Dark Evil

Listen to Australia's Dark Evil from 1975. Martin North, John Adams, the Ministry of People. John, this is it. We have attempted, Martin, over the last month to bring the true history of Australia to the public's attention because we both thought it was the public interest. I had attempted to engage with the lawyers of the ABC to ask them that they would release me from these legal conditions that I have signed and that bore no fruit. I then went to the Minister for Communication and asked her to exercise her powers under federal law to publish the tape in the national interest and she wasn't willing to do so. So Martin, we are taking a very sort of big step and it may incur some legal liability for me, but I really do think that exposing the existence of this tape and for the public to hear at large what happened 50 years ago is in the public interest. And I'm sick and tired of being roadblocked by the government and by elite institutions who have only an interest in corruption and concealment. And that's why they won't allow the public at large to heed this recording. So we've taken the monumental step and there could be some legal consequences for me after we publish this tape. But we are going to publish this tape and the tape is 42 minutes. It is unedited. It is in its raw form. the form that I received it from the ABC a couple of years ago. But we think it's important in the public interest, in the interest of protecting children, but also to ensure that the true historical record is shown to all Australians. We are going to play the tape in this episode that goes for 42 minutes. And some people have asked us over the last month to do so. I've resisted. thinking that we had other options before us, both legal and political, but we've exhausted all of those possibilities and the lead establishment in this country just wants to bury the history and basically deny Australians the real truth of what's going on. So we're about to play the tape and the public should be fully informed about um what happened back in 1975 yeah two points john the first is that we should just put a warning in here this is a very disturbing piece of media so um just go in with that warning ringing in your ears the other is there is a chance we may not be able to keep this up on the channel for very long so it would be good for people to actually take the opportunity to listen to this content whilst they can but um We think it's really important in the interests of the people to actually table this particular event. It is very disturbing. It is concerning. But nevertheless, it is in the interest of the people. So here it is. Good evening. You're listening to Lateline. This is Richard Neville. Tonight's program is about pederasty, which means the act of sodomy between men. But tonight we're using the term as explicitly defined by the Penguin English Dictionary, that is, the homosexual relationship of a man with a boy, which is not to be confused with pedophilia, a term which implies an assault on a young child by a man. In this studio there are three pederists, men in their thirties who involve themselves in sexual relationships with consenting boys, with them as a teenager who since the age of 12 has enjoyed sex with men. When the subject of pederasty was first considered by Leiplein, in fact following a suggestion by one of the participants in tonight's discussion, of shock, tinged slightly with voyeurism, rippled through us all. The level of curiosity was matched only by the level of ignorance. For despite the blatantly homosexual character of this country, we seem to know more about the pederastic lifestyle of the academies of ancient Greece than we do of Australia today. And while pederasty is openly accepted in other cultures, sometimes as a vehicle of education, in Australia it is not only a serious criminal offence, but a subject greeted by most people with intense feelings of revulsion and disgust. Do these feelings have any foundation? What goes on in a pederastic relationship? Is it corruption of the young or an awakening by them? These are some of the issues we seek to raise in tonight's discussion. In London recently, pederists began to meet together in a group to discuss the nature of their sexuality. This group was infiltrated by two reporters from a Sunday newspaper, The People, which subsequently named the men as, quote, vile child fanciers who formed a bizarre and perverted sex ring. Since the story, the pederasts have been harassed, intimidated and sacked from their jobs. But the group itself has been inundated with inquiries from all over Britain of people wanting to join. A spokesman for the group said that none of them were interested in relationships based on coercion or force and that the only people who know how caring a pederastic relationship can be are the people involved. But, he said, no one takes any notice of a pervert or a child. Well, as far as we know, there is not yet a similar organisation in Australia, and tonight is probably the first time pederasts in this country have spoken about their sexuality publicly. And finally, with apologies for the following overtones of melodrama, we should say that few limitations have been placed on this discussion. Some areas may possibly offend, or even disgust, some listeners, and we ask them that in such a case... you resort to your democratic right to turn off the radio. Well, Stephen, coming to you first, you spend much of your time in the company of young boys. What is it that attracts you to them? Well, it's usually their beauty, and with regard to the young boys as a sort of section of... As a group of people. As a group of people. they're a kind of special, they seem to be a special group. I can see quite clearly where the age, you know, this sort of a phoebic thing of from 14 to, say, 17, you know, is a