Heretic TOC

Not the dominant narrative

Tom O'Carroll

Inspiration from history for the Holy Father

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Buona sera, Pope Francis! Or should it be buongiorno at this time of day? Whatever! You should be OK if you stick to being kind to animals, nursing lepers, and all that, like, good, stuff your sainted namesake did. Oh, yeh, and the poverty, chastity and obedience thing: fine if you practise it, not so great if you preach it. We can do without poverty, thank you very much, and as for the other two, no way, Francesco! Now St Francis of Assisi, like many of Christianity’s most impressively holy devotees, was never actually ordained as a priest. Just in case […]

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Mickey and Maria make out in kindergarten

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Gail Hawkes, who co-authored the excellent Theorising the Sexual Child in Modernity with Danielle Egan, responded last month to Heretic TOC’s Being a predator is child’s play. She requested, “I would love to read some of your comments or translation of the Norwegian book.” Well, how could I refuse? My response has been a bit slow off the mark, but perhaps I can make amends by throwing in that Danielle Egan has a new book out this month, Becoming Sexual: A Critical Appraisal of the Sexualization of Girls. The title sounds conservative, but a review in Times Higher Education suggests otherwise.

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If cardinal sinners and lordly lotharios float your boat…

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Britain, I fear, will soon sink beneath the sea under the sheer weight of sex abuse claims made in the wake of the Savile affair. The first great tsunami, late last year, rolled across the land in the form of  hundreds of allegations against Savile himself; hard behind, a roiling tide fast engulfed fellow celebrities – singers, comedians, concert promoters – and  a major inquiry into “historic abuse”, implicating senior figures “at the heart of government”, crested the waves of excitement. Now, in the last few weeks, new allegations in all sorts of unexpected shapes and sizes, like the crazily miscellaneous

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Show me an abnormal mountain

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Is it abnormal for a mountain to be behind schedule? Today’s mountain, promised as a guest blog in The magical age of 10?, is running a bit late, which is my fault entirely, not the author’s. I should also apologise to other guest writers whose work is in the pipeline: be assured, your excellent contributions are not forgotten. Today’s blogger is Jim Hunter, who has a Master of Social Work degree and has spent most of his life working in the mental health field. A number of his articles have appeared in professional journals, mostly related to psychotherapy, and he writes

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Police seal of approval for Heretic TOC

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To be honest, it would be stretching it a bit to say that a blog described as “distasteful” by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre actually has police “approval”. A recent official statement from the quango, which has police powers and functions, is sponsored by the British Home Office, and is set to become part of a new National Crime Agency later this year, has however confirmed that the blog has been inspected and not found to be in breach of any laws. The statement was issued in response to a complaint about Heretic TOC by a certain Dr

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The only problem is problematisation itself

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What about a 8-9 years old boy or girl who has sex play with children who are 4-5 years old? This question was part of a post on the Sexnet forum in response to my own posting there of the kindergarten oral sex story. The implication appeared to be that such an age difference would necessarily be problematic. I think it will be worth posting my reply in full. It includes a very telling personal story briefly mentioned in the comments here a few days ago. Here, with slight editing, is what I said: What’s the problem? As Roosevelt said (or

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The magical age of 10?

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Why be happy when you could be normal? Our culture’s stifling obsession with normality and conformity, brilliantly captured in lesbian novelist Jeanette Winterson’s ironic question, has been snapped into focus for us by oral sex in the kindergarten and its shocking abnormality – or assumed abnormality. OK, most little kids don’t do it, but would they if they were not under a regime of constant surveillance and prohibition? Hard to be certain in the absence of careful observational studies in conditions of true childhood freedom such as we are unlikely to find in the developed world. Studies of that sort would

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Being a predator is child's play

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The father of a four-year-old boy, his face torn with anguish and tears, his voice so choked with emotion he can hardly whimper out his words for the TV interviewer, tells of the terrible fate that his befallen his child. Kidnapped? Murdered? A sex predator’s victim? No. The little boy is not the prey. He is the predator. Or at least, thanks to the lunacy that is America’s prevailing sexual culture, this is how a desperately unfortunate and clearly loving father was driven to describing his own child, after kindergarten incidents reported earlier this month in which the boy is said

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The missing mechanism of harm

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The “virtuous” debate over the last few days (see latest two previous posts) has been a remarkably lively one, and genuinely virtuous as regards the courteous terms in which it has been conducted. My thanks to all who have taken part. Much was asserted from the self-styled virtuous side about the potential harmfulness of adult-child sexual contacts. It is very timely, then, that I have just received a piece submitted by Dave Riegel as a guest blog which addresses this issue based on information rather than speculation. A remarkable aspect of this piece which I have not seen formally set out

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Will Virtuous Pedophiles do any good?

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Will the Virtuous Pedophiles become a force? And, if so, will they do any good? One commentator here took a positive view: “imyarainbowstar”, suggested that heretics should “get behind groups like virped and B4Uact for getting the pedo message out”, as a small step on the way to more radical change. But doesn’t the value of any such support depend on what the particular “pedo message” is? Such a strategy perhaps makes sense in relation to B4U-ACT, as this organization does not go out of its way to ape society’s contemptuous hostility towards those of us who wish to see cultural

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