Let me take you back into history - ancient history, in fact all of 50 years ago.
I was 14, my cousin and closest friend, Paul, was 15. We had reached that age when we were tentatively getting interested in girls.
Very tentatively, I would add, and mainly from a distance. We shouldn't really have been that interested (according to common myth - we weren't 18 yet!) in finding out what a girl might look like fully (whisper the word) naked. But when certain aspects of your body start awakening, sometimes your mind follows.
After some tentative missions in trying to discover all the amazing facts involved with this, we finally discovered a second-hand magazine store in a grotty street in a run-down area of town (the whole neighbourhood has since been knocked down and rebuilt incidentally). There amidst all the imported American "Captain Marvel" and "Spiderman" comics were 3 small rectangular magazines staring back out through the shop window - with names like "QT" ("Cutie" - get it?). 3 totally naked young women - estimated age 22 - on the covers. Shaved where it mattered. Not the fetish prevalent these days for doing it as young women do (and I will never come to terms with this, but that is me), but because the publisher's way of getting past summat called "The Obscene Publications Act" was that this was "art", not "pornography".
If you know the story how the painter, Manet, upset the authorities in 19th century France by painting a nude model alongside fully-clothed men - the human form is artistic in context, when you change the context though ....
So you stand there for 3-4 minutes ogling at these pictures, discussing what was missing, and go home. What was missing could not be seen in magazines until I was 19, incidentally.
I do not think that Paul or I turned into dangerous perverts as a result of this incidentally. He became a very solid citizen and when he sadly died last year he was described in his obituary as a "a great friend to everybody". He was and it was a fitting obituary - pity there aren't more like him.
Since then we have the mass growth in glamour magazines since the 1970s, hard-core stuff across many European countries, and finally the Internet. And even daily newspapers producing photos of topless models - and do not try and persuade me that children in the UK do not see the "Sun" or German kids never see "Bild" for example.
So when I hear that Facebook will not even allow a naked female breast to be seen on its site ..... Even with aboriginal cultures in South America, Africa and the South Pacific where nobody has trained women to think that there is summat wrong with such.
I understand that there is a problem with "sexting" - vulnerable young women taking naked photos of themselves and those later appearing on the Internet. And I can understand that you would not want that sort of thing on Facebook (along with the cyber bullying and the insulting threats which turn young people suicidal usw). But the blanket ban is ridiculous.
As it is, unless you live in somewhere like Saudi Arabia or China, the Internet is awash with accessible pornography, and attempts to limit access have proved futile. Parental control on the computer is all well and good, but a lot of 14-year-old kids are computer savvy and know how to change such controls.
The equivalents of Paul and myself these days could easily come home, switch on the computer, change the parental controls when nobody else is around, go off to watch "Sexy Susan does everything and more" for 15 minutes, leave the Internet, turn the parental control back to where it was, clean out the cache so nobody will find out what they were up to when nobody else was around, and only blanch for a few seconds about that strange message that flashed up while they were watching what they were watching and hope it wasn't a virus .....
Digression - should you come back and catch them, do not throw the proverbial wobbler. Rather tick them off, advise them them that that nice girl, Susan, down the street, does not do "everything and more" and it is not like that in reality. Ask cousin Susan's husband who is always complaining that she is better in the kitchen than in the bedroom. And if all else fails guide them to the comments of former French porn star, Raffaella Andersen, on the industry - they are not too complimentary. End of digression.
So back to Facebook. Having established that while there are plenty of naked female breasts (and not just breasts) to be seen elsewhere on the Web, let us consider what can be seen on Facebook that is nice and friendly and not insulting and all about great camaraderie and not insulting or bullying people.
Like people beheading their wives for being unfaithful. Or at least beheading their wives (or a female of their acquaintance).
So it is always possible that the video that appeared this week came from Mexico means that it could actually be a drug gang-related incident (not the first time that Mexican gangs have issued videos of executions of rival gang leaders on Facebook incidentally). Rather than a marital dispute.
It raises the question whether it was an "honour" killing (a dubious phrase if ever there was one - there is nowt "honourable" involved with any such killing). And even if it was, it was also nowt short of COLD-BLOODED MURDER!
Rather than sticking such an abomination on Facebook for all to see, their management should help the authorities trace the killer involved and where it took place. And have him brought to justice for his misdeeds.
It is a strange sense of priorities that some people have that is not acceptable for a woman to expose a naked breast, but it is OK for her head to be cut off! It does not change the fact that this vile atrocity took place, but presenting it whether to shock or excite or even cry for justice is frankly unacceptable, in any way, shape or form. And no pre-announcement about what is to follow will improve the situation one iota.
As for what your average 14-year-old boy is supposed to think when he sees summat like this?
It is surely time for some consistency here. Even if what some regard as "immoral" needs stepping on under certain circumstances, there can be no grounds whatsoever for openly advertising grotesque criminal activity, wharrever its root cause!
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