How very sad to see young female university students prostituting themselves in this way. Let's tell the truth: this is pornography. It's also sad that the Advertiser should run this story and the photo. I wonder when I'll next read about a University of Salford student who has been raped or sexually assaulted. It's worth considering that within the lifetime of many readers of the Salford Advertiser, such a photo in a newspaper was (quite rightly) illegal on the grounds of obscenity.

I agree with the previous comment made. Don't think as a parent i would be happy with my daughter or son come to that, posing like this. i am surprised that the education department did not have a say in this. Bad taste all round.

Richard, you have got to be winding me up. So often I read your comments and am infuriated by them, but I have no wish to get into an argument with you about it so I don't comment. However, this is just too much.

How dare you link rape with these women (and men) raising money for charity? I think you should think very carefully before you suggest that posing provocatively is an invitation for rape.

The thing is that I know that this post is wasted, because you'll come back with something equally mental to justify what you've said. I just couldn't let it go without challenging it.

Grow up. Nudity does not mean sex or prostitution. It's a bunch of intelligent girls trying to help other people.

Dukey, with all due respect, it might help if you actually read the story. These women are over-18, university students. The education department has got absolutely no authority over them, nor do their parents.

And the calendar is for charity - a good deed to help others. Faith, hope and charity, eh Richard?

How sad that some people seem to think that nudity = sex. When did some people become so ashamed and disgusted with the human form in its most natural state?

Well done to these girls, they all look fabulous and I hope that they raise lots of money!

I agree with Richard that this Picture is in poor taste and should not have been published in Advertiser. Why young women have to strip off to raise money for a good cause? Even if some people promote and enjoy nudity as an art I object it being dropped to my door step by advertiser.

Prostitution?! I wasn't aware we were being payed to get naked?!

I'm one of the girls in that photo and I am appaled that you (Richard) would suggest such a thing.

I've been in the calendar for the past three years and all it is, is a bit of fun to help raise money for less fortunate people.

Grow up.

Me grow up?... I'm not the one getting my **** (and everything else) out for the lads dearie! And I don't buy the "Oh pornography's okay cos we're doing it for charity" line either.

The girls' action in posing for pornography was entirely selfish - to say "Look at us!" - in complete contrast to true charity [agape love] which is entirely selfless.

Now I happen to know a thing or two about true charity - both the theory and the practice... and since these girls are supposed to be students it seems they need me to teach them a lesson in what charity is about.

Salford University's student netball team can join 'Professor' Richard any time they like for a bit of voluntary subway graffiti cleaning, or street sweeping, or grass cutting, or cleaning for the disabled, etcetera.

And can I make a suggestion for future calenders? I'm confident that if the girls pose for non-pornographic photos - perhaps wearing their netball attire might be appropriate? - the calenders will still sell.

Richard, I've seen the article and find nothing pornographic about the pictures or any intent to be so. I guess pornography is in the eye of the beholder and you see what's in your mind's eye. The pornography exists in your psyche, nowhere else.

I see young women doing something fun to help raise vital charity funds.

As is often the case with people who have issues like you, there is a moral-shredding paradox right at the heart of your various obsessions, namely your fanatical promotion of Sarah Whatmore on your blog (where I posted this comment but you have not published), a girl who used sex appeal to sell records for personal gain, and used that very same sex appeal to woo the judges on Pop Idol in the first place.

Have you seen some of the pictures she has done to promote her career? Here's a link to remind you http://tiny.cc/RMVwn

So Richard, what is more acceptable? A young woman using sex to sell records (bought mainly by young impressionable teenage girls, by the way) or a bunch of charity-aware students having fun to help those less fortunate than themselves?

Who displays Christian values? The answer Richard is an uncomfortable one for you, I suspect.

David, your comment has been published in full on my blog (and I have made a response to you there also). For your information, all comments submitted to my blog are on 'automatic moderation', and so the delay in publication is simply to do with when I become aware of a submitted comment and am available to publish it.

Why Richard do you not answer his points on here too, or do you not have one?

Dawn, the answer to your question is that I've already submitted three comments to this thread which have not been published [presumably, primarily because of the Editor's genuine concern about possible legal liability, however there are other possible (and indeed probable) motives.] In particular, one of the disallowed comments made some substantive points, but I'm not playing around with previously disallowed comments to make them acceptable for publication here as I don't have either the time or the inclination to rework and resubmit them.

Richard, we are waiting for your reply to David's excellent point. How can you 'admire' Sarah Whatmore and condemn the girls for their charity work? Surely if Sarah's racey image is acceptable to you, so should be the calendar?

Looking at your latest comment Richard, I can conclude you don't have an answer. Look’s like David has well and truly tripped you up and showed you up. For all your pontificating on here, when you are challenged, you have no answer. Enough said.

You are entitled to erroneously conclude what you like John, but you have either not studied carefully everything that I've written about this on my blog, or you have misunderstood, or you have wilfully and knowingly written a misleading analysis of what I've said about both the original story of the netball team and also Sarah Whatmore.

If indeed you are sincere [and not just engaging in sophistry] you really should go back to the blog and read it again; I think my blog response in relation to the Sarah Whatmore 'angle' is clear enough.

And here's a really 'clever' point to blow a big hole in my opponents' argument here on this thread in relation to Sarah Whatmore... I just want to turn something around and throw it back to you...

