I REMEMBER a time when dating meant something quite innocent.

A first date was one of those rites of passage that involved nerve-racking trips to the cinema or walks trying to find conversational subjects that didn’t make you sound like a complete dork.

So well done to Affairs Dating for taking all that mystique, dumping it into a bin and promoting the subtle art of getting someone to sleep with you who, like you, shouldn’t be.

The agency attracts “people looking to have an affair when divorce is not an option.”

How lovely and romantic. A place where the causes of struggling marriages can advertise their pathetic desire to find someone else.

Local Methodist minister Fraser Smith is as dismayed as any of us for whom the word promiscuity rarely ventures beyond a glimpse at Sigourney Weaver’s ankles.

But has he grasped the notion that the 21st century will not go down as a shining light for advocates of monogamy and clean living?

It’s a wicked old world out there and one that’s fuelled as much by the internet as by the casual lust of its many participants and a night out in Bournemouth will convince anyone that Sodom and Gomorrah have been transported to the South Coast.

Offering guidelines for an online affair is depressing and dispiriting in an age with few glimmers of hope for those of us who believe in the sanctity and strength of marriage.