Comment by Sarah Vine:
READING about Cynthia Payne — the suburban seductress (pictured) who traded sex for Luncheon Vouchers — I couldn’t help feel a pang of nostalgia for an age when sex, even paid-for sex, seemed somehow more innocent.
Yes, she was running a house of ill-repute, but the truth is that she was scrupulously private, coy even, about what went on behind her front door in Streatham.
Nowadays, absolutely nothing is left to the imagination. Everything is luridly on display. People text each other pictures of their privates before they’ve even been formally introduced.
I’ve never met Miley Cyrus but I think I have a pretty accurate idea of what she would look like in bed. The internet is like the meat counter in Sainsbury’s: acres of plucked flesh on display for all to see.
How ironic that it should take the life of Madam Cyn to remind us of how much more civilised we used to be.
