as a practicing atheist its a little strange feeling sympathetic to such explicit but unusually even-handed religiosity (though the moral corruption and god fearing touches are still unsettling) - it would be easy to resort to some flip comment about the importance of protecting "the slim, sweet , beautiful, teenage blondes of my [Macterminator] neighbourhood as they, poor things, are the most vulnerable to moral corruption."

but - more seriously - between the 1930's and the 1990's sexual abuse of children was steadily rising (as measured by credible research studies) - but since 1990 its been in steady decline (at least as measured by a major american study examining substantiated cases in all jurisdictions , including Alaska) - the decline is huge - a 39 percent decrease since 1990 - if we remember that willingness to report has increased in recent years this decline is remarkable

two points about this research data - first any other such decrease in victimisation would be celebrated but in this case the finding is very unpopular in some quarters with the researchers receiving hate mail and being accused of being pedophiles - the second point relates to why the decrease has happened

the increasing sexualisation of everyday life which is so frowned upon by the religous and narrow minded has had an unanticipted benefit - children are no longer so innocent about sex and understand what is happening (ie sexual abuse) at a much earlier age and are able to talk about it to adults in a way that was simply not possible in earlier more conservative times - if you compare the levels of childhood sexual abuse amongst women now in their 50's and 60's with that of young children today the decrease is startling

whether we like it or not the intrusion of sex into everyday culure (and that includes pornography - putting aside the difficulty of actually defining what that might be) - is not all bad