It’s Time for the Press to Practice Restraint

Truth in journalism should compel the Los Angeles Times to change the section called Life & Style to Pornography Life & Style.

How dare you invade 1,361,988 homes with the sensuous picture of naked John Lennon embracing Yoko Ono (“Out and About,” Feb. 8). There is no section in The Times to help parents explain this and other sexually explicit material to their children. (Second-graders can read.)

In “Beatts Me!” on the same date, the anti-semitic smut peddler Anne Beatts, who describes herself as a Jewish convert, provides a catalog of abhorrent behavior in her cutesy reference to oral sex, orgasms--fake or real--and a litany of the kind of lecherous fare that at one time could only be found in the sensational supermarket papers.

We are not prudes. We have raised three ethical children, and have worked hard as a teacher and a writer and as volunteers to uplift our community. The government should not regulate the press. It is up to great newspapers to regulate themselves.

EVONNE and PETER GRANT

Van Nuys