Heretic TOC

Not the dominant narrative

Freedom stolen by a thief in the night

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It’s been a bad week here in Britain for freedom of expression. For starters, Heretic TOC’s voice has been choked off by a “broadband” connection getting narrower and narrower for weeks now, finally strangling the life out of any internet availability in recent days. This follows a service “upgrade” by my ISP, which, in the Orwellian language of our times, is actually a downgrade. No doubt it’s all a government plot, which is exactly what the press have been claiming about the new royal charter on press regulation, sealed this week (under the Great Seal of the Realm, stamped onto scarlet […]

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What’s healthy about the selfie

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Back in August, in Cameron’s crusade and the ‘sexting’ generation, Heretic TOC noted the British prime minister’s triple-pronged attack on internet pornography, inevitably underpinned by the supposed need to protect “innocent” children from exposure to it, as though they had no independent interest of their own – a point deeply undermined, it may be recalled, by an NSPCC report showing that sexting now plays a big part in children’s lives. Sexting, indeed, is clearly exciting a lot of grown-ups, too, or rather inciting them to a discursive frenzy, not all of it expressing the dominant moral panic narrative. One fascinating departure

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To thine own self be true

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A guest blog, today, comes from Dave Riegel, who also contributed The missing mechanism of harm back in February. His theme this time, as will be seen, is very much related to recent debates here at Heretic TOC. Dave has had a number of articles published in peer-reviewed journals, including the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior. He has also pioneered the use of internet surveys to reach minor-attracted persons, especially BLs. Self Respect  “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” (Shakespeare: Hamlet,

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A less impaired vision of sexuality

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If Heretic TOC were to put it about that the American Psychological Association supports an age of consent of eight, you might think I was having a laugh. You would be right, too, except that when the opinions of over 300 doctoral members of that august and conservative organisation were surveyed on what assessment criteria they thought would show capacity to consent, they came up with very basic factors, such as knowledge of the consequences of sexual behaviour, that an earlier study by one of the same researchers had shown could be met by those with a mental age of eight.

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Public masturbation: a seminal issue!

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As Heretic TOC’s castration theme proved rather controversial, today’s topic will be soporifically bland, in order to calm everyone down. Rummaging around for something suitably anodyne, I needed to look no further than a reader’s comment commending public masturbation. I am sure we all agree with this reader that only “rules imposed by the humourless and convivially challenged” could stand in way of allowing anyone of an exhibitionist bent to jerk off in the shopping mall for the entertainment of passersby. Why, without a few sad killjoys standing in the way it might even catch on as a popular busking performance

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Chemical castration and B4U-ACT: a challenge

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A few days ago a Briton living in the US was sentenced to serve 27 years in prison before being deported back to the UK, after plotting to kidnap, rape, kill and eat children. Authorities last year found a dungeon, homemade child-sized coffin, a child-sized cage with exterior locks, butchering kit and torture tools at the Massachusetts home of Geoffrey Portway, who had engaged in online discussions with others about a mutual interest in abducting and murdering children. Castration tools were among the equipment found. In view of that grisly detail, there are some who might feel castration would be poetically

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The heinous crime of truth-telling

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Two men awaiting sentence in Britain’s latest child sex scandal face an exceptionally steep fall from grace. Unlike the stars whose celebrity sparkle has been so abruptly snuffed out in the last twelve months, following the torrent of allegations about the late Jimmy Savile, this pair have made their name not as mere entertainers but as pillars of the establishment and icons of probity. They are a judge and a public prosecutor. The crime in which they conspired together and which has already destroyed their high-flying careers and good name is apparently considered – judging by the outcry – the gravest

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MAP-ing the terrain of better therapy

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What follows is a special announcement on behalf of a group being set up by people known and trusted by Heretic TOC. The subject is “therapy”. The track record of the mental health professions in relation to minor-attracted people has been so deeply unimpressive we might feel the best thing is to steer clear of them altogether. Thinkers such as Ben Capel (Notes From Another Country, Ch. 7) and Ipce’s Frans Gieles (Treatment, self-help and real therapy) have helped me keep an open mind. So I welcome this initiative and wish it every success. I would like to draw the attention

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‘Protecting’ your property, then and now

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A first today for Heretic TOC: a guest blog by a woman. Known to us simply as “A”, she was introduced here recently in New quests sparked by fading old charts as the contributor of several excellent comments on earlier blogs. I gather she is a linguistics specialist. This piece was offered as a comment in response to The only problem is problematisation itself but is the right length for a blog and eminently suitable for one.   Cases in which young children are punished for their sexuality always put me in mind of the Kissing Case of 1958 in North Carolina.

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Angus Stewart, inspiration of a generation

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Get to Edinburgh this week if at all possible, where Angus Stewart’s Sandel, “a notorious novel about underage gay sex”, as Gay Times puts it, “has been dramatised in a production playing at the city’s Festival Fringe until 24 August. The particular interest for heretics here is that the notoriety is about paedophilia rather than a relationship between two minors: both of the lovers depicted are teenagers, to be sure, but one is 19 and the other 13. The older partner, being over 18, is defined as an adult in English law, and his boyfriend is more than five years younger,

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