A recent BBC documentary on agony aunts covered the restrictions on what you could advise in the past: in the 60s you had to guess that “what you describe is not uncommon and few would consider it wrong” referred to masturbation, while today Susie Orbach can positively recommend it.
There’s never been a shortage of tough subjects. A few decades ago the editor of Woman asked their agony aunt what was the most common problem people wrote in about, and was told it was incest. But, from the other side, only in America could a girl wanting a man be told to “stand on a busy street corner with a lasso”.
There’s a famous answer to the question: “Why should a man never be an agony aunt?” Imagine a woman whose car has broken down and who had to return home, where she found her husband snogging the au pair girl. A female agony aunt would no doubt sympathise and tell her to leave her husband, whereas a male one might simply tell her how to fix the car. But actually the first agony person was a man: John Dunton.
Anyone can give advice – even me (for Saga). Luckily no one has to take it. But it actually has to be admitted that what we agony aunts or uncles are aiming at is an interesting page; we rarely know the outcome of the advice we give: call it power without responsibility, if you like.
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