Six of the Best 413

"There is some evidence that the emergence of this fantasy space has actually made the real world slightly safer for women: studies have shown correlations between access to online pornography and lower rates of sexual assault. But the flip side is that many men who might have successfully regulated their darker impulses now have what seems like a green light to be 'virtually' abusive ... because they’re just trying out a role, or because the woman on the receiving end seems no more real to them than a character in a pornographic film." Ross Douthat writes about online misogyny for the New York Times.

But young women should stop trying to ban what offends them, and focus on engaging their opponents in intellectual debate, says Claire Fox in the TES.

"In days gone by, boys had the freedom to roam unsupervised on adventures that allowed them to be massively engaged in pursuits that helped them to learn and grow using life’s greatest teacher – experience." Maggie Dent on Essential Kids argues that boys need a boyhood if they are to grow into good men - in fact I suspect that girls need boyhood too.

One & Other on the York law students who are helping the local community.

Londonist visits the city's best ruins.

"As a child, I was completely enamoured with the Lone Pine series of books written by the late Malcolm Saville, about the adventures of a group of post-wartime children, mostly set in Shropshire or Kent. I was so taken that I felt compelled to write to the author. I’ve no idea what I wrote, but the publishing house must have forwarded it to Mr Saville who took the time to write a short letter back to me, in his own handwriting using a fountain pen. Here is the letter, one of the very few things I have kept from my own childhood. That’s how much it meant to me." Ian Sutherland had the same childhood literary hero as me.