The final extract from Louise Perry’s book explores how changes in attitudes towards sex since the sexual revolution may have contributed to the sexualisation of children.

Perry starts by looking at the well known campaigner Mary Whitehouse who unsuccessfully campaigned against the depiction of sex and violence on TV. Perry notes that some of Whitehouse’s campaigning seems quaint to us now such as the use of sexual innuendo in TV shows in addition to her opposition to homosexuality which resulted in her becoming a figure of ridicule. A porn star for example changed her name to Mary Whitehouse as a way to mock her and the BBC Director-General Hugh Greene is said to have had a grotesque picture of her which he would throw darts at!

A lot of people who disagreed with Whitehouse, however, have conceded that she had a point about the type of content that was produced by television which has, if nothing else, perhaps made popular culture more dumbed down than it used to be. Whitehouse was also I think a bit of an easy target for certain people who could have at least accepted that she had a point of view that was shared by a significant percentage of the population even if they didn’t share it themselves.

I’ve noticed that some feminists have tried to reclaim Whitehouse as a kind of ‘proto-girlboss’ due to her opposition to pornography and other areas of sex as Louise Perry elaborates in this article. Perry argues that Mary Whitehouse was “one of the few public figures of her day who gave a damn about child sexual abuse” which made her “remarkably prescient”.

For all the BBC’s animosity towards Mary Whitehouse and her moral campaigning, they can’t really claim any high-ground having employed figures such as Jimmy Savile, who was revealed to have been a serial sexual predator only after his death. Louise Perry notes that Savile’s celebrity status allowed him to exploit his victims without any repercussions. However, Savile was apparently open about his behaviour, even in his autobiography, and it appears this wasn’t taken seriously.

Perry argues that relaxed attitudes towards child sexualisation in the 1970s and 80s allowed groups such as the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIB) in Britain and the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) in the USA to flourish whilst European countries had freely available child pornography. Left-leaning intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida also apparently campaigned in France to decriminalise the age of consent.

Returning to Mary Whitehouse, Louise Perry notes that Whitehouse’s lobbying helped pass the Protection of Children Act in 1978 which Perry argues has been forgotten by liberals in addition to their own “tolerance for paedophilia”.

While paedophilia is now condemned by liberal thinkers, Louise Perry believes their argument is based on the idea of consent – i.e. since children can’t consent to sexual acts, sex with children is wrong. Perry nevertheless asks such thinkers to consider adult performers dressing or acting like children, or graphic depictions of sex with children – are these also wrong?

Perry here writes:

“The problem has always been where you draw the line, and this puts liberals in an awkward position. When you set out to break down sexual taboos, you shouldn’t be surprised when all taboos are considered fair game for breaking.”

Such taboos that could be broken include incest, beastiality or necrophilia although the latter two could be ruled out due to the issue of consent. Louise Perry believes that we are “starting to see some slippage back towards the paedophilia advocacy of the 1970s” using the infamous Netflix film Cuties as an example.

This particular film caused outrage for depicting prepubescent girls wearing revealing outfits and twerking, grinding and other sexualised poses. Like with any controversy nowadays, there was a distinct political divide with commentators on the Left arguing that the film was a satire on child sexualisation whereas the right saw it as promoting child sexualisation. Perry writes:

“There is something about paedophilia anxiety that is currently considered rather low-status among the liberal elites. Snobbish progressives present it as an obsession of the ignorant and credulous working classes, fired up by tabloid newspaper stories.”

Louise Perry acknowledges the hysteria that can surround accusations of child sex abuse but also notes that sexual exploitation of children does take place, such as with Jimmy Savile and also Jeffrey Epstein.

Perry concludes:

“Yet these things really happened. They are an indication of the murky places to which a no-holds-barred attitude to sexual liberation can lead — just as Mrs. Whitehouse was warning all those years ago, and got no thanks for.”

There isn’t much in this article that I disagree with Louise Perry on since any right-minded person would object to the sexual abuse of children and it is reasonable to suggest that the sexual revolution allowed figures like the aforementioned Savile to be exploitative.

