Heretic TOC

Not the dominant narrative

Police are the only art critics who count

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News that the Tate gallery was removing the work of a leading artist from public view following his conviction for child sex offences made headlines globally a week ago. The sense of shock in the art world was palpable following the downfall of renowned painter and photographer Graham Ovenden, whose sensuous images of prepubescent girls have been critically acclaimed but also the subject of suspicious police attention for decades. No wonder the arty types are stunned: suddenly, they find themselves rudely demoted by the Tate’s implicit acknowledgment that when push comes to shove the police and the courts are the only […]

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Masters of our fate, captains of our soul

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Power. That’s what it’s all about, insist the bad-mouthers these days. The abuse of power. At one time they would bang on about the “innocence” of childhood, but that doesn’t play too well when talking about kids into a double-figure age or their early teens. Bullshit. It’s not about power, it’s about the physical dimension of love, which inspires benevolent and nurturant feelings. That’s always been my response, based mainly on my own introspection and knowledge of really nice guys who are attracted to children, and a few women too. But a few inconvenient realities have been insinuating themselves into my

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History by numbers from Sir Diarmaid

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In response to Silence and shame at the Sheldonian, Clovernews commented: …it seems to me that Church teaching was historically more about the preservation of the virtues of unmarried girls rather than ‘child sexual abuse’ as such. Those challenged to quote anything about the matter from the Bible usually fall back on the one about people having millstones hung around their neck and thrown into the sea if they ‘offend one of these little ones’ [Luke 17:2] – clearly ‘offend’ can mean anything you want it to, especially after 2000 years, and in any case scholars think that passage refers to recent

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Silence and shame at the Sheldonian

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Is silence in the face of great wrongs always shameful? If so, Heretic TOC should plead guilty. By that demanding standard I should have howled the house down at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford last week. I should have “caused a scene”, “demonstrated”, hurled thunderous, passionate execrations, pointing an accusing finger at the stage, and at one man who occupied it: Sir Diarmaid Ninian John MacCulloch, University of Oxford Professor of the History of the Church, winner of numerous prizes for his many books, presenter of the “landmark” BBC TV series A History of Christianity. Ironically, he was there to talk

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Bring me the head of Meirion Jones

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                                                                                                                                                                      “I “I want to see heads roll at the BBC. Not trustees, or the Director-General, token sacrificial lambs. I’ll start with the despicably dishonest Meirion Jones. On a pike. Outside BBC headquarters.” – Anna Raccoon blog, 26 October, 2012 When Meirion Jones emailed me early last month, asking for an interview, I was intrigued. Here was a guy, as I soon discovered, with a big reputation as a top flight TV documentary maker, winner of the Daniel Pearl Award for his investigation of Trafigura’s toxic waste dumping in Africa and star of numerous other genuinely important exposés. Yet he was the

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Researching MAPs: the B4U-ACT initiative

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Glen Lamb, Science Director of B4U-ACT, sets out in this guest blog for Heretic TOC the difficult challenge of encouraging better research on minor attracted people.  He describes his organization’s developing work in this field and how it relates to differing elements of the MAP community. Because of previous discussions about B4U-ACT on this blog, I wanted to clarify B4U-ACT’s approach and explain some differences between our approach and VirPed’s (Virtuous Pedophiles).  Because I am B4U-ACT’s Science Director, I will do this by focusing on the political difficulties in promoting better research on minor attracted people (MAPs), how we are working

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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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