Heretic TOC

Not the dominant narrative

Lovely letter to a laird of lad-love

31 Comments / By / December 20, 2020

Changes in how Anglo-American culture has understood intergenerational sex can be seen with startling clarity in the life of British writer Norman Douglas (1868-1952), who was both a beloved and popular author, a friend of luminaries like Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, and D.H. Lawrence, as well as an unrepentant and uncloseted pederast. – From the publicity for a new biography of Douglas.   Hang on, we might think, that can’t be right, can it? How could this writer guy have been openly attracted to kids – and very sexually active with pre-teens, as it happens – while also being a commercially …

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The feminist and the sex offender

95 Comments / By / November 19, 2020

Remember Judith Levine? Author of Harmful to Minors? Back near the beginning of the millennium, soon after the White House had been occupied by a certain William Jefferson Clinton, she wowed us with this wonderful book that challenged the trend towards the ever more suffocating “protection” of children, which she saw as harmful because keeping kids “innocent” actually meant keeping them ignorant of good sex and relationships education while also depriving them of their own sexual and romantic expression. Widely praised, Harmful to Minors was named by sex education body SIECUS as one of the most influential books of all time …

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Carry on twerking – but don’t be mean!

69 Comments / By / October 5, 2020

Cuties is a brilliantly provocative work of art. It’s great. Y’all should see this controversial new movie if you haven’t already. Just thought I’d get that out of the way quickly because many here have already seen the film and read lots of reviews and comments, including at Heretic TOC. So, instead of focusing on the film itself, I feel it will be more useful to attend to a key aspect of the debate it has provoked. What have I in mind, do you imagine? The “sexualisation” of kids? The dangers of creeping censorship whenever we see political pressure mounted against …

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Building back better at Heretic TOC

97 Comments / By / September 9, 2020

Where was I when I was so rudely interrupted? Let’s think. It was back in June, I know that. Perhaps better questions would be How was Heretic TOC interrupted? and What has happened since? In a year so dominated by Covid-19 news, I could do worse than start by assuring former readers of Heretic TOC at WordPress.com that the sudden, unannounced, disappearance of the site two months ago owes nothing to the pandemic. Mercifully, despite being of an age that puts me in the “vulnerable” category, I have not yet been swept away into the mortality statistics nor even suffered so …

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Kindness looks too much like weakness

30 Comments / By / June 12, 2020

When Peter Herman has guest blogged here before, he has been introduced as a  “veteran NAMBLA activist”. After four such fanfares over the years, enough already! This description was a fine badge of honour, but for his post today, his fifth, I am upgrading him to “veteran Heretic TOC blogger” :-). The NAMBLA connection remains though: that esteemed organisation has kindly permitted me to re-publish Peter’s article following its recent appearance on their own site: a privilege indeed, and testimony to our harmonious relationship. My own commentary on Peter’s important thoughts follows directly after his piece.        WHAT DOES THE …

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Hanging in there, in Hengelo hotspot

98 Comments / By / June 26, 2021

Even radical activists are not usually called upon to be radical or active before 7AM, when all but the earliest risers are still fast asleep in these housebound times of ours. But prominent Dutch paedophile activist Norbert de Jonge suddenly found himself forced to take drastic action when he was roused early from his slumbers recently by noises far more alarming than an alarm clock. He was woken up by “really loud shouting, like a madman” coming closer and closer to his bedroom door. He grabbed a baseball bat kept by his bed for protection, with very good reason. He opened …

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Salus populi suprema lex esto

66 Comments / By / April 28, 2020

Salus populi suprema lex esto. That, we are told, is what Boris Johnson was telling his cabinet last week while recovering from his alarmingly close brush with death from Covid-19. Salus populi: “The health of the people should be the supreme law”. It’s from Cicero’s On The Laws, as I am sure you all knew. The prime minister, back at work in Downing Street this week, is clearly restored to his old self, quoting the classics in fine style. In this case the famous statesman whose words he was drawing on was a Roman. I guessed he would come out with …

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Now we are truly ‘all in it together’

28 Comments / By / March 28, 2020

At least they aren’t calling it the gay plague, the way they did with AIDS, or God forbid the paedo plague – they blame us kind folk for everything else, though, so why not the corona virus disease (Covid-19) first identified last December in China? But stigmatisation of some sort follows closely on the heels of every pathogen, as was observed recently in the authoritative New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). At first the finger was pointed, quite rightly, at Chinese “wet markets”, but this quickly morphed online into generalised anti-Asian racism. Within the last week, though, the demonization has moved …

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Now I’m a believer in Patek of Geneva!

27 Comments / By / February 22, 2020

Patek Philippe, the super-luxury, Geneva-based Swiss watch brand that makes Rolex look about as exclusive as my Casio, has been running a series of award-winning ad campaigns on its Generations theme for nearly a quarter of a century now. Perhaps because I am not in the market for these products and have little exposure to the lifestyle magazines etc. where I imagine they are promoted, I have only just noticed. Now that I have, I am bowled over by these fabulous productions – the ads, that is, not the watches, which come at crazy prices with far too many noughts on …

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Licence expires for French men of letters

94 Comments / By / January 26, 2020

What do you call a guy who can openly celebrate his sexual relations with children in books and on TV without being prosecuted? A giant of French literature. Things are different in France, or have been until recently for elite figures in the cultural establishment. One of those figures, Gabriel Matzneff, is a feted novelist, a winner of numerous literary prizes who appeared many times on France’s top cultural TV show of the 1970s and 80s, Apostrophes. Back in the day, he wrote: “Once you have held, kissed, caressed, possessed a 13-year-old boy, a girl of 15, everything else seems bland, …

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