Sexual risks

If I regarded sex just as a leisure activity needing consenting participants, with some health risks attached, I would agree with NHS Lothian’s suggestion of regulated brothels (your report, 24 December). However, I do not share this impoverished view of sex, instead recognising its huge relational and emotional import, it’s power to sustain or destroy stable family life, and to sustain or destroy a person’s sense of worth and dignity.

I suppose there is no reason to expect NHS Lothian’s representatives to have an adequate philosophy of sexuality when wider society has lost the plot so comprehensively.

How refreshing it would be to hear social work departments, which constantly work to pick up the pieces in damaged and dysfunctional family situations, speak up for the best preventative measure known to man: totally committed monogamous heterosexual marriage as the ideal context for sexual relations and child rearing. But they are generally in the thrall of the same “progressive” mindset. 

Even more concerning, this same shallow and amoral philosophy also dominates our educational establishment. The social cost will be incalculable.

Richard Lucas

Broomyknowe

Edinburgh