The joy of sex

Your typical Trollope-loving, Brahms-bothering Spectator reader probably won’t be aware that the most recent winner of Big Brother was a girl called Isabelle Warburton, but her victory was a joy to behold — and a lesson to be learned. The unemployed 21-year-old had a tan so orange it made Oompa-Loompas look pale and interesting, and on her first night in the house she was already wisecracking about how she’d caught an STD in Ibiza from a fellow contestant. Everyone presumed she was an air-headed bimbo, but she went on to display the most extraordinary decency — the only word for it — with her honesty, self-sacrifice and boldness. She took on and saw off the strutting alpha male of the house and volunteered herself for eviction to save a rival. Unlikely as it may sound, Isabelle Warburton is a striking example of how excellent the often sneered-at young women of today really are.

I pity people who confuse chastity with decency; it’s both immature and moribund. Why do so many curtain-twitching prigs still think that girls who aren’t ashamed to have sex are Bad People? Why do tight-lipped hacks write why-o-whiny newspaper pieces about the decline of morality and the end of the world as we know it? If they were nuns, I’d still disagree with them but I’d respect their point of view. The idea of journalists — whose pursuit of sex, drink and money puts a 1970s Aerosmith tour to shame — getting on their high horses never fails to bring a snigger to my sneer.

But it’s not just my lot having a go. Take any elderly actress; when their nipples go south, so the nose goes north. High-profile women who would strip off at the drop of a hat when young and perky suddenly come over all moral once they’ve been mugged by gravity.