Joan Bakewell story in Daily Mail

By Liz Thomas

Last updated at 8:16 AM on 5th January 2012

Joan Bakewell helped lead the sexual revolution of the Sixties. But now aged 78, the broadcaster has decided there’s a lot of unnecessary liberation about.

In an attack on the pop industry, she said today’s stars were obsessed with raunch and their videos were ‘over-sexualised’.

There has been a major backlash against gratuitous sex, violence and nudity in pop videos in recent months, with the Government and regulator Ofcom promising a clampdown on such content before the watershed.

Too much raunch: Broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell said pop stars like Lady Gaga (above) were far too preoccupied with sex in their performances

Dame Joan said of the proliferation of racy music videos: ‘I find it absolutely extraordinary.

‘I’m not prudish. I mean, the shock of everyone’s bits hanging out isn’t in itself distressing, but it’s so over-sexualised. I don’t know what it’s doing to young people. I think the over-sexing of pop videos is really weird.

‘When young people get to their own sex life they are either going to be disappointed or they are going to do it badly because they are going to be jumping around like some raunchy singer.’

Dame Joan – who fronted a series of programmes in which she tackled sexual taboos – said she recently watched a Lady Gaga concert on television but found the singer’s preoccupation with sex ruined the show.

Now, now, then: In her day, Dame Joan (left) fronted a series of programmes (right) tackling sexual taboos, but feels today's icons have gone too far

Speaking at the launch of her second novel She’s Leaving Home, she said: ‘Lady Gaga was playing up the raunch, which rather spoilt it for me.

'I don’t know how young people learn about sex. I learnt about sex from the cinema. I learnt it from Gone With The Wind. I learnt it from all those romantic films.

‘So I perhaps overrated romance rather too much, but I don’t know whether they overrate sex too much these days, I’ve no idea. What harm it will do, I just don’t know.’

Parents are becoming increasingly concerned about a slide in the standards of family viewing.

Thousands complained about the raunchy performances by Rihanna and Christina Aguilera on The X Factor final in 2010.

÷ An Audience With Joan Bakewell is at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford on January 10.