Sex, Sex, Everywhere!

Greetings America.

I'm speaking to you from London where sex is in the air. Okay, so it may have passed me by, but, apparently, everyone else is at it. Morning, noon and night, in the sun or in the shade, it's non-stop. Britain is now officially the rumpy-pumpy capital of Europe.

Of course, as they say on Wall Street, what goes up comes down, and there's definitely a downside to this national sex-fest. It's an alarming increase in childbirth among teenagers and a near epidemic in sexually transmitted diseases among sixteen to twenty-four year olds.

For example, hundreds of young women a day are now being diagnosed with a particularly unpleasant infection of the Fallopian tubes known chlamydia. It's painful, it's dangerous, it can cause infertility.

So, what's to be done - short of hosing down the young sex fiends with ice cold water and prising them apart with crowbars? One middle-aged schoolteacher over here has hit the headlines by saying he knows who's responsible for the situation. He blames Britney Spears - not personally, of course. But he says that the way young popstars like Britney are presented, skimpily clad and oozing sensuality, is tantamount to seduction. He claims the world of popular music is guilty of the sexploitation of the young. And judging from the amount of cheering that came his way when he made his statement at a teachers' conference the other day, many agree with him. And they aren't all old folk either.

It could be there's going to be a backlash. For a generation - from the Supremes to the Cheeky Girls - there's been a tried and tested formula for girl bands: cute faces and butts, slinky outfits and sexy dance routines.

But a new girl band has just surprised everybody over here by hitting the charts. It's the Burka Band - an all girl rock group from Afghanistan who appear with their guitars and drums and microphones veiled from top to toe in the traditional muslim burka. They rap, but they're all wrapped up. They don't have sex, but they do have soul. Is this the new way forward?
By Gyles Brandreth