Olympia Comes to London
SIR,—Evidently M Girodias's enjoyment of 'annoying people, people I dislike deeply—the bourgeois class which is in power everywhere,' has not changed. In the February issue of Encounter he enlarges on this theme in a striking way for a man who is supposed to be a crusader on behalf of freedom. On the grounds that 'the family man' must necessarily have 'plunged into marriage to escape from sex,' M Girodias's argunient is that it is a good and necessary thing that this sort of man should be ridiculed. The premise itself would be very hard to prove, but his conclusion seems clearly to contradict the principle of indiyidual freedom. His justification of his pornographyis that it mocks the 'puny efforts of those who disagree with M Girodias on the desirability of multiple sexual relations, and that it makes these people dissatisfied with their. own per- formance and experience. He is not satisfied with leaving such people.in what he regards as the misery of 'inadequacy' or .a sexual inferiority complex.' Instead he must provide pornography to puncture 'the pride and moral comfort of the average suburban husband.'
Obviously, in M Girodias's mind, those who think that 'the couple is an adequate and sufficient erotic horizon' need 'so desperately to be converted to his
own point of view, that any invasion of their privacy is not only to be permitted but encouraged. This would seem to give the lie to all the talk of moral and artistic freedom to which Kenneth Allsop (April
any more than the censors. If he did he would be
providing pornography for those who want it, whereas he admits that he wants it to be given to those who do not want it.
49 Heathlield Road. London. SW 18
T. C. F. STUNT
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