Uh-oh, there she goes, bashing all that is Maltese again. Chill, I'm very well aware that the above statement does not apply to all Maltese but hey, placing caveats in a heading looks ungainly. Some of us do indulge in the more responsible sort of fornication, I'm sure, but it's not about you guys I'm writing.

I'm referring to the funny way that, for one of the most prudish nations you can find, sex features with boring regularity on our media headlines. Well, it's not the sex itself that features, but rather the illegal versions thereof. In the past months we've had a rather hilarious amount of poor bastards who find themselves unceremoniously dragged to court charged with sexual offences.

Not, you understand, for serious offences such as rape or violent assault or even for child abuse. Oh no, what is really keeping our esteemed magistrates occupied is making sure that all those nasty men - it's always been men, except for one notable exception in the past days - who make the monster with two backs with some teenager just shy of celebrating the eighteenth birthday get their just desserts.

Because yes, in Malta the law believes that we should all remain virgins until we are magically transformed into sexually mature adults as soon as the clock strikes midnight on our eighteenth birthday. We can get married aged fourteen or even younger, of course, provided our legal guardians sign on the dotted line. But sex? Heck no, what do you take us for, Neanderthals?

Can you blame me for finding this hilarious? Show me a seventeen-year-old virgin on one of these islands and I'll show you a flying teacup pig. That sings Caruso in key. This ridiculous state of affairs gives rise to news headlines on the lines of "Man gets probation for having sex with 15-year-old, now his wife". Say what?!

But the totally surreal age of consent in Malta is only part one of this rant. There's more, hence the heading. What is really scary in the above-mentioned report - besides the fact that our police corps seem to think that monitoring the sexual life of teenagers is a national priority - has to do more with the fact that many of my co-nationals are as careless (ignorant?) about the finer workings of the whole bees and birds thingy as they are eager to put it in practice.

A bit of basic arithmetic and you will be as creeped out as I was. The Mrs X mentioned in the news report was 15 years old when she started having sex with Mr Y in 2008. Today the two are married. In the meantime they have somehow managed to produce three sprogs between them. This is creepy on various levels.

First there is the thought that Mrs X wound up a mother of three at an age when most girls are still busy living the carefree life with their friends, hopefully even studying. Can someone explain to me how, in this day and age, anyone can see this motherhood as a good thing? What this teenager needed was not an overzealous police corps but some decent parenting. Although frowned upon by most modern day parenting guides, the old kick in the butt tends to work quite well in situations where your fifteen-year-old daughter is having it off with a man ten years her senior. Police proceedings, on the other hand, only serve to make the whole thing descend into farce and solve nothing.

My second reaction is pity for these three hapless offspring. It is highly unlikely that this couple enjoys an above-average standard of living. And say what you want about the joys of procreation, but you do need an above-average income in order to raise three kids nowadays. Most people stop at one. Maximum two. And there's a very good reason. It's called money.

My third reaction is considerably less selfless. I wonder how much this couple is costing me as a tax-payer? They have already placed a burden on our system because the husband managed to get himself prosecuted when, in more sensible times, a word of warning from an irate father would have been enough. Something tells me that it is highly likely they are getting some form of financial support/subsidy from the system. And all because, to put it bluntly, they couldn't be bothered with the basic rudiments of birth control.

Which brings me to the final point. I understand that the Health Department has just launched a nationwide survey to figure out how healthy (or otherwise) our nation is when it comes to matters sexual. My bet is on the otherwise. Not necessarily because the majority are unaware about the biological mechanics of birth control and sexual safety, but because there will be a worrying amount of respondents who will reveal that they just don't care. They don't care about the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy and they don't care about the possibility of contracting an STD.

So how about getting around to finally finalising that blessed national sexual health policy without getting bogged down in hypocritical scruples?