Is the permissive society causing pain and harm?

It was a curious coincidence, don’t you think, that the sexual conduct findings that the Lancet published today coincided with the publication of a report from the Deputy Children’s Commissioner, Sue Berelowitz, about child-on-child sexual violence? The two stories were juxtaposed uncomfortably in the news.

In the case of the Lancet survey, which is conducted every decade, it was comically hard for broadcasters to know how to play the findings, which were a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand women are becoming more like men and admitting to significantly more sexual partners – ‘of both sexes!’ marvelled John Humphrys, on the Today programme – than before. So yay! On the downside, both men and women in the 16-44 age group are having rather less sex than a decade ago, which the report suggests may be attributable to tiredness, or, more yuckily, to couples having recourse to online sex rather than actual intercourse.