During a recent horseracing festival, a well-known bookmakers’ chain ran a promotion for its special betting offers. The advertisement showed a man wearing a straitjacket and grinning maniacally, and the message was that you’d have to be mad to ignore this deal. A complaint about the advert was duly made to the Advertising Standards Authority. No surprise there, least of all to the bookies. In fact I suspect that my cousin Paddy (only kidding, no relation) was banking on a bit of a row.

The complainant probably said that the ad stigmatised mental illness and exploited misconceptions about a complex, sensitive issue. Unexpectedly, though, the complaint was rejected. A gambler would have gotten long odds on that outcome, because past form suggests that the thriving “offence industry” was backing a sure winner here.

And it is an industry because, between the Advertising Standards Authority and the Equality Authority and assorted pressure groups championing the rights of travellers, separated parents, smokers, prisoners, victims, fat people and racial minorities, a lot of people are keeping themselves busy and important by pandering to others’ thin skins.

The very suggestion that something, be it a mildly tasteless advert, a nativity scene in a hospital foyer or a trenchant newspaper column, might conceivably offend somebody is now enough to justify censorship of legitimate expression. Worryingly, this now includes self-censorship. Advertisers, companies, politicians, even charities must anticipate the most extreme sensitivities or riskcondemnation, controversy or ruin.

This is borne of the notion that, once you have been affected by a particular issue — organ retention, disability, institutional abuse, suicide, obesity or religious intolerance — you then own it, and the only view that may henceforth be expressed on that issue is one that you endorse. It is as though victimhood bestows squatters’ rights that allow you to close a gate on all dissenting voices and gives you a veto on any displeasing opinion.

Take, for example, the case of the topless model and the breast cancer charities. Claire Tully is a beautiful, intelligent young woman who has the distinction of being the first Irish girl to appear on The Sun newspaper’s iconic page 3 slot. She has been invited to take part in a reality television programme that will raise funds for a charity of her choice.

Because her mother and grandmother both suffered from breast cancer, which means she is also at risk, she wanted to give her money to one of the charities that provide support for patients and research.

She approached the Marie Keating Foundation and offered the proceeds of her efforts, with a guaranteed minimum of ¤5,000. She was turned down. A second breast cancer charity also said no. A third said yes, and then rang her on Thursday evening to say they had changed their minds.

I have some sympathy for them. As the chief executive of the Marie Keating Foundation explained to me on Newstalk last week, it has to be alert to the sensitivities of affected women and their families. Some breast cancer victims have complained that mastectomy survivors, and not agency models, should be used to display lingerie at fashion-show fundraisers.

The chances are that if they had accepted this charity offer, the Foundation and the other charities would have been criticised and suffered a loss of support. Yet you wouldn’t expect double amputees, for example, to be offended if a famous runner offered financial support to their charity. And would charities for testicular or prostate cancer have turned down, say, the proceeds of David “Goldenballs” Beckham’s sultry poses for that risqué Armani underwear campaign?

I suspect that if you are the type of woman who sees nothing offensive in a clever girl making the most of her youth and beauty by posing with her top off, then developing breast cancer is unlikely to change your mind.

And if you’ve lost a relative to breast cancer, or had a scare yourself, you might consider the need to raise funds and do research that may one day defeat the disease outweighs your personal disapproval of Page 3 girls.

It must, of course, be painful to be reminded that other women have healthy breasts if you don’t. But then, if you visit a beach, use a changing room or walk down a city street in summer, you’ve no chance of forgetting that.

It’s a shame that these charities felt they had to defer to potential sensitivities, because I can’t think of a better mascot for breast cancer awareness than a topless model. For every man who slobbers over those pictures, I suspect at least one woman will think: “She looks great. Running for a bus must be a nightmare but she obviously looks after those puppies and I bet she wouldn’t risk missing a check-up, or ignoring a lump or forgetting to do her regular self-examinations.” I do.

Crying “offence” and running to the nearest authority is often just a means of shutting down the expression of an opinion or a lifestyle that you don’t like, or that doesn’t suit your particular victimhood.

Last week a Wicklow councillor reported anecdotal evidence that some young women have babies outside of marriage because they hope to move up the housing list. He didn’t say “all”, he said “some”, but he was promptly attacked by offended champions of single parents everywhere.

And so, because of the possibility that somebody might be offended, we can’t examine the reasons why some young women may be so low on self-esteem and ambition that they see teenage pregnancy as a good career move. Another victory for the offence industry and the councillor will be lucky if he doesn’t find himself prosecuted for incitement to hatred.

How on earth could a non-Christian seriously claim to be offended by the Angelus bells or by a Christmas crib in an Irish hospital, or indeed insulted by the sight of a nurse or garda wearing ash on their forehead on Ash Wednesday? But if such practices, however traditional or innocent, make you feel uncomfortable or excluded, that confirms you as a victim of somebody else’s insensitivity.

The busy bees in the offence industry could make life easier for us all if they applied a simple test to every complaint: was the act or comment malicious? Was it said or done to express a view, uphold a tradition, raise funds for charity, open up a topic for debate? Or was its purpose to annoy or provoke? By that criterion, most complaints to those eager receptacles of outrage would be rejected — but cousin Paddy’s straitjacket ad would have landed him in a whole heap of trouble.

brenda.power@sunday-times.ie

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