David Cameron must take action on the tidal wave of filth that is flooding our homes and polluting our children’s minds. I’m talking, of course, about books.

Look at them, sat there on the shelf, looking innocent. Some of them might be educational and useful but if my nephew (an actual child, for the love of Christ) entered my house and asked to borrow a book, there’s a fairly strong possibility that he might stumble across something that would warp his tiny mind.

I had a quick look on my bookshelf and found quite a lot there that warrants inspection:

“’What if I gave you a spanking?’ she teased, still fingering my pussy as she used her free hand to hitch my skirt up around my waist and smack my pert, round rump.”

To be fair, that’s in a book called ‘Sex & Submission – 20 erotic stories.’ That sits right up on the high shelf so that children can’t get to it. But dammit – can I trust myself not to leave it lying around on a coffee table or even (because it’s not that great) in the recycling bin?

“And quick as a shot, holding me with my back turned to him and my breeches pulled down, he sets to frigging and rattling himself, presses against me, and spurts his fuck upon my beshitted behind, the while driving his tongue into my mouth.”

That’s not suitable for children, right? It’s from the longest nightmare I’ve ever read – 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade. Unfortunately, it’s also a literary classic, and I’d bet cash money that a 16-year-old would have little trouble buying it from a bookshop right now.

As I head deeper into my shelves, I discover more descriptions of the sexual act.

“I stretched him out on my bed and lowered myself on to him but within seconds his hips were arching upwards and his face was contorted…”

That one’s by Marian Keyes – the Mystery of Mercy Close. I’d never have thought it of her – she seems so nice. In my ‘horror’ section I find myself having to bin most of the Stephen Kings, which is a shame because I loved them when I was fourteen, and even livened up a year 10 English essay with the quote “he spat semen onto the bedspread in a convulsion” (from Cujo, if you’re interested).

Stephen’s gone now, though. What’s next? Ah, this looks pretty sexual:

“They make entry sex look dead easy in films – one person gets in between the legs of the other and easily slides into them – but it’s not as easy as it looks. If you’re doing it for the first time then it’s a good idea to masturbate each other for a bit first. You could also insert a wet finger inside your partner.”

Sex, again, but here is a sex book written specifically for young teens (Sex Explained by Bish, it’s excellent) – it’s not porn, it’s educational and supportive and encouraging and all the things that an excellent sexual education should be. But if we’re just looking for sex books, it’s probably going to end up with the Marquis.

Here’s something from a book I wrote with my own fair hands:

“I shouldn’t have prayed for a dribble, really, because eventually a dribble came out. A tiny, less-than-thimbleful of piss trickled slowly onto his waiting face, and he grinned.
‘Is that it?’
I wanted the ground to open up, swallow me, and then send vengeful demons out to punch him in his smug, not-quite-piss-covered face.”

There’s even a bit in it later about threesomes. I sicken me, I really do.

How do we solve a problem like a desire for erotic material?

The only solution for this is strong and immediate action from the government: ask everyone whether they have any disgusting books that might need to be hidden behind lock and key, and provide those who admit to such filth with lockable bookshelvcs.

Mandatory training for book shop staff, charity shop staff and those people who sit at the desks in hostels with a ‘free book exchange’ shelf. Scour every bookshop for signs of depravity, and insist on those books being placed high out of reach. This will serve the dual purpose of making them hard for children to obtain while also making those adults who enjoy ‘that sort of thing’ have to work a bit harder to get at it.

When you say ‘porn’…?

I cannot bear the thought of someone stumbling across this blog having utterly misplaced their sense of irony, nuance or context, so here’s what I’m saying:

• At no point has anyone successfully defined ‘porn’, or what exact material Cameron’s proposed block will affect.
• Even if we can draw a distinct and clear line between ‘porn’ and ‘not porn’, it’ll be impossible to make sure a filter gets it right every time.
• Porn is not just found on the internet.

It’s in bookshops, on TV, in magazines, in films, stored in our mobile phones, video cameras and above all in our heads. Porn can be disgusting, uplifting, beautiful and scuzzy.

To claim that porn is ‘bad’ is like claiming that food is ‘delicious’. Let’s not let people get away with trying to ban an entire genre of stuff on the flimsy basis that a bit of it is nasty.

Think of the children

I implore you all to think of the children. Not just the little ones you have now but the grown-up ones you’ll have in ten, twenty years time. At the beginning of the current porn furore David Cameron issued a statement that said:

“The safety of our children is at stake – nothing matters more than that.”

Well, that sounds like a nice platitude. But I think our children’s liberty matters too. Don’t get me wrong – we should do everything reasonably possible to keep children safe, but we also need to be aware of the impact that some of our actions have on their liberties and personal freedoms.

Because one day those children will grow up. And just as we want to bequeath them a world in which the environment isn’t fucked, in which the NHS hasn’t been sold off, and in which they have a welfare state to support them should they fall on tough times, likewise we want them to have free and open access to the internet.

Given how much love our society claims to have for children, it’s odd that we rarely give them credit for having opinions, needs, and intelligence of their own. Children aren’t just passive information-hoovers, sucking up what we feed them and no more. They are not all victims-in-waiting. They don’t sit around until the age of 18 waiting for us to tell them what to think and say. They are miniature versions of humans, with their own thoughts, desires, needs and opinions.

And when they grow up they won’t thank us for having taken a red pen to half of the internet.