Letter: Corrupt fashion

John Billington
Tuesday 07 December 1999 00:02 GMT
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Sir: Your Fashion Editor's assault on Donal MacIntyre's documentary ("Men boasting badly", 2 December) takes the breath away.

Apparently it is all right for chaperones in the fashion industry to corrupt their teenage charges by foisting drugs on them, and for their superiors to pressurise the girls into sex in the interest of enhancing their career prospects. For Donal MacIntyre to object is mere "pompous moral outrage" and if the rest of us find it unacceptable we are merely boringly "politically correct". That both acts are illegal is not mentioned.

To suggest that MacIntyre should have turned his moral outrage on the families of the models is to stand morality on its head and blame the victim.

It is nonsense to imply that all men inevitably behave badly simply because some men do. It is not unreasonable to expect that men, as much as women, in responsible positions will behave with restraint towards the vulnerable and young.

JOHN BILLINGTON

Montgomery, Powys

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