Pride month: Is culture telling more of the Beautiful Story?

June has been Pride month – a global series of gatherings, begun as a march in the 1970s, that celebrate LGBTQ+ rights.

Interestingly, there have been articles this year suggesting that just perhaps we are starting to reach “the end of the rainbow” – some Reform-led councils have taken down Pride flags from their municipal properties. There are reports that Whitehall has banned civil servants from buying Pride lanyards.

As we edge towards another hot summer, society might potentially have peaked in hypersexualising literally everything. Channel 4 has finally finished its shocking Virgin Island series, a much-talked about show which follows 12 virgins, mainly in their 20s, to a “radical retreat” on a Mediterranean island, where a team of professional “sexperts” will work with them on their issues with intimacy. What comes across watching the first episode alone is the devastating way that our culture now seems to view sex – and virginity.