Pornography
Sir: I dined once, city unspecified, in the house of a horrible hostess whose • idea of 'fun' was to invite persons certain to hate one another's views. On similar grounds, no doubt, you invite Mr Calder who has been accused of publishing pornography to review a book by Lord Longford who has been alleged to dislike it.
A week later you produce, as twins, articles by Mr David Holbrook who objects to girls of six being raped and women committing bestiality in front of camera crews for the delectation of the masses. Mr Leo AbseMp. on the other page, has apparently no object to what his wife may 'do or what may happen to his children, so long as he can read Tom Paine in toto, interspersed with passages from Macaulay, advocating freedom of' the press. A Mr Kubrick, like Paine another American — which won't do Abse any good -is dragged in because he makes films which (a)* caricature the American defence services, (b) advocate or at least glamorise drugs and (c) lead
• weak-minded 'persons to commit acts of bestial sadism. Let us assume that Mr Abse does not wish the effects that Mr Holbrook 'ascribes to Mr Kubrick's films to be inflicted upon his wife and children. Let us assume that Mr Holbrook1has.no objection to Mr. Abse reading Macaulay or even Paine. Let us assume that Mr Kubrick has made millions, Mr Cidder and Lord Longford rather less. Where are we?
It has been remarked by no less an authority on the subject than Sir Oswald Mosley that the English dis covered sex in about 1951 and immediately made it ridiculous. It is a relief for a foreigner, bored to write this letter by my own politicians' endless hypocritical chatter about so mild a matter as contraceptives, to find that yours, of all political parties, abide by the old English division of 'us' and 'them,' and that the teachers, now called NUT, still preserve these ancient, hereditary class-distinctions, Let Mr Abse not worry. It will not be his children that are raped, nor his wife who copulates publicly with an animal; it will be theirs.
Constantine FitzGibbon St Ann's, Killiney Hill Road, Dublin
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