It’s not too much to ask men and boys to “look, but don’t touch.” A young woman who wants to be noticed, even desired, without being assaulted isn’t making an unreasonable request. She’s not defying the facts of biology. She’s asking to be watched, appreciated, and left unharmed. Saying that she’s asking to be raped is like saying that a talented actor who portrays an unsympathetic villain particularly well on screen is asking to be attacked by an outraged member of the movie-going public. There’s a difference between a performance and an invitation, and it’s not that hard—really, it’s not—to distinguish the two.

Society’s wariness toward sex is highlighted by contrasting it with the greater societal tolerance toward violence. This dichotomy is especially vivid in the media and mass culture, where violent depictions are far more accepted than sexual ones. The contrast was aptly capsulized by Martin Shafer, a top executive at a film production company, when he noted, ‘If a man touches a woman’s breast in a movie, it’s an R rating, but if he cuts off a limb with a chain saw, it’s a PG-13.’

Sex will always be an exciting mystery to children, they’ll always want to know about it. And they’ll learn about it, inevitably, from scary porn and all those barmy urban myths that circulate playgrounds. As a counter to that, shouldn’t responsible kids’ telly at least try to right the balance? Shouldn’t there be someone out there (apart from your boring parents and your boring teachers, who cares what they say) saying that sex is a natural, sometimes funny, sometimes wonderful thing, that decent, kind, nice people do with other decent, kind, nice people? Rather than a sleazy forbidden horror whispered about behind the bike shed. You can’t stop kids finding out about sex. You can at least make sure some of what they hear is sane and reasonable.