special sort of being, you know, different from... You see, what fascinates me is that you're often in the company of young boys and yet in mental terms or in terms of their kind of ability to relate socially to outsiders. They don't seem to be particularly interested, and I'm just wondering whether you're in their company for solely genital reasons, and you kind of endure this sort of stultifying boredom just so you can really have a fuck. I have sort of felt that, although I didn't feel I was doing that, but I felt that I was bored with somebody that I was sexually attracted to, but I suppose everybody hasn't. But, no, usually I enjoy, very much enjoy their company. They conversation and just the sort of patterns of the patterns of everything. I can talk to them, discuss things easily with them, and I'd really go. If you compare it, which I guess I have to, you know, because I'm aware that other people have a greater intellectual capacity, you know, say my contemporaries and friends that I see the rest of the time when I'm not seeing young boys, but they, ultimately it doesn't matter what you do with your friends, you only just sort of say what time is it and talk about the weather or something anyway. Well, to sort of throw the discussion open to anyone, it seems to me that when the subject of pederasty comes up, people react with great hostility towards pederists. And I think that this reaction can be pinpointed down to a feeling on the part of non-pederists that by seducing young... Well, first of all, that a relationship between an adult male and and a young male, a boy, must be based on exploitation or an element of seduction. In other words, you are using your superior wisdom, wit, sophistication and education to con young boys into fucking you. Well, it amounts to both, Richard, because you use that to seduce them, but also if you love their beauty and love their youth and their innocence, you also offer them your wisdom and your intelligence. or whatever it is, you offer them that as, you know, for a chance to stay with you, to be with you, or maybe you even offer to corrupt them, but it works both ways. You use it as a way of getting them to go to bed with you, but also you're offering them yourself, because naturally when innocence is so beautiful and profound in front of you and you're just offering everything to that, you let your whole self fall out into those innocent eyes And they take over. It's the tempest completely. Well, apart from bribes... Well, Mark, I don't want to introduce you. You're a young person, so I just want to establish who you are. Go on. Right. Well, apart from the bribes and exploitation, I think that the older people using their wisdom in that way show more understanding and are prepared to listen to the younger person who really appreciate that. So you can feel your... Have you had a... When did you have your first sexual experience with a man? How old? Well, I was 12 years old. Can you describe it for us, just sort of what happened? Yeah, well, I was in the Police Systems Boys Club and I was doing a particular sport. And this fellow happened to be in his mid-twenties and being in the same class as I was. And we became friends and he sort of took me out and shouted me to a good time and listened and understood me. And after an interval at a drive-in, he sort of rubbed me up the right way and we sort of got very quick with down to the nitty-gritty of... Well, what is the nitty-gritty of... What is it? What was it in this case, in any way? Well, he sort of foreplayed in such as he rubbed my thighs and sort of massaged me all over and then took my pants off slowly, which I felt really sexual about because it's so interesting that it was so slow and it was so drawn out and it just sort of built up. And he started sucking my cock and I turned around and did the same thing. It just felt natural to me at the time. And no regret at all for doing it because it was really favorable. So it wasn't a traumatic or freaked out experience for you? No, it wasn't. And because it was a new encounter, I really liked it. And it helped me work out my own priorities as far as other people's sex, their colour and their economic or social backgrounds. Right. I mean, now are you exclusively sort of homosexual or heterosexual in your behaviour? Bisexual. I like both forms, male and female. This was several years ago, this first experience, but do you have a feeling that you were kind of seduced unwillingly into it at all? No, I don't. I had a feeling of apprehension because I knew that it was wrong by society, that I did what I wanted to do and not what society wanted me to do. Right. Okay, well, to bring Colin into it now, you're the only one that hasn't spoken, I mean, how do you feel about the charge that your activities are per se, exploitative because of your superior... You're in a position of power in relationship to younger people. Do you consider this at all in your sexual behaviour? Yes, I realise that I have the upper hand in the situation with a young boy. In actual fact, it usually ends up the opposite way around because my emotions do get carried away to the extent where I fall in love with the boy and if you can call it falling in love... Why did you even say that? Do you even doubt the quality of your passion? No, I don't really. I say that because... Because you expect straight people not to believe that you can fall in love with women? Right, yeah. You liken it to a complete heterosexual activity. It's the same form. In fact, it's probably deeper than that because you have the social stigma against you for being what you are. You're always very, very careful about looking around corners and so forth and making sure the whole thing is a great... It's furtive and secretive. Right, right, right, which doesn't help it. No, but perhaps you're