Duty to the immature

Against these arguments others can be placed. First, sexual instincts are not a matter of purely individual concern: they have social relevance. Society as such does have an interest in encouraging sexuality to run in normal channels and perversions of various kinds in the long run weaken the social fabric. 'There may be good reasons for not extending the criminal law in this field but I do not think one can exclude it altogether a priori.
Furthermore society has a duty to those who are weak or immature and I am thinking here particularly' of children. If one removes all restrictions from the sale of pornography it is much more difficult to keep it out of children's way. A child can undoubtedly be scarred for life by coming across horrific pornography before 'he or she is sufficiently mature to cope with it.
As to the second argument, one has to remember that one is dealing with new generations one after the other, and while one generation may eventually become bored, another will be new to the matter and will be titillated. Finally there is the question of public morality and public nuisance, Can a self-respecting country stand aside and allow great sums of money to be made by those whose only concern is to appeal to the most degraded part of man? The problem is greater today. not less, because of the prevalence of the image in our society transmitted by new technological means. Again does one want to be pestered by pornography when OM goes into a legitimate bookshop? Here the issue seems to me to be similar to that of prostitution. Being solicited by prostitutes in a public street is a nuisance which the law should seek to avoid.
My conclusion then is that English law should not model itself on that of Denmark. I do not believe in censorship of. ideas or of the arts. These should be free. Books like "Lady Cita tterley's Lover" should not be banned by law: the theatre should not be censored: I am dubious about the utility of much of the censorship would draw it at hard core pornography which has no obvious social merit.
One cannot get rid of this pornography altogether: like prostitution, again, it is likely always to be with us, but I believe there is a merit in keeping its incidence in check. To attempt to do more than this would be unwise: it would merely create a black market in dirty books which to some extent already exists. Yet the preservation of public decency has some value higher than that of mere hypocrisy. I would not care to see the Danish experiment followed here.