I FEEL compelled to respond to Heather Causnett's letter ('Rewrite sex laws', March 15). Her views are ignorant, bigoted and stupid.

I hope none of her female relatives or friends ever have to go through the horrific ordeal of rape, especially after she states there are "far more worthy causes than that of compensating girls for situations which are the results of their own bad behaviour."

This intolerable woman is, I think, occasionally correct. I think sex has been degraded and cheapened and some girls and women do behave badly, however, is she suggesting this is their just desserts?

Haven't men been "allowed" to behave in this way for centuries? Do we not have equal rights? Is this not what women have suffered and fought for for decades? For the simple right to relax and occasionally 'go mad' the way that I, as a man, have always been "allowed" to?

I also accept that certain female behaviour attracts certain men, but most men are truly decent and would never dream of committing one of these horrific crimes, even as a "weapon of war", as she suggested. Where has she developed these views?

Mrs Causnett also suggests the law needs changing to protect men. Laughable! How? If any changes need to be made it is to serve harsher sentences so husbands, wives and families are not destroyed by the selfish act of rape. The way she talks about allegations of date rape is bewildering. Does she not know of drugs used in these crimes?

Women of any age should not feel they are to blame in any way, and the less people listen to her idiotic viewpoint, the better.

Phillip Harman,

Mill Lane,

Ryther, Tadcaster.

Updated: 10:26 Monday, March 21, 2005