No noise please, we're British

Is it any wonder that prisons are full when cases like this come to court?

An Asbo for being noisy during sex?!

Three breaches of it in 10 days?

Got to love the next line though:

after reports from neighbours she was flouting the ban with her husband Steve.

Got to wonder what kind of neighbours they have that complain about the noise - but make sure they know exactly who is having sex. Could have been the milkman for all they know...

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Sex Ed was never like this when I was at school...

Now that the obligatory April 1st headlines are out of the way, I'll point you in the direction of some unmissable telly.

No, not the dull as ditchwater Apprentice (Big Brother for the middle class). I'm talking about sex. Well, sex ed to be more precise.

Channel 4 have a series running all this week called "The Sex Education Show versus Pornography" and it is delightfully direct. There has been no shortage of cringing, "ewwwwwing" and "I didn't know that" in our flat (as indeed, I expect, around the country).

If you're a bit prudish and don't think it's for you, I'll give you the gist. Presenter Anna Richardson takes some naked models into schools to show kids what normal (ie, non-pornstar) bodies look like; interviews some people about sex and chats to a porn actor who tells her it isn't as glamourous as it looks.

If nothing else, it's a pretty decent comment on how liberal society has become discussing sex. I can think of nothing worse than watching the show with my mum (perhaps watching it with my Gran) but there are kids on it as young as 12 and 13 talking candidly (in front of their parents at times) about watching porn.

You can catch the previous two episodes on 4oD. The next episode is on tonight at 9pm. Unfortunately for me, it clashes with the Scotland-Iceland match, and I'm heading out to the pub to watch it.

(Obligatory pun coming)

It's a shame really... there'll probably be more chat about "shooting" on the Sex Ed show than at the football...

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The Pope and Africa

After Pope Benedict XVI's latest public comments regarding HIV/AIDS, several (including myself, though not yet publicly) have been quick to criticise the thoughts of the man. For an alternative view, see here. Just for reference, he said that AIDS in Africa is:

"a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems."

Where to begin? I guess with some facts.

• Africa is the area of the world most affected by HIV and AIDS, to the tune of 24 million people (for reference, that's nearly 5 times the population of Scotland).
• Catholicism in Africa has, since 1900, risen by a staggering 670%, from 1.9m to 139m followers.

So, there's an issue there. On the one hand, aid agencies etc are passing out condoms, telling people in Africa that if they are having sex they must use them or are in danger of contracting the virus. On the other, the Pope and Catholic missionaries, who have forever preached abstinence outside marriage and that contraception is tantamount to abortion. You see the difficulty. When the man styled as God's representative on Earth tells you you can't do something, pretty sure 139 million people are going to listen.

But the problem with the Pope's approach to sex is not that abstinence is not a good weapon in the battle against AIDS and HIV (if you don't have sex, you won't contract the disease that way). And this is the theological part. It appears that His Holiness does not recognise the inherent flaw in his own theology - the human condition.

For centuries, Christianity has preached the weakness, the vulnerability of man. Abstinence works, yes, as weapon in the battle. But it fails far more often in the shape of human weakness. And you simply have to look at the number of Catholic Priests involved in sex scandals to realise that Catholicism is not immune to this weakness.

The Pope and the Catholic Church must face a new reality. There must recognise the power and responsibility of the position of the Pope. They must also recognise the global challenges that face us - AIDS in Africa and, to the same extent, environmental degradation. And they must recognise that they are in a position to help influence not only decision-making in those fields but also action.

Until then, we can only expect the problem to worsen.

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