Standards should be neither so flexible as to exclude nothing nor so rigid

Standards should be neither so flexible as to exclude nothing, nor so rigid as to permit nothing. Shame, like most other social mechanisms, has its uses and abuses. The Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires has recently been restored to operatic magnificence, and the theatre's season begins in April. PSA (Passage to South America, 0171-602 9889) can arrange private tours of the theatre, or book tickets for performances. Other options include trips to a working estancia (ranch), polo instruction and temporary membership of the city's Hurlingham Club. Reaching Buenos Aires on the longest non-stop British Airways flight costs pounds 635 through PSA. Fares to Argentina and Chile are around the pounds 600 mark because of sheer distance.

Not a few young girls are sent back to Pakistan to avoid the morally contaminating influence of school. Needless to say, this unreasoning attachment to old standards by immigrant groups is reinforced by their horror of what they consider, not without cause, to be the shamelessness which they see all around them.Neither unthinking permissiveness, nor unthinking restrictiveness, is attractive. The consequences for younger brothers and sisters can also be severe: education may be denied them, for fear of a repetition of the shameful event, and they may even be physically incarcerated at home. Parents blackmail their children with threats of suicide, should they persist in bringing shame upon the family by consorting with a Muslim, or a Sikh, as the case may be.

If the unfortunates caught in this dilemma choose to defy their parents, they may be cut off entirely. The fear of shame thus sometimes acts as a licence for unspeakable vileness.Shame drives apart couples who are of different religion or caste. Were the young women to leave their husbands, not only would the rest of the community regard them quite literally as prostitutes, to be preyed upon at will, but they would bring such shame upon the rest of the family that younger siblings would have difficulty in finding marriage partners.The personal happiness or even safety of an abused woman often counts for nothing, even in the eyes of her own parents, who would prefer the real risk of her murder to the sullying of the family's reputation by divorce. This means that the social disintegration seen in the surrounding white population has been avoided, so far at least, and explains in part the comparative economic and educational success of these groups. On the other hand, fear of the ill-opinion of the community can exact a terrible personal toll and often reinforces the grossest of prejudices.I have seen countless young women condemned by their own families to continue to live with men who rape them repeatedly and beat them unmercifully.

Failure is success.Among immigrants from India and Pakistan, the fear of shame before the rest of the community exerts a powerful influence on individual behaviour. Fear of the consequences generally restrains us.Shame, or disgrace in the eyes of others, is a powerful force for social cohesion: it maintains standards of conduct. Unfortunately, these standards of conduct are not necessarily desirable in themselves. In many of our schools, for example, children are shamed into apathy and ignorance. But people often don't know how to handle one surviving member of a couple - it's as though half of them has disappearedAngela LambertPride and PredjudiceTheodore Dalrymple works as a doctor in an inner-city community strong in Muslim values.For most of our lives, unless we are psychopaths,we do not do as we please. Most manage to cope with it eventually, and, if they later lead ordinary lives, they block it all out So shame doesn't necessarily enter into it Not all rent boys are homosexual, only about half.

Of the others, 30 per cent are heterosexual and the rest don't know.Some of the punters are very good to the boys. Some will have them to live in their homes and look after them for two or three years, partly because they want to care for someone. But, mostly, the sex industry is about passing encounters.People with HIV don't feel shame if they've come to terms with who they are - but only a minority have. The majority of homosexual men I've been alongside have not shown shame unless so much has been laid upon them by their families that they can't shake it off. Families tell them, "We want grandchildren," and that makes a person very insecure.On the family's side, they feel shame because of what they may have done to their sons by rejecting them, or by not wanting other people to know that their son died with Aids.Everyone wants to be accepted when they're dying.