Yes, Peter, here you go again criticising on the grounds of personal insult - followed up with your own brand of name-calling. (keeps happening)

You can bang on all you like about "freedom of expression", but the fact remains that sexual expression is modified in all societies as far as its display in the public arena.

Ever asked yourself why "women's workplaces" aren't festooned with pictures of scantily clad blokes? It's because women don't feel the need to reduce men to merely a sexual entity. One can only assume that it's men's way of "putting them in their place" as an expression of a will to power and rising in proportion to women's increased autonomy.

Squeers is right in his assertion regarding capitalism, which has harnessed both genders to it's agenda in all spheres of life.

Thanks Ammonite and Poirot for the endorsement.

I have three daughters and three sons so have to try to see both sides!

As a male myself it's a comfort to think that the taste for a lot of sick porn is cultivated rather than innate. If habits like smoking--sucking toxic muck into your lungs, even enduring the body's initial objections--can be cultivated, I guess anything can--maybe even salubrious habits, which can afford rarer pleasures than the gross matter of all kinds we're daily encouraged to consume, and so lose that capacity, that part of the aesthetic spectrum of the mind, for finer things and feelings.

Squeers

With three of each gender - when do you find the energy, let alone the time to write? And with such gusto.

It is disturbing to note that those who endorse all forms of pornography do so by invoking 'free speech'. I see see nothing liberating in the humiliation of men, women and children for sexual gratification. I do see a lot of money that can be made be maintaining this faux form of libertarianism - the "cultivation of demand". I also note that it is the same posters (usual suspects?) on OLO who protest most loudly when any criticism of the most base, dark and downright disturbing pornography is uttered.

Yay, Mine's the 100th comment!

R0bert, this is why the police care: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgANT0OjKBQ

As regards the debate at hand, I'd just like to throw in again that it's not from the point of view of free speech that pornography advocates (at least us sensible, well-balanced ones) argue that pornography shouldn't be controlled or thought of as dangerous. We (ok, I) think rather that that the best way to develop healthy society-wide attitudes to sexuality is not to repress it, but to talk about it more openly, to examine why it is that people develop their sexual tastes, and how we can learn as a society to respect each other, and to express ourselves (not just sexually but the whole gammut of expression, as it's all intrinsically linked)in ways that don't damage, coerce, or dismay other people.

If, as Squeers and others have said, it's possible to cultivate one's approach to life, then I'd suggest that cultivating out the conservative elements of society is a first step to having more healthy discussions on sexuality.

The thread above will probably not make quite as much sense as it did as I have deleted a number of posts without the customary note as to why. They have all been deleted for abuse, but there were so many of them I didn't have the time to leave the notifications on all but the first couple.

I do not understand why commenters would want to abuse an author who does engage. It's rare for authors to engage at all, and it's to Helen's credit that she will, and it is probably one reason other authors don't when this sort of behaviour occurs.

It can also be difficult to recruit writers because of nonsense like this. Unfortunately writers think the comments are typical of our readership.

No-one has a right to have any of their arguments answered by anyone else. It is a privilege. What I saw in this thread was cyber bullying. I've handed-out some suspensions.

Graham Young

Dear Graham Young,

Whilst I wont criticise your actions, as I empathise with your description of a number of the over-the-top comments by posters, I would like to simultaneously point out that this article and subsequent responses to it have been excellent in terms of engagement and readers’ interest.

Kind regards.