Dearest Oscar,

How appalled you would be at the brazen behaviour of the young men of our time. They do like to show off their bodies at every available turn, and some of the websites in the virtual world, well, they leave nothing at all to the imagination!

That young men can be persuaded to pleasure themselves in front of a camera seems almost inconceivable, but they do it seemingly without batting an eyelid, and for hardly any reward, or so I have been led to believe. Of course the images made are hawked around all over the internet, so that the same young man will appear in exactly the same poses on a number of sites, but that in some way accentuates the brazenness of the activities in the first place.

I suppose it could be argued as a laudable liberalisation, when in fact all it really provides is an easy access of exploitation, both of the models displaying their wares, and of the punters who sign up and pay their subscriptions. I suppose it alleviates that boredom and isolation of provincial existence, and I would love to know how many households in Chortleton Spa receive such material. It must be a very profitable business, because a plethora of sites are advertised if you can be bothered to look (which I must confess, dear Oscar, I simply cannot be doing with – there are, after all, other things). 

I saw a marching band of the Boy’s Brigade last Saturday, and it actually sent a chill up and down my spine. I thought they had been disbanded years ago, but there they were, beating their drums and blowing their cornets, and generally displaying a pseudo militaristic bearing which was much less than attractive. 

I kept my distance, I can tell you. 

They looked like the sort who could be commanded to be a persecutory rabble to the likes of me – like the Nazi Youth in Germany before and during the Second World War (something from which you were spared – but I am sure there were many thugs, and certainly blackmailers, who were out for your blood and dollar). 

Given the record of the twentieth century for warfare you would think that preparation and killing of gullible young men would have stopped, but of course it has not. There are still theatres of war this very day, and the young (mainly men, although women are now equally recruited) are being sacrificed to some supposedly greater glory that is very ill-formed.

The pornography and the battlefields are very similar scenarios. The cheapness of flesh and of life, and at the very cheapest are the lives of talented young men who are not nurtured with love, and certainly not to love. 

Oh, there is an ongoing and largely unspoken condemnation of Greek love still prevalent;  it is not to be encouraged, and still largely to be ridiculed, and not accounted for within the upper echelons of power.

Hey ho,

Much love,

Algernon B. Duffoure.