A generation ago the British Government commissioned a report on the state of the law relating to homosexuality. This, the Wolfenden Report, turned out to have very far reaching results; the practice of homosexual relations ceased to be illegal so long as such relations were conducted by 'consenting adults in private'.

This was, at least, a recognition that unenforceable laws are ridiculous - and indeed harmful, bringing into disrepute the very notion of law. But, at most, the report might be seen as signalling a revolution in perceptions of sexual morality generally.

The question asked here is this : is CAIP ('consenting adults in private') a sufficient basis for sexual ethics, both homo and hetero, as well as being the limit of what degree of law enforcement is actually feasible?

The answer floated here is - YES.

The CAIP principle has to be unpacked very carefully if its ethical force is to be demonstrated convincingly. The last words, 'in private' are readily acceptable, if only for purely cultural reasons - reasons related to the way most of us prefer more or less intuitively to live, quite irrespective of any ultimate moral requirement (whatever that may mean). It is the 'consenting adults' part that presents difficulties; these are not insuperable.

The words 'consenting' and 'adult' have to be given their full weight . . . if what is legally as far as we CAN go is not to be ethically farther than we OUGHT to go. That matter is enlarged upon in what follows.

'Consent' has to be given its maximum possible weight. The clear meaning of the word excludes explicit rape - in any circumstances - if there are any moral absolutes then the notion that rape is simply wrong has to be one such. (Interestingly enough, the Old Testament - that cherished standby of the absolute morality party - not only does not forbid rape; it gives it God's approval in respect of the peoples defeated by the Israelite conquerers. Armies the world over have always complied with this strand of Biblical morality).

Rape, in its less explicit forms is also ruled out if 'consent' is to be meaningful. It is not excuse enough to say 'I know you really want to'; it is not excuse enough to say 'we are married and you have promised to obey me'. Heavy seduction and marital rape are, quite wrongly, tolerated but the Wolfenden Report, in its wider implications, rules out both.

Moreover, consent is only meaningful to the extent that it is informed consent. Immediately, this means that sex education, properly thought out, openly discussed constantly updated, is a moral imperative. More broadly, people have to be encouraged to think sensibly about sex; warm pictures, as well as cold anatomical diagrams, can be very useful to inform such thinking; a culture of catchpenny smut and coy giggling . . . illustrated by the sight of heaving bedclothes on the TV and press reports of the naughty antics of the young(ish) royals . . . . . such a culture is sexually sick and sickening.

The word 'adult' has to be interpreted thoughtfully. Immediately, the use of the word entails that children should not be exploited sexually either for kicks or for cash - children can be ruled out under the 'informed consent' restriction anyway; they can have had no time to be properly and constructively informed about such a many-sided matter as human sexuality.

More widely, the word 'adult' has to mean 'stable, mature and mentally competent adult'. The sexual exploitation of emotionally disturbed people, perhaps of low intelligence, is horrible. 'Adult' should be taken to mean strictly 'the minimally vulnerable adult'.

What about 'free love'? How does that rate in view of the 'adult consent' requirement? The answer, widely understood and admitted in many civilised countries, is that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with having lovers outside, and even in addition to, marriage. It can be, and very often is, wrong in the instrumental sense of having harmful consequences. To manage such relationships, without hurting people, is very difficult because, and perhaps only because, we live in a culture of personal insecurity that leads to attempted possession, and mutual manipulation, of one person by another.

Informed consent has to include a full awareness of the tendrils of the bent culture we live in. In that culture, informal affairs can be heaven to start but often hell to stop but if we free ourselves from possessiveness and the urge to manipulate people - then free love can become ethically acceptable and personally rewarding.

Generally failing to free ourselves sufficiently from the perversions of possessiveness and manipulation makes free love the painful delusion that it so often actually is. But it is precisely those perversions that can damage a 'respectable' marriage. They are damaging perversions in any association - be it a conventionally acceptable association or not.

The Wolfenden Report is resented by the traditionalists; such people do not even think about the positive value of its main implications. All that the traditionalists have to offer is guilt-complexes, half-baked 'thou shalt not' rules and a tendency to say, when it suits them, that 'boys will be boys'.

Liberal secularism can do better than that.

or e-mail to stockton.sanday.orkney@zetnet.co.uk