Letter: Treat us like adults

Sir: With regard to the ongoing debate as to whether the censorship of pornography should be relaxed in Britain (reports, 13 August), no one seems to have considered the fact that in most of Europe pornography way beyond anything that British censors would ever consider legalising is freely available.

I have lived in Italy and now in Greece, both countries in which pornographic material is openly on display in news kiosks frequented by everyone from babies in their parents' arms to pensioners, and even quite small country towns have cinemas showing nothing but porn.

I have seen nothing to suggest that Italians or Greeks are in any way more sexually depraved than the British, nor that a young woman by herself waiting for a night bus in Thessaloniki is at any more risk than her counterpart in, say, Manchester. People in Greece who do not like pornography simply do not buy pornographic magazines or frequent cinemas showing pornographic films, an option that one assumes would be available to the most puritanical of British citizens should the British lawmakers ever decide to start treating us like grownups capable of making our own decisions.

MAX SUMMERS

Athens