Parents, worried about the public safety of their daughters, have been getting their knickers in a twist about the reinstatement of 16 as the legal age of consent under the new Sexual Assault Bill. It’s easy to dismiss their anxieties, especially for those who don’t have kids. But there are a lot of things parents have to worry about. On the one hand, unprotected sex, sexual ignorance, teen pregnancies and abortions, overuse of the overnight pill.

On the other, how to provide their children with whatever emotional and cultural understanding they can, to protect them from the increasingly numerical, objectified approach to sex around us. What sort of grounding could help them have a happy intimate life and deal better with the intense competitiveness and cruel judgements, the pressures of body image that are a part of contemporary youth culture?