Alternative sex organs or altered mental state?

Tue, Jul 27, 2010

Editor: I read with deep horror and disgust the piece that appeared in your last Tuesday edition entitled “Alternative Sex Organs”. While I agree issues such as alternative sex “organs” and sexual lifestyles that are different to those practiced and thought normal by the vast majority of society are fair game for discussion, surely common decency must guide how these are presented.{{more}} While the good doctor may have chosen his language with an eye for shock value, he seems to have forgotten that your paper is read by a wide cross section of society, including young children. Surely his choice of language was not meant for younger children. He seemed to have forgotten that six, seven, and eight year olds do read newspapers. He appeared to have deliberately chosen to use language that we as parents and teachers struggle on a daily basis to get our children to eschew.

I understand that we are in an age where one is encouraged in the “developed world” to formulate one’s own morality and decency, but my own hope is that we in St. Vincent and the Grenadines have not yet sunk to accepting and adopting this misguided, twenty-first-century version of pseudo-postmodernism. Even in the developed countries rating systems are employed to guide and warn potential recipients of information peddled and spewed out by the media, and every so often we see such warnings as “not suitable for younger audiences” or “parental discretion is advised”. Our newspapers, it is generally accepted, are meant for general audiences. How could anyone in his/her warped thinking, have construed this article, as written, as being suitable for general consumption. God help us if this is going to become our new norm. If it is, then please stop and let me get my “old-fashioned” self off this train.

The article was indecent, disgraceful and distasteful and must be condemned as such. It squandered an excellent opportunity to present human sexuality without being obscene. I hope that in the future good sense will be allowed to prevail and not sacrificed on the altar of sensationalism.

Lennox Adams