Sir, - I hope that it is only because Mr Myers was not using his head that he missed the point so completely (An Irishman's Diary, January 23rd): Playboy and its ilk are objected to because the proliferation of women displayed - as sexual objects, contrasted with the lack of men displayed as such, colours men's attitudes towards women. I doubt very much if Mr Myers has ever been harassed or frightened by obscene advances or assaults, but most women can make the connection between what they experience and the constant portrayal of women only as sexual objects. In the workplace women tend to be taken less seriously, because men are used to viewing women as sexual. The crucial point is that while men have economic power, pornography that is fun for men has serious consequences for women.
Coincidentally, women might also like to be sexually aroused by pictures of naked men, but unfortunately Mr Myers does not feel that it is worth mentioning, in his impassioned paean to pornography, that women's freedom to enjoy titillating pictures of aroused men is censored, and not by the liberal feminists he despises so much, those killjoys who fought for women's right to vote, for equal pay, for contraception, for equality. - Yours, etc.,
Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1.