Laughing all the way to the strip club Savile, sexism and Auntie Beeb

The dreadful saga of Jimmy Savile has exposed much more than one man's horrific crimes.

Attitudes to it have also been revealing, and shown what a mess we can get into in trying to understand horrors like these.

You'll have noticed two well-worn arguments doing the rounds when Savile crops up in the media - things were different then, and it's all the BBC's fault.

I don't remotely get the "well, it was the '70s" line. A decade of casual misogyny and terrible trousers, sure, but how does that explain, let alone excuse, predatory paedophilia?

Aside from the fact that Savile was operating from the '60s to the 2000s, chauvinism and paedophilia are just not the same.

Both are damaging and dangerous, but one is pathological, the other partly a product of society and culture.

The distinction is important.

Equating paedophilia to dodgy sexual behaviour that hasn't always been condemned suggests that how we view child abuse could also change with time.

That suits the paedophile lobby, which likes to compare condemnation of their sexual behaviour with the homophobia of the past.

By extension, if paedophilia were comparable to sexism then it could arguably be socially conditioned.

That plays to the popular misconception that the abused go on to abuse - statistics show this is wholly incorrect, but it's still widely believed.

I know from my own experience that it's a particular kick in the teeth for victims. It can be hard enough moving on without being told you've probably "caught" paedophilia too.

Spurious argument No 2 is that the BBC somehow condoned the abuses of Savile and others.

Like any self-respecting leftie I've always had a good laugh watching the right heap opprobrium on what they consider essentially the broadcasting arm of the Communist Party. As if!

The representation of women, especially those of a certain age, on the Beeb shows it's hardly rampantly PC as the Daily Mail et al would have us believe.

This was illustrated so forcefully by a recent radio show that I confess to spluttering into my tea like the most stalwart of retired colonels.

In Radio 4's I've Never Seen Star Wars, comedian Marcus Brigstocke interviews celebs about things they've never done. On this episode, comedian Dave Gorman confessed he'd never been to a lap-dancing club.

This is the station that's home to The Blessed Jenni Murray and Woman's Hour, so was he congratulated and sent on his way? Not a bit of it. Off he trotted to the nearest strip club.

Gorman expressed some disquiet at the experience, but none at the exploitation or objectification of the women working there - his only complaint was paying for what was, essentially, sexual frustration.

Even so, the episode built to its own embarrassing climax. Gorman has earlier claimed never to have read Dickens, choosing a particular book to start with.

All of this turned out to be no more than an elaborate set-up for a terrible gag, as Gorman gleefully concluded that one experience involved a Tale of Two Cities and the other… a sale of two titties.

The joke was lame when told by Ronnie Barker in, yes, the 1970s, but this was more than an offence against comedy.

I'd only just recovered from a previous episode in which former "Goodie" Tim Brooke-Taylor bought his first porn mag. And it occurred to me that the licence fee probably paid for both.

The BBC press office told me they didn't comment on production costs - and added that it was only £10 to get in. I'll take that as a Yes.

The women who work in strip clubs are not joke figures from seaside postcards. Ex-workers from clubs like Spearmint Rhino have blown the whistle on the brutal, dehumanising conditions and treatment they faced. There are proven links to prostitution and people trafficking.

What's next for this series - some ageing comedian saying they've never used sex workers and visiting a brothel with a wedge of licence-payers' cash?

It seems middle-class men like Brigstocke consider sexual exploitation a rip-roaringly good giggle.

While the dubious sense of humour may be an unwelcome return to the '70s, the attitudes reflect the 21st century's own "upgrade" on sexism.

In this new phase of capitalism, women are sold pole-dancing lessons as "empowering" and low female self-esteem is a valuable commodity. Ladies, you're NOT worth it…

We need to look beyond the right's pernicious bromides about political correctness ruling the land and its broadcasting corp, and take a good look at sexual attitudes, old and new - because some are just not funny.

• Louise Raw is the author of Striking A Light: The Bryant & May Matchwomen (Continuum) and director of the forthcoming Matchwomen's Festival on Saturday July 6 (www.matchwomensfestival.com/www.facebook.com/Matchwomen). A shorter version of this article is on www.unionhome.org.uk