[West Ender]

Believe it or not I was once a teenager and went through all the usual teenage emotions, desires etc. I was a normal girl, I fancied boys, was curious about sex, thought I was very grown up. The one difference between me, along with most girls who were my age, and young girls now is that we knew that slut was just what we would be called if we had sex. We knew that no one would respect us, our parents would go beserk and, worst of all, we would lose our own self-respect. We knew that even the boys who wanted to be our sexual partners woudn't respect us either. We would become girls to bed, not wed.

Somewhere along the way the stigma of illicit sex has been lost. We are now so enlightened that we say, "It's natural. Give them condoms." No one really tells them that it's wrong, it's illegal and it's damaging. We're so busy trying to educate them how not to become single parents we've lost the ability to say, "You're a child. No way." Add to that the way we sit back while sex is flaunted in front of them from every angle, almost from the day they start Nursery School, and the picture is complete. Your little girl or boy says everyone's doing it, it's free, it's easy and it's "fun" and we older ones say, "OK but be careful"

I don't envy teenagers today. There are few parameters, few boundaries and precious few taboos. You're right, Eric, that there are other issues but, in my opinion, this is a damned big one with potentially disastrous consequences.