From Mrs Valerie Riches Sir: Miss Claire Rayner's reply (December
15) to my comments on her vitriolic attack on Dr John Linklater may give the appearance of a reply to the points I raised about her own 'advice' column to young people, but I should like to make it clear that she has entirely failed to answer the substantial points I raised.
She cites the authority of American sexologists to try to establish that it is abnormal not to masturbate. But I did not raise the question how common the practice is. What I asked for was her specific and reputable authority for her damaging statement that anyone who has not masturbated — and my question related particularly to girls — may find it difficult to adjust to a sexual relationship later. Can she not see that to a young girl to whom the practice has not occurred (and even among her readership there must be some such) this could be a damaging and frightening assertion? Secondly, she does nothing to justify her publishing (apparently in reply to an individual's letter asking the meaning of a slang word for masturbation) not simply a statement of what masturbation is but detailed instructions on precisely how to do it. What is more, these instructions as any reader can see (and I enclose a. photostat of her column for the perusal of the Editor of The Spectator) are cast in a salacious — I would almost say liplicking manner and it is difficult to see what point they have except to titillate the prurient or to proselytise those who have never naturally discovered the practice.
One might almost ask why, if non. masturbators are the rarity which Miss Rayner claims they are, she feels it necessary to take space to give her instructions to this small minority. Or is it simply that she feels that children cannot start sexual activity of all sorts too soon — in which case 1 wonder at what age and by what method she chooses to instruct her own children on how they can masturbate? Her predictable attempt to call to her aid nineteenth century fears about the consequences of masturbation is, of course, totally irrelevant to the charge that it is irresponsible to instruct young girls, to whom the practice may not have occurred, how to do it on the grounds that they are not fulfilled without it.
Incidentally, I am sorry that Radio Times should have misquoted Miss Rayner and I should personally be quite interested to know what precisely it was in the interview she gave about her sex views that was used "out-of-context." No doubt her employers at the BBC will note her opinion that Radio Times is "not a journal for careful and accurate reporting" and will do something to raise the professional standard of that errant magazine. Valerie Riches Hon Secretary, The Responsible Society, 28 Portland Place, London WI.
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