You know how you're attempting to make a point about the netball team's conduct being okay by pointing the finger at Sarah Whatmore? Well, much as I hate to point it out, but, in attempting to defend the netball team by criticising Sarah Whatmore, since you're [correctly] saying that some of Sarah's old imagery was dubious, you are therefore agreeing with me that the netball team's conduct is certainly also dodgy. I'm afraid that in a roundabout fashion you've actually agreed with me!

P.S. Talking about the netball girls' "charity work"... please, do me a favour, posing for a pornographic calender is not 'charity work'. If you want to know what charity work is, go pay a visit to the Loaves and Fishes project near Salford Precinct or the Salvation Army on Station Road in Swinton, or look into charities which help rape victims and domestic abuse victims (whose attackers are so often motivated by pornography).

Richard, I have not read anyone here, other than you, suggest the conduct of either the girls or Sarah Whatmore is/was wrong.

So your high school debating point which focuses on comments about the marketing of Sarah and her sex appeal (assuming incorrectly that they are critical of her, read them again and you will see that assumption is wrong), and links such comments to a tacit support of your opinion that the calender is pornographic, is erroneous.

All posters have been trying to point out is the inconsistency in YOUR argument. In clearly identifying that inconsistency, they have not exposed one of their own as you glibly fail to highlight.

So let’s make it clear for you; Sarah and the girls have done nothing wrong. No one has said they have - APART FROM YOU.

You idolise Sarah and attack the girls. Inconsistent. Ill-thought. Unintelligent. Flawed. Contradictory. Can I make it any clearer for you?

The point is you cannot pick and choose when to stand on the moral high ground. You try and fail.

I don't know what planet you live on but I'm sure it's bliss to live in such ignorance; it's clear to me that you haven't grasped some of the fundamental points of this debate (and I know it is unhelpful that the argument has got split between this thread and my blog).

I have nothing more to add to what I've already said on the original story (in this comment), but there is just one thing which I must correct...

I do not "idolise" Sarah Whatmore (and indeed I do not idolise anybody or anything). People have either misinterpreted or deliberately misrepresented where I stand as regards Sarah Whatmore.

I think Sarah Whatmore is a fantastic singer/songwriter and it is that talent alone for which I esteem her (not her looks, or her political views or any other aspect of who and what Sarah Whatmore is). Of course Sarah is beautiful and sexy but that is not the basis of my interest in her.

Crickey Richard, you're a bit out of your depth on this one. Best to back down, fella...

I hardly think so. I've actually made a sound and coherent argument (albeit not all here on this thread) to substantiate my position. All I see from my opponents is waffle and bluster and claiming victory.

Anyone can claim victory if they want to, but claiming victory is not an argument.

Perhaps what we need is a proper public debate? You're all supposed to be 'academics'... well, you're at the University of Salford doing your course and your netball and your stripping.

Since you naked netballers are supposed to be the intellectual cream of your generation - people who are going to graduate and be professional and managerial people - perhaps you'd like to take me on [I'm just a regular Salford scally] in a public debate about pornography somewhere in Salford? A public debate might be the best forum in which to have this one out properly.

Richard, you say on here you don't idolise 'anyone or anything'.

However, I've just checked your 'blog' - Don't you idolise God?

Sheikh... you need to check out the difference between idolatry and worship in a Biblical context.

Worship of God is good (and is not idolatry). On the other hand, worshipping anybody or anything other than God is to worship an idol (and that is idolatry).

This debate is really tearing me in two. One one hand, I want lots of people to comment to rip Richard Carvath's argument to shreds, but on the other hand, I don't wish to see him have a platform to put forward his rather extreme views.

The problem with extremists of every calibre is that it is often very difficult to argue against them, because they will come up with "logical" answers to suggest they are right, even though they are ludicrous to right-minded people.

I don't consider myself to be an academic - I went to uni but didn't excel - but one thing I do know is something that was drummed into me at school and at uni. Life is just so subjective - most people, myself included, would not agree that the above picture was pornographic. In fact, I haven't really put a lot of time and effort into researching this, but it seems to me that the definition of pornography is: the explicit depiction of sexual subject matter with the sole intention of sexually exciting the viewer. Now, granted, this was only from Wikipedia, but it's whether you consider the picture above to be explicitly depicting sexual subject matter. I don't.

But the problem is that people like Richard have a strong sense of what they believe in (sometimes this can be a good thing, if it is not taken too far). So part of me thinks that this debate should now be put to bed (excuse the pun) because us normal folk are never going to be able to have our views heard by Richard.

Also Richard, one of the points I noticed in your post was that you talked of "victory". It seems to me that a proper debate should not be about winning and losing but listening to, and taking on board, another person's view. Of course, you are then permitted to disregard it but you have to at least understand what they are saying. It just seems to me, an impartial observer, that this isn't happening here.

Anyway, maybe we should all let Richard put forward his views on his own blog, without giving them a platform in the mainstream media.

I'm afraid that in a roundabout fashion you've actually agreed with me!

Richard Carvath,
5/01/2009 at 17:55

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Sorry, Richard are you not, in the above sentence, just 'claiming victory' (erroneously) in the manner by which you deride your detractors?

BTW, don't put yourself down mate. You're not just a Salford scally... you're a very special one. Very special. One in a million. A diamond.

And you're still out of your depth on this one.

PS: good luck with your 170,000+ word socio-political tome. There are plenty of self-publishing websites if you 'google' it.

Richard, re: idolise. You fail to understand the difference between semantics and meaning. But good try...

OOYD