So Germany is to ban “bestiality” under animal welfare law, according to yesterday’s Guardian. Like young children, animals cannot give “informed consent”. Interesting, then, that Peter Singer, pioneering philosopher of animal rights, has not condemned sex with animals. Some years ago he reviewed a book on the subject. Among other interesting points, he said this: …sex with animals does not always involve cruelty. Who has not been at a social occasion disrupted by the household dog gripping the legs of a visitor and vigorously rubbing its penis against them? The host usually discourages such activities, but in private not everyone objects …

Can animals consent? Read More »

Mary Beard kindly replied after Heretic TOC queried by email the accuracy of her radio statement that the age of consent in England was 12 for many centuries. The eminent classical scholar conceded that “what happened between 13th and 19th century is complicated”, adding “and how far driven by LAW is not clear”. Yep, no argument with that. Thanks to excellent work by reader Peter (see comment to Mary, Mary, wonderfully contrary) we can now refer to important information in Carolyn E. Cocca’s book, Jailbait : the politics of statutory rape laws in the United States, which goes back to the …

Mary gets in touch Read More »

Heretic TOC was going to write about the latest craziness in Britain: last week’s “sexual exploitation” report from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England – a portentous sounding outfit that ought to be helping the young but which in practice contributes to their oppression, or at least suppression. I must come back to that – prod me if I don’t – but it would be a shame to let the agenda here be dictated utterly by the latest mainstream news, much of which is so repetitious: more stats, more reports, more cases of “offending”. All this should not be …

A rather special forum called Sexnet Read More »

There has been no shortage of bloodcurdling oaths against “paedophiles” since the Savile scandal broke, but none I have heard none to beat the ravings of Harry Potter star Richard Griffiths some years ago. I’d feed all paedophiles into a tree shredder,” he vowed, “and anything left the police can have. Remember Griffiths? He was Harry’s bullying Uncle Vernon, the one who made the young magician sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. Seems he was a natural for the role. In fact this Dick Dastardly turns out to be a serial offender. On another occasion, he reportedly said: Now, me, …

And they say WE are nasty! Read More »

The admirably unshockable Mary Beard, Cambridge classics professor, must have raised a few eyebrows in her TV series earlier this year when she was talking about the scandalously early (by modern standards) age of marriage in Ancient Rome. As she also put it in the Guardian: Some girls were 12 or 13 when they married. We call it paedophilia; they called it marriage. That’s one of the exciting things about Roman culture. It’s different from ours. Only a woman these days, and one who is also an eminent historian, could express such a view without reputational damage. What male scholar, after …

Mary, Mary, wonderfully contrary Read More »

In its first 10 days Heretic TOC has passed 1000 hits. Whether this is a cause for celebration or commiseration is a mute point. According to today’s Guardian, Google people say half of all blogs have only one reader: the blogger. By that dismal standard, celebration is definitely in order. Online, I discovered that five million bloggers average only three hits per day compared to over 100 for Heretic TOC. So, much better than those losers then! It appears there are currently 80,000 “up-and-coming bloggers” at Heretic TOC’s level. Your A List bloggers, though, are way ahead, with 150,000 hits per …

A thousand hits in ten days Read More »

What’s in a name? The word “adultophilia” has its champion here on Heretic TOC (see willistina556’s response to The real silenced voices) to describe children’s sexual attraction to adults. Another commentator, Gil Hardwick, favours “teleiophilia”, this being “in uniformity with the original Greek”. The latter term is a bit of a bugger for those whose spelling isn’t great but is favoured (also part of the downside, some would say) by the psychological research wallahs. Actually, it was Ray Blanchard who coined the term, as recently as 2000, although Gil is right that the word is wholly Greek in origin. One of …

Adultophilia or teleiophilia? Read More »

What defines illegal child pornography? In many jurisdictions this is utterly unclear, because mere nakedness may in theory be permissible, but too close a focus on the genitals may constitute an illegal “lascivious display” or an “indecent” image. An allegedly suggestive pose can tip the balance from legal to illegal, even if the child is fully clothed. The recent high profile arrest of pediatrician, Dr. Richard Keller, who practised at Boston Children’s Hospital and taught at the Harvard Medical School, has foregrounded the conundrum. He and a string of others have been arrested in the past few months on suspicion of …

What defines child pornography? Read More »

The star victim whose false allegations were too readily swallowed by the BBC was a known fantasist. If you read nothing else today (except this blog, of course!), check out the astonishing detailed account in the Daily Mail. I despise that paper’s anti-BBC vendetta, and their motive of further embarrassing the beeb should not be overlooked. But the story speaks for itself. Briefly, Steve Messham – or “mess ’em about” as we should now think of him – had been given every opportunity at an earlier enquiry to air all his wild yarns of alleged abuse. He was never muzzled as …

'Victim' is a serial fantasist Read More »

From the Guardian this morning: Children who have nothing to do with Bryn Estyn have also contacted [children’s commissioner for Wales, Keith] Towler wanting to speak about what had gone on there. One teenage boy told him that he had been struck by the diamond shaped windows above the front door of the home and said it appeared to him that the house was looking at him. “He said it should be knocked down. I hadn’t thought about that,” said Towler. He hadn’t thought about it? How remiss! But hang on a minute. What is being suggested here? That this teenager …

Abused by a diamond-shaped window Read More »