably because I’m at an age where I am technically invisible to most men (and waiters), I’m led to believe that – solicited or otherwise – they, or variations thereof, are common currency. To me, this is simply unfathomable. How hopelessly narcissistic – or deluded – can anyone be to think others want to see a picture of their dangly bits?

I suppose it’s vaguely possible for a gym-honed Adonis, but invariably these people are not like this, and certainly not this particular MP.

But it’s not just that. I grew up in a pre-image-obsessed age, when only models and famous people had their photo taken. The rest of us were only very occasionally in front of the camera, in school photos, at birthdays, weddings or Christmas-time, maybe at the beach or on holiday, or in some dreaded passport picture. Grinning like idiots, red-eyed and ungainly – unlike today’s Instagram-savvy youngsters who snap into all their best angles the second anyone whips out a smartphone. None of us had any idea

what to do in front of the lens, hence why we all looked so hilariously awful. But we were, at least, authentic. And far less prone to narcissistic self-obsession.

We weren’t brought up to spend hours staring at our reflections in the tiny electronic pool everyone now holds.

Certainly, vanity of the kind it takes to send a picture of arguably the least attractive part of one’s anatomy to someone for anything other than urgent medical reasons was not so widespread.

But it’s not just that.

It’s also a porn thing. Internet porn – free, unregulated and uncensored – has changed much about society, and none of it for the better. In particular, porn glorifies, encourages and – crucially – normalises forceful male sexual behaviour, and perpetuates the myth that however much the object of desire may pretend not to be interested in the male and his anatomy, in reality they can’t get enough of it.

In other words, in the land of hardcore, the one-eyed trousersnake is king.

And this is what’s really at the heart of not just the MP’s case, but also the growing reports of women receiving unsolicited images.

Ultimately, why is anyone surprised that a generation of men raised on internet porn thinks it normal to expose themselves in this way?

Not me, that’s for sure.