Sir, - Mrs Ethna Cotter makes a case for keeping facts from children (July 1st), but I fear she weakens her case by overstatement. For instance, she says of the International Planned Parenthood Federation: "Its philosophy is population control (eugenics) Population control is one thing, eugenics (selective breeding) is quite another, and it is purely mischievous to try and equate the two.
God preserve us from people who would prefer to begin, grow up and remain uncomfortable about sexuality. Why do teachers have to be "desensitised" in order to deal with the subject in a class? De-embarrassed is what they need to be. Sex is not a small part of our being; silence on the subject is not comforting, but the opposite.
Civilisations have apparently always had problems with sexuality. Perhaps we can now begin to see the sources of some of those problems, and can work out a reasonable way to behaving without either encroaching on others integrity, or engaging in unnecessary repression. - Yours, etc.,
Quin, Co Clare.