JEMMA 'Faliraki' Gunning is the irritating little slapper who whipped out her Big Macs during a drink binge at a Greek bar. And promptly got slapped in the nick for indecent behaviour.

She may be thicker than a whale omelette - let's face it, she was taking part in a Eurovision Thong Contest but sill managed to remove the wrong item of clothing - but Jemma is now spokesgirlie for the Bacardi Breezer generation.

And the gospel according to Jemma is as simple as it is bleak.

"Sex is not a big thing anymore, not for my generation," she witters. "If you want to go out and have casual sex, you go out and you do it."

As she points out: "You've watched Sex And The City. Thousands and thousands of people are like that."

They aren't, actually, but much as I'd like to shake her, I can't blame her. Why shouldn't she believe all this, when we live in a culture that celebrates trivia, encourages lewd behaviour, and makes heroines out of vulgar plank-brains like Jade Goody?

Think about it - our screens are awash with third-rate dross masquerading as reality TV, like the repulsive Club Reps, which powered up the whole Faliraki thing. Barely a week goes by without the nation speculating on whether some nobody in the Big Brother house, or The Villa, is going to bonk another nobody.

Only last week, Channel 4 advertised for men to join its new 'reality' TV show, Lapdance Island. Forty lapdancers were going to be installed on an island to distract the contestants from a series of tasks.

Even Jade Goody could have spotted that one for the send-up it was. But the 20,000 applicants didn't.

You sad, sad, men.

And talking of which, Spearmint Rhino, the Bournemouth lapdancing club, has now applied for permission from the council to further relax the rules governing just what can be shown to punters.

Why? How is this going to make this town a better place? How's it going to boost the local economy?

Bournemouth borough can faff about all it likes over this one, it's already lost the plot. Why the hell did it allow this sort of establishment in the town in the first place?

The constant argument is that places like these do no harm. How do we know, yet?

Kids deserve to be protected from cheap sex and warped values thrust at them from every quarter. Because, if we don't shield them from sex shops, slapper TV and crude, irresponsible journalism, we can hardly complain when they see nothing wrong in behaving like this themselves.