Madam, - Mrs Mary Stewart (March 14th) implicitly advances total sexual abstinence as a way of helping teenagers to grow up with a "healthy attitude" to sex. I can think of few things more unhealthy than repressing that most basic and natural of human urges.
Promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases are simple, undeniable facts of life and unrealistic attitudes towards them work only to foster ignorance and do more harm than good.
If we wish to address these issues we must do so from a pragmatic and reasonable standpoint. But we cannot resort to a moral idealism that is, at best, unworkable and impractical, and, at worst, dangerous. - Yours, etc.,
OWEN CORRIGAN, Blackhall Green, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7.