probably a bit more secretive than some of the other people at this table, would you say, just as a matter of choice? I mean, I don't know. Stephen, you're not particularly secretive, are you? You're more active, probably. More active, so. Sure, I'm a very active paedrist, you know. How active is active? Active, I'd say, to the point of a scene of, say, 12 boys and various walks of life, various schools. What, I mean, in a year or? No, at one time, yeah. Oh, well, you You wouldn't count activeness by the number of facts that you'd have. How much time you devote to... Eschewing young boys. So I'm getting back to these 12 kids. Is this in the sort of situation of you being in a room with 12 kids at once kind of thing, or is this just every year you might have 12 different affairs? No, this is sort of in a situation where three may turn up, two may turn up, or one may turn up, but basically it's 12 by 12 by 12 in one year. Right. Scenes do fade, they grow up, they completely reform from the whole thing when they get older. I've not had any yet, I don't think. Why do you say reform, Colin? Well, I say reform because they've gone through that stage of a relationship with me and they feel that because of social stigma and also natural ideas about a girl and wanting to get into the heterosexual scene takes precedence over it and they just sort of leave. But you almost talk as though there's something to reform from. Well, I don't believe there is. But they do believe this and there's no way of you sort of even saying this to them and getting it over. There is some way of reforming. Can I just come in for a second? Have any of you found that boys that you've had scenes with years ago who have now grown up, have any of you discovered that that they are now bitter towards you because you made them have a homosexual relationship in their youth? Yes, yes. You have, really. And do you think their bitterness in their particular cases was justified at all? Oh, no, but not on a sexual ground. It's just because in my particular case, I usually am drawn to relationships that don't last for one or two or three weeks. They'll last for two or three years, and they drain me of everything. I end up suicidal in hospitals and all that other thing. And I use this tremendous intellectual power and offer them all the intellectual things that I have to keep them within, with me, with fear of leaving. And I know the moment the relationship starts that it's going to finish and I live through that terror all the time the relationship is going. I agree. And the last relationship I conducted is still sort of a very bitter thing because I used every device possible, every mesh of having a device possible to me to keep this particular boy with me. You seem to try and get a longer-term relationship. It's what interests me about Stephen, coming back to Stephen for a second, and one criticism that I think one could make is that because of the variety of sexual experience that you have with young boys and the number of different faces one sees you with over the years, one asks, well, are you really capable of permanency, of a sort of a deep human relationship, or are you just kind of having a series of basically one-night stands? Yeah, well, basically, I think that most probably the most delightful sort of really beautiful sexual experiences in my memory were very sort of ephemeral by nature, just passing and almost accidental and once on a beach in the north coast and another time in the mountains and just with young, very young boys because that's the most exciting to me. And theirs was a natural in each of the sort of four or five times. It was definitely a natural experience child's sexual response, you know, an almost, like, mutually initiated sexual experience. Yeah, I think we should talk about this. Who initiates the act? That's something that we should try. One initiates it, of course, you know. One does if one, presumably, at the risk of sounding defensive, I mean, anybody does, a playboy or a... See, what's interesting, I mean, I don't think that we know so much about relationships that sort of older women have with girls. I don't think there's even a word for it. I mean, they just seem to go right back in history this relationship of older men with younger boys and one just thinks of Plato sitting around with his pupils and part of the price that kids in Greece paid for Plato's knowledge was well part of the knowledge was sexual knowledge as well so it's a very long historical activity that you're all involved in and I'm just trying to explore the nature of kind of you know is it uneven really or do you think that kind of children are highly sexed and that they, in a way, seek out a relationship with an older man. Yes, of course they do. They do on buses, they do on the streets of Bondi Junction. A boy gets a buzz on you and it's mutual and you feel this and you feel... And if you sort of stopped and talked to that boy in the street, like I know they did the other night, this 15-year-old boy on the bus and he got off and I got off as well and I was going to sort of talk to him, I knew that all the people on the bus were watching and I knew that... I mean, I was almost to say I was going to sort of grab him on the bus. He was so... so innocent and so beautiful. And, well, of course he was turning me on completely. And he knew he was flaunting his virility and sexuality. I knew he came in the bus. Colin, what is it that attracts you to boys? Well, Richard, I find a boy attractive in much the same way that you and other heterosexual males like yourself find a girl or a woman attractive. Inasmuch as I look at a boy aged 12 to 16, and if he is beautiful, and to qualify the fact beautiful... I'm, from a plethora's point of view, I'm in a boy that may be physically delicious in having perfectly formed