Some people do find it hard to take Samantha Neblitt's (clumsily expressed) 'summer of sex' campaign seriously. In particular, they may fail to recognise how much sex, like so many other matters, is vulnerable to power fantasies and egotism. Neblitt is correct enough that now when we hear about sex it's typically in depressing contexts. The Epstein files are like a model, not least because they bring in money, power politics, and media publicity - all running alongside sexual abuse.
My memory, jaundiced as it may be, is that the dark picture already glowered in the 1970s, when sex was (supposedly) freed from past taboos. Feminist protest, some well justified if limited in vision, came beside much dubious publicity of rape or paedophilia. Indeed, there were still leftovers of a dark past, not least in southern Europe where family honour (fear of shame) still clung on in smaller communities, regardless of the supposed opposition of Christianity. If the Christians, and the Popes, had been doing their job properly, Italy would have prohibited 'reparatory marriages' in 1081 (4 years after the Emperor submitted to the Pope at Canossa) rather than in 1981. (That latter date leaves atheism the natural conclusion). Southern Europe appears to be leaving that kind of tyranny behind, but parts of the Muslim world still carry the family shame disease. Is it fanciful to suggest that a creed which says death is preferable to shame might shade into one which treats suicide as a weapon of war?
Niblett takes the opportunity to publicise Cindy Gallop's MakeLoveNotPorn website - which I had not previously heard of - and which, if Caitlin Moran is to be believed really promises a happier world. But we (everybody) need to reflect that MakeLoveNotPorn has to leave power junkies and egomaniacs out of the sexual picture. Can we really do that? Or, will the coming A(G)I's prove better at that than the humans ever were?