Cru-blog live

Well last night's interview was delayed considerably after the Mark Oaten announcement. It was also cut rather shorter than expected due to all the other news stuff going on. Still the subject was covered in the end for about ten minutes around midnight. You can "listen again" here. The discussion was about whether parents should let older teenagers (sixteen to nineteen year-olds) have their boyfriends and girlfriends stay over (in their rooms).

Now my parents would never let me do this with the resultant effects that (a) various members of the Suffolk Ramblers association were treated to the sight of my naked bum (b) I never talked to my parents about sex ever again and, I guess (c) the idea that sex was wrong/dirty was re-inforced. My point was that if they can't do it in the house they'll do it at the bus stop where there is a lot less chance of sensible safe and enjoyable practice being adhered to. The guy arguing with me reckoned that it was "all very well in theory but when you actually have kids you want to protect them". One of those great arguements that means absolutely nothing. Like "I've had kids so I'm allowed to behave irrationally", and how exactly he meant to protect them by forcing them to fuck on the streets is beyond me. He also had his 15-year-old son on hand to nervously stutter out that he agreed with his Dad (he didn't sound to me like he had much choice!).

He also said if you started with sex, next you would be allowing them to take drugs in the house. The implication being that sex is as bad and wrong as, presumably, he believes drugs are. Difficult to know where to start on that one and sadly we ran out of time.

He also hilariously pointed out that he was much more protective of his daughter than his son. He insisted that one of the main reasons he couldn't let his son have girlfriends over was because he had a responsibility to the girl's parents. So increasingly I was developing the impression that he regards sex as something nasty that men do to women. Again sadly I didn't have time to ask him which public school he went to...