GRANTHAM, England – Deidre Sanders, the “agony aunt” of Britain’s The Sun tabloid, wants everybody to know Michaela Snell’s porn habit isn’t a bit of harmless fun. It’s a damaging addiction that is ruining Snell’s relationships and causing her to raise her children in a profoundly wrong way.

Of course, Sanders only wants you to know this after reading a long feature article complete with smiling photos of the “kinky mum” who allegedly watches 60 hours of porn per week.

“She leaves her 17-year-old son Kyle to rustle up a snack, tidy up and keep an eye on half-sister Bailey, four, while she watches adult movies upstairs,” wrote The Sun’s Matthew Barbour, presumably while gently shaking his head in disapproval. “Michaela admits she gets the shakes and struggles to concentrate if she doesn’t get a daily porn fix.”

Wow, this lady has it bad. We should not be like her — but we should keep reading, because we like train wrecks, especially human ones.

“I know I’m hooked, but it’s an addiction I don’t see any harm in,” Snell said. “In fact it’s healthy; nothing could be more natural. Some people get addicted to exercise, and nobody thinks that’s a bad thing.”

Oh Michaela, you couldn’t be more wrong! Porn isn’t just ruining your life. It’s also ruining the life of that poor kid wearing a grimace who recognizes washing dishes is an intolerable misery — and clearly “woman’s work,” if only that woman weren’t upstairs watching nasty, terrible porn!

“I’ve never thought about seeing a doctor or getting help,” Snell, the shamelessly selfish harpy, added. “Porn is good for me; it makes me feel happy. Other people might get the same effect from a romcom, [but] for me it’s a cracking porn flick — or three. Without it I feel down, dreadful, anxious. I watch about 60 hours a week. Even if I do a long shift at work, with porn playing all day, I will come back and put on a film. I often watch 11 hours a day. I feel totally relaxed afterwards.”

Oh Michaela, just imagine if you spent those same 11 hours a day doing something more respectable, like reading Dear Diedre columns about people who are even worse human beings than you are, like the guy who fucked his mother-in-law while his wife was on life support.

Or, if you prefer, you could choose to enrich your life and your understanding of the universe by reading the cautionary tale of a woman whose “fantastic fiancé” found out about her “boozy bunk up” with another man, causing her to feel “so ashamed.”

At any rate, it’s important to understand how horribly exploitative and sensationalist porn is, in no small part because any time you waste watching trashy hardcore smut on the internet is time you could have put to far better use — perhaps by reading about a teenager who hooked up with her friend’s father while on holiday, but is now saddened by the fact the creepy old fuck doesn’t seem to consider her his soulmate.

I ask you, where would The Sun’s readers be without the sage advice Sanders doles out to all these obviously real, completely legit letter-writers? For that matter, where would the one guy who nailed his “fat wife’s hot cousin” at the family BBQ be, if it hadn’t been for Sanders letting him know he’s a dick?

I’m not sure what it is about Sanders that causes every sexual deviant in the U.K. to send her notes in which they admit to aberrant sexual behavior, but at least most of them aren’t watching an excessive amount of porn. No, most of them have much easier-to-forgive stories to tell, like the woman who’s pregnant with her lover’s child, but her lover doesn’t know she’s married to the father of her six year-old son.

Sanders’s brilliant advice for the pregnant cheating mom? “Tell him (the lover) the truth and see how he reacts.”

Great idea, Ms. Sanders — although you forgot to add “Whatever you do, just don’t watch too much porn, because that could really mess up your romantic relationship(s).”

Image © Scott Griessel.