The Cleveland child abuse scandal did not actually involve that much child abuse. Or so the story goes. In 1987, in the north-east of England, 121 children were removed from their homes and placed in care after medics and social …
The truth about Japan’s sex culture
“Sex is where the weirdness of the Japanese peaks,” wrote A.A. Gill in his notorious “Mad in Japan” essay. Gill went on to catalogue largely anecdotal evidence of what he saw, on his brief visit, as a warped obsession with …
Keep child abusers off the rainbow flag
“Julie Bindel takes to right wing GB News to smear the trans community with the same trope that was used against gay men in the 1980s — that they are all paedophiles. Has she forgotten that made gays a target …
Pornhub is screwing its workers
Sex work is work. Accept the proposition; start from there. The next question is: what kind of work, with what compromises? Very good work, if you listen to the porn performers interviewed in Netflix documentary Money Shot: The Pornhub Story. …
Ten terrible years of Pope Francis
Ten years ago today, on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 13, 2013, the 115 cardinal-electors of the Catholic Church walked up one after the other to a table in the Sistine Chapel to deposit folded ballot papers, only an inch …
Pakistani child sex abuse is an open secret
The first time Rahim* was raped by a family member, he was six years old. In the early Nineties, three of Rahim’s uncles immigrated from Pakistan to the small town in Southern Ontario, Canada where Rahim’s family lived. He was …
The forgotten victims of domestic abuse
Georgia Gabriel-Hooper was just 14 when she saw her mother, Cheryl, being shot dead through the window of her car by her stepfather. This was the culmination of seven years of abuse, threats and control.
Cheryl had always been “the …
Blackpool’s forsaken children
In 2007, I spent time in Blackpool investigating the disappearance of Charlene Downes, a 14-year-old whose body has never been found. She was one of hundreds of girls in the town targeted by sexual predators who would groom and then …
Mermaids is endangering children
Mermaids, the troublesome charity that advocates for the transing of children, is in the news again. Currently under investigation by the Charities Commission regarding concerns that it fails to safeguard young people, Mermaids’s reign as the charity that can do …
Stop calling yourself a dog parent
Was Lord Byron the first “dog dad”? At Newstead Abbey, the Romantic poet’s former home, there is a stone monument topped with an urn: perhaps the most famous pet memorial in the world. It was erected in honour of Byron’s …