However, Louise Perry does not point out that feminism, which she still identifies with, has taken advantage of society’s fears of child sexual abuse for their ends. For example, Erin Pizzey has said that mothers in child custody cases in Western countries such as Canada can prevent fathers from seeing their children by using the ‘silver bullet’ of claiming that fathers had physically and/or sexually abused their children. There will be some genuine claims of paternal sexual abuse, but it’s still a powerful weapon to use by mothers, or their lawyers, to stop fathers from having any contact. Stephen Baskerville, whom I mentioned in Part 2, has made similar points about the family court system routinely presenting fathers as abusers.

The fear of paedophilia may have also resulted in the decline of male teachers in schools and other roles where men interact with children, such as in the Boy Scouts; This particular organisation is often the source of lazy and overdone jokes about scoutmasters being actual or borderline child molesters. No doubt, paedophiles will go to occupations where they are authority figures over children, but these cases should not devalue other men who may want to work in such professions.

There’s an episode of the Channel 4 show TV Heaven, Telly Hell where the comedian David Mitchell notes the decline of older ‘children’s TV’ presenters from when he was growing up and their replacement with younger ‘cool elder sibling’ presenters. Mitchell says he prefers the ‘fun middle-aged man’ which predictably gets some laughs from the audience. David Mitchell then argues that it’s not a bad thing for a middle aged man to be fond of children and children to also like middle-aged men. The presenter Sean Lock (RIP) responds that Mitchell has a good point but that they can edit it very badly for him! The whole episode can be watched here although the relevant bit starts around 09:05.

In short, the fear of child abuse by some men has been used to demonise men as a whole. I remember watching a discussion programme about masculinity on TV – I think it was The Big Questions – in which a men’s rights type-man was arguing that men should have more time with children. A white knight – I mean another man – questioned whether this was a good idea since men tend to be more violent and sexually abuse more children than women. While it’s possible that most child abusers are men, this is only a fraction of a percentage of men as a whole, to say nothing of female child abusers. Feminists nevertheless have taken advantage of society’s fears of male predators to cast doubt on any man who works, or who may be interested in working, with children.

This is one reason why I don’t believe some commentators on the right who claim that the Left, or at least the Left as a whole, want to normalise paedophilia – there are certainly extremists who may wish to do so, but the public would not tolerate such leniency if it meant that children were put in harm’s way. The backlash that has followed legislation over transgenderism is one example of this.

Like with transgenderism, I’m willing to admit I’m wrong if things get too far, but, for understandable reasons, paedophilia is a useful stick to beat your opponents over the head with. It’s not a surprise that the Catholic Church, not exactly a traditionally Left-leaning organisation, has been attacked because there has been cases of a small number of Catholic priests molesting children. While I’ve heard that most of the victims of abuse at the hands of priests were older boys and adolescents – suggesting the issue was more about homosexuality than paedophilia – even if this is true, it will not wash with critics who might claim that this is an attempt to dismiss the scandal. Of course, the Catholic Church is by no means the only organisation to have been tainted with sexual abuse accusations, which, in the age of #MeToo, have been levelled at many organisations and institutions.

On the other hand, we shouldn’t be naïve in thinking that child abuse doesn’t happen in powerful circles where certain people have the influence and resources to get away with their behaviour. The individuals described in Perry’s article are one example of that. Similarly, there is definitely questionable subject matter being taught to children by certain ideological teachers which does need to be investigated.

All that being said, I would be more sympathetic to Louise Perry here if she had pointed out that fear of paedophilia can be an effective political tool used by many different movements (e.g. feminism) even if genuine concerns of abuse are sometimes dismissed as hysteria.

Conclusion

Compared to most feminists, Louise Perry at least has some sensible things to say and I don’t think overall she’s a bad person. Nevertheless, judging from these extracts from her book, I wouldn’t recommend reading it as Perry does not want to let go of the feminist victim narrative. This is why I haven’t jumped on the reactionary feminist bandwagon like a few people I follow appear to have done. As Janice Fiamengo notes in this Substack article about Perry’s fellow reactionary feminist Mary Harrington (whom, in fairness, I regard as a more interesting thinker than Perry):

“Nothing says “Women are wonderful” quite like the applause in conservative and non-feminist circles that greets a feminist who makes even the mildest criticisms of feminism…”

Janice Fiamengo – ‘A Reformed Feminism Still Sees Men as Accessories to Women’

Such feminists at least make the conversation about the relations between men and women more interesting, and the likes of Perry and Harrington may well develop their views in the future, but at present I’m going to remain more sceptical about their insights.