News

Sex, sun and sangria. It's holiday time. That means acres more nipples, naked flesh and shaved pubic areas - in the UK press at least. I have a problem with sex, or at least its public presentation. Take some recent headlines: "Sex scandal at Chequers" (The Mirror); "[Bristol] girls lead TV boob flashing craze" (The Sun); "On your marks, get sex go...." (News of the World). Pole dancing is suddenly cool. At least the sex tease of Big Brother is now over for another year.

Perhaps it wouldn't matter if there weren't all the other sex stories that are granted so much less news value. Thus the new statistics that one in 20 women have been subjected to rape; the difficulty of securing rape convictions; societal problems of child sexual abuse and child prostitution; the increasing European sex trafficking of women; and continuing restrictions internationally on the rights of gay men and lesbians. Then there is the involvement of non-governmental organisation workers in the developing world - and peacekeepers in war zones - in sexual abuse and the sex trade; rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases in the UK and the crisis of Aids in Africa.

Meanwhile, porn is the biggest grossing industry on the internet and, in the UK, porn magazines seem to form one of the few non-military "manufacturing industries" whose proprietors make enough money to make substantial political donations.

Most worrying is that these two realities are treated as if they are unrelated. It's as if the trivialising and demeaning treatment of sex (and particularly of women) has no bearing on our abilities as individuals and societies to deal with the big issues relating to sex and sexuality that face us. But it does. Public prurience about sex, and ignorance, abuse and denial are two sides of the same coin. Until we face up to the first, we won't deal effectively with the second.

In our field of health and social care, cases of the most fundamental denial of people's human sexual rights continue. This was highlighted by the failure to address the sexual abuse of young people in government care. In residential services there are still examples of people having their sexual relationships obstructed and of being denied the right to their sexuality or even to be accepted as sexual beings.

All this coexists with the supposedly free world of sexual expression in which our press would suggest we live. Are we really so different from the Victorians with their piano leg covers, royal denial of lesbianism and rampant child prostitution? I don't think so.