Do we live in a top shelf society?

Podcast: listen to the Battle of Ideas debate.

Sexually explicit material has always challenged traditional moralists. Since the Sixties, liberal values on sex and sexual relationships became one of the markers of a civilised society. Yet as we learn from this debate, from the Battle of Ideas 2012, there is a growing unease that sexually explicit material has become mainstream. Some insist the likes of Rihanna and Katy Perry are simply the latest practitioners of age-old exhibitionism. But have sex and relationships become devalued and is the rush to smash sexual taboos a healthy impulse, or an expression of our unwillingness to exercise good taste?

SPEAKERS

Neil Davenport
writer; head of sociology, JFS Sixth Form Centre; contributor, spiked

Dr Jan Macvarish
research fellow, Centre for Health Services Studies; founding associate, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury

Anna Percy
feminist performance poet; member, Stirred Feminist Poetry collective; organiser and facilitator, live poetry events and writing workshops

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