Catholic Herald Reporter MANY protests have been received by the CATHOLIC HERALD, by parish priests throughout the country and by the BBC following a television programme last Sunday night.
Entitled " Sex and Family Life ", one of a series called " The Nation Tomorrow ", the programme featured a discussion between four people, including Dr. Alex Comfort, the writer, on what was described as Dr. Comfort's case for a "more realistic and enlightened social attitude towards sex and family life".
The other members of the discussion group were Professor G. M. Carstairs, who aroused national controversy over his recent series of Reith lectures, Mrs. Ruth Robinson of the Marriage Guidance Council), and Mrs. Hilary Halpin (a magistrate).
PROVOKING
Eve [McAdam writes
When a husband proposes to instal a "prop" to his marriage in the shape of the Other Woman in the spare bedroom, an understand
ing wife should acquiesce . .
Or so says Dr. Alex Comfort.
As a TV programme, the sensational forty minutes must be fairly described as first-class television because it provoked reaction in everyone. Even though ninety-nine per cent. of watching women, whether wives. mothers or teenage girls, found Dr. Comfort's ideas embarrassing or daft (whilst the male members of the household chuckled), these ideas are gaining ground (remember the Quaker Manifesto ?), and the B B.C. can only be praised for airing them.
Dr. Alex Comfort is a serious scholar. so must be taken seriously. He is also an anarchist and, it seems to me, the kind of anarchist who believes in throwing bombs provided they don't hurt anyone.
He pronounced two Comfort Commandments. "Thou shalt not exploit other people's feelings or expose them to rejection." The second, "Thou shalt not negligently risk producing an unwanted child."
His thesis boils down to this: In our society, in and out of marriage and amongst teenagers, promiscuity is rampant—so what ? "We may come to realise that chastity is no more a virtue than
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