h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

He is a generous man though. I've heard there's nothing he likes better than to take his mates for a few beers and then splash out on a Currie.

..

But surely this acceptance of moral turpitude is an example of the breakdown of morality in our society - and do we not have a right to expect greater morality from those who put themselves forward to govern us ?

Homosexuality is normal - infidelity is acceptable - where next ? paedophilia is not a cause for concern ?

And before someone says that the last item is in a different class then I would refer them to Quinten Crisp and Edward Profumo a few years ago.

We are moving to becoming a morality free society ! (but we MUST protect the civil liberties !)

<prepares for barrage >

There are, of course, two words which undeniably separate paedophilia from homosexuality or infidelity: consenting adults.

hnmmmm consenting adults.

Well when I was a child you became an adult at 21 - now its 18

Consent for homosexual intercourse used to be 21 - now its 18

There was a campaign to get this reduces to 16 - same as for hetro-sexual sex. (I think this was successful)

There is currently a campaign to have all constraints to removed from sexual intercourse. This argues that the sexual innocence of children is a myth and that we are all sexual beings.

A judge recently refused to jail a 43 year old man who had sex with a 14 year old girl on the grounds 'she led him astray'

Consenting adults is getting to mean less and less - for example some years ago a mentally retarded woman was forcibly steralised because she had entered into a sexual relaionship with a fellow patient at a mental home. She was 33 years old. However we cannot steralize sex offenders because err, err, yes.

Acceptance of homosexuality has nothing to do with moral turpitude (a phrase I normally associate with the despised Daily Mail), and everything to do with acceptance of alternative life styles.

I was using it as an example of changing sexual attitudes. When I was a lad homosexual was queer - and they locked you up for it.

I personally believe that sex, of any form, outside an established relationship is wrong, but I'm talking as a child of the 60's who's seen more of the effects of 'turn on - tune in - drop out' and free love than he cares to recount. Like many things in this life it seemed great at the time..... The penalies come later.

No need to pull rank, McKay, as those who have met me know, I am older than my U-name suggests.

Yes, the fall out from marital infidelity is painful. (I should know). But that doesn't make it immoral. It makes it stupid, dangerous, risky, and possibly exciting. But not per se immoral.

As I have grown older, I have grown wiser, kinder, more tolerant and more forgiving. Human life is frail.

a 'mature and sophisticated' woman called Ben
who believes in the right of everyone to go to hell in their own way
and is saying so here
again....

Hmm, when I were a lad at a Roman catholic junior school, homosexuals were to be burnt at the stake, and memebers of other races 'would still be swinging from the trees if it weren't for us'.

I seem to have manged to overcome both those prejudices in my life. Might be worth giving it a go yourself.

I think you may be taking that too literally BS.
To me, the point being made was that things which were once morally and legally unacceptable are now acceptable in both senses (well, to most people!). Consenting adults and such like is by the bye. Society once perceived homosexuality as a sin and vile wrong. That has now (for the most part) changed. I personally cannot see any circumstance under which paedophilia might undergo a similar change, and feel perhaps that example was added for effect, BUT don't forget there are societies where there is no lower age limit, and indeed English law and custom once believed that 14 was a good age to marry and start a family. Yes I know there were all sorts of conditions prompting this (ie average age at death etc). Anyway the basic concept that that which is now unacceptable/illegal may in the future become acceptable and legal is a perfectly valid point. And in many cases I don't have a problem with that. Individual responsibility and all that. Anyway, that's my two-penneth.

Thanks Icotan.

I wasn't pulling rank, and I'm in no position to preech to anyone, I was complaining about the way we accept personally unacceptable behaviour from people in positions of public power.

And yes, you're right I should be more forgiving, and in most cases I try to be, I guess I'm just overly cynical where politicians are involved.

Someone else who's been talking to my evil twin.....

"I guess I'm just overly cynical where politicians are involved."
Is this possible?

You did make some good points, but I still don't generally agree with you.

My take on the whole thing is that: well, they're human and humans do things like having affairs. That I can take. I find it more difficult to take from people in the public eye who are trying to tell the rest of us how to behave. The one rule for them idea really gets my goat.

what I want to know is why on earth so many women find John Major attractive? (according to some newspapers I read)

There was a comment earlier about an increasing liberalisation of standards (I am paraphrasing) and that things which were not acceptable a few decades ago (homosexuality, long-term relationships without marriage, and so on) are acceptable now.

It is worth pointing out that this is a tide that ebbs and flows. Vice, as it were, versa.

In the 18th century sexual mores were considerably more liberal than they were in the mid and late 19th centuries. Both were structured by the concept of sin, which has almost completely died out in the popular meme-pool, but there was a considerable difference between attitudes towards illegitimate children, long term mistresses and prostitution for example.

Licence is not a one way street, and in many respects these are more restrained decades than the 60s and 70s were.

B

As has been mentioned too, a return to Victorian values would have involved child labour on a vast scale, and the abuse of the weak and poor.

actually, Victorian Values are exactly what I think of when I think of the Thatcher/Major period of the Conservative party. Like those dresses the women wore: showing ankle was scandalous, but they were cut to just above the nipple and didn't actually leave much to the imagination.

Hey, let's go back to Roman times- let anythinig go- just don't be too obvious about it

Sounds good....

Ah yes. The Golden Rule: never get caught!

Well, at the very least, don't deliberatly draw attention to your behaviour- everyone knows, no-one talks about it (open secret) is all very well and good, but I do think it's rather stupid, and distasteful, to stand on a soap box and shout "I shagged John Major, he's great in bed and wears big blue underpants!!". Which is, in effect, what Currie has done.

No, I don't think she's done herself any favours by it.
So far, Major seems to be doing rather better with a relatively dignified silence on the matter and the general air that 'there's more to him than we gave him credit for'.

What's interesting to me is how one of such a couple is usually given a black name (being the tempter/temptress)& the other comes out as the wayward lamb led astray - depending on who spills the beans & how.
I'm sure we never get to hear the full story & of course each person has a different perception of it anyway.