Moral high ground

John O'Dea (Teenage Sex, January 16) seems to have worked himself into an awful tizzy bemoaning the state of the nation's youth. Were I not a 22-year-old hooligan (and therefore drug-riddled and sex-crazed) I'd offer him a cup of camomile tea.

Upon reading his enlightened views on teenage mothers - they want to get pregnant, apparently, in order to milk the welfare system dry all the while making up for the lack of love they suffered during childhood - I wasn't sure whether to burst into peals of laughter or wails of despair.

What a shame that Mr O'Dea didn't go on to regale us with tales of trekking it to school in the midst of gale-force winds "back in his day". He disapproves of certain hairstyles: the Beatles' mop, anyone? But why stop there? The PBS ought to film Fabrizio Faniello's next televised performance from the waist up; we should submit any books we buy to our parish priest for censorship; our internet usage could be monitored by an Orwellian government agency; nightclubs should have separate sections for each sex, lest - God forbid! - they mingle freely. The possibilities are endless.

However, life being all about spices, variety and all that, I would like to offer Mr O'Dea a truce of sorts: he can have his Maginot Line lingerie, while we depraved youths stick to our Blitzkrieg sex. And, since I believe magnanimity is a sign of good breeding, I'll even let Squire O'Dea keep the moral higher ground; his kind have claimed it for so long that a few more decades are hardly going to matter.