Madam, - Ivo O'Sullivan (January 27th) believes the spread of sexual disease could be more easily halted if young people practised continence instead of experimenting and experiencing sex for themselves before marriage. He says: "The Government, the Church and schools and parents are not doing enough to motivate young people to change their life styles voluntarily."
How could it be said that young people have changed their life styles voluntarily if they do so only after the Government, the churches, schools and parents have, as it were, indoctrinated them into behaving the way the "powers that be" want them to behave sexually.
Are we to return to the old days when the young were brainwashed as I was when I was a girl 60 years ago? The sexual attitudes young women and men received then turned us into frigid, puritanical prigs - unable to give sexual pleasure to anyone, even our spouses. We were ignorant of the beauty and the language of sexual love.
Human sexuality is a much more complex subject than some people still seem to think it is!
The Irish Times has rendered a useful service to the plain (and the fancy) people of Ireland by allowing us to debate the thorny question of what sex education society should foist on its young. As things stand there are as many and varied theories as there are children.
Alas, parents, school and churches often differ on the subject of sex. It matters not what authorities say as the young do not heed them anyway! Most counsels of perfection fall on deaf ears. The pendulum has swung full circle. Sixty years ago we were afraid of all authority from God down. We did what they told us to - pronto!
Now, the human herd has run amok, sexually at any rate. It behoves us to admit, humbly, that we do not know how a healthy and civilized society should behave sexually - despite all our sophistication in most other matters. - Yours, etc.,
IRENE REDMOND, Granville Road, Dun Laoghaire.