Prude and prejudice

I consider myself a pretty liberal minded person, my general approach to life being "It does not matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses" (Mrs Patrick Campbell). I have seen, and done (sorry Mum to reveal this on my blog, although I suspect you always knew) all manner of things and substances in the past and have not led a sheltered life. However, I find that as a mother I am becoming something of a prude.

I was walking across Central after my trip to H with LottieP and came cross a large "erection" on the Ritz Carlton of a scantily clad young man (www.these-fragments.blogspot.com for evidence) and found myself quite aghast at the semi naked torso in CK underwear before me. I have also had cause to write my first letter to a newspaper since I managed to have two letters published in Melody Maker in the same week when I was 15 (text below), this time regarding how paid for sex is so obvious in Hong Kong.

On the radio today I heard details of a study in the US that found 1 in 4 teens in the US has a sexually transmitted disease, and I was horrified that not only are so many teens having sex but being so completely stupid about protection.

I am not quite sure what it is in my hormones or lack of sleep that should lead me to becoming Hong Kong's moral guardian. However, I increasingly find myself worried about what young eyes see, young ears hear and, although I dread to think about it in relation to a teenage Eve, protecting young bodies from all manner of sexually transmitted nasties.

Letter text below. For anyone who worries, I used a little artistic licence on Eve's age and am not taking her out night clubbing quite yet.

"It is with some interest that I have watched the disgust from the media and "public" regarding the Edison Chen photos. Without a doubt there are things that we should protect our children from, and showing what amounts to soft pornography in daily newspapers is a step too far. However, I can't help feeling that the moral outrage at the celebrities in the photos is a case of double standards and reveals a greater problem that many in Hong Kong have regarding their attitudes to sex.

I find it strange that so many people have chastised grown adults for engaging in a consensual activity in a town where we blindly allow strip joints next to office and residential areas, turn a blind eye to prostitution in some of the districts and bars in Hong Kong, and even the SCMP this week had an article on compensated dating. The puritanical response to the photos is completely out of proportion to the actual content and context. Where is the outrage that I, and presumably my child, can walk along a street in Wan Chai in the middle of the day and see scantily clad strippers hanging outside doorways and men entering hourly hotels with young women on their arm?

I find it far easier to explain to a child why two grown adults, in safe and secure relationship, engage in the types of activities shown in the photos than I do explaining what goes on overtly but unmentioned in many parts of Hong Kong."