limbs, unblemished skin all over his body, being perfectly hairless and smooth, except for just the right amount of pubic hair. A boy that's face is a picture of angelic beauty, a face that shows all that he's thinking, a face that has no fears of expression. I want to hold that boy in my arms, to sleep with him, to Sodom. him, to feel his hurts and joys, to advise him on his problems. It sounds almost like a poem that you've got sort of ingrained in your psyche. One of the first things that strikes me about that is that you're really robbing him of any of the boy's individuality. You are objectifying a fantasy. You are searching for a, quote, a beautiful object and somehow, you know, the real live human with pimples and warps and all completely disappears from your reality. Well, basically, physically yes I'm attracted to a beautiful boy and he must be a beautiful boy for me to be attracted to him I find later on that his mind may be so lovely as his body as lovely as his body I should say and it's all very fine women have been complaining in the last few years that men are sexist because they have objectified the idea of womanhood basically through playboy magazines and so forth completely just holding up the blemishless body as the ideal. Now, it seems to me that you're doing exactly the same thing with children. Would you agree? Yes, but I think what you're doing, as Richard says about you, Colin, that you're objectifying. And I think the reason you're doing this is out of guilt. And I feel that you really don't want to be homosexual, which you don't regard yourself. You regard yourself as a pederist. And so you have these relationships which are so totally beautiful because you really don't want to be involved with the boys at all. I don't see as you having an honourable relationship with the boy at all. I think it's, you know, totally hypocritical that this whole thing is which sounds like a poem and you're robbing the boy's innocence. Well, you could be consoled on one point because it's the kind of thing that doesn't really happen very often, you see, to Colin, I assume, you know, because of the sort of high standard set for this ideal, you know, it really happens very infrequently and then it doesn't really happen, I suppose. It always becomes a kind of disaster. And it's always temporary, even if he meets this perfectly pubertal, spotless boy. I mean, they can only be that way in a good week, isn't it? I was going to finish up by saying that this is... And they're never amenable to the sort of pressures, you know, not subject... This is a fantastic thing, really, because, you know, you're romanticising the instance, all the instances of your life, and you're romanticising it and going... sort of always along and that you know it's not going to ever differ for you you're never going to establish a permanent relationship you'll just be sort of an endless romantic but I still think that it's guilt that makes you decide you're not a homosexual that you're a pederast and that you have anal guilt and rat fear and all that type of thing and that you see boys as objects of such innocence that they're not involved in that and then you can just sort of perpetrate yourself on that well I think that's probably part of the nature of pearistry too, that it's very romantic and maybe just a sort of symptom or a result of all the media thing and the movies and Hollywood and everything like that and the whole romantic idea seems to be imposing that on this strange relationship. Yes, I mean, right Stephen, I agree there. In as far as, I mean, I enjoy the romanticism of a boy affair. I enjoy I enjoy teaching him so much that his father or the absence of a father can't give him. Usually I find that all the boys that I've known over the years either have the absence of a father or a father they would like to have in me. What sort of things do you teach them quite seriously? I mean, do you think that they get from their relationship with you? Well, basically boyish things like riding, shooting, hunting, fishing, anything like that, anything pertaining to boyhood, which they can't find that their father had. Well, that's an objectification, a really heavy one for a start, because a lot of boys are probably interested in reading and listening to music and... Certainly, yes, if they're cultural sort of thoughts or anything like that. Of course, I mean, I can certainly discover these things with them quite capably. But basically, they want to do all the physical things that a boy wants to do at that age, between the age of, say, 12 and 16. A boy. Which is brilliant. When you start out, Sorry, just to pursue Connor for a second with, you know, going on a kind of rather butch weekend with a boy or something. I mean, how soon do you make it apparent to a boy that you have sexual interest in him? I mean, what I'm trying to ask is, is there a stage where the child is conned into basically thinking he's going on a sort of hunting, shooting, butch trip with you and then sort of halfway through the weekend? Yes, yes. There is a desire there straight away that I want to really sleep with that boy. Yeah. Um... I make it fairly obvious in the very beginning of the whole affair, and it's one link. I've only had one occasion where basically I've been with a boy and haven't been off with him for several, several months because I love that boy so much that it would have destroyed the whole relationship anyway. But in the end, the boy felt that the relationship was so strong that to lose me as a friend, he felt that he should get off with me, which he did. And what's the difference between a pederast and a dirty old man? old man is somebody who makes his intentions apparent immediately. Yes, basically. And it appears to somebody who sort of gets them into all kinds of other scenes. And then maybe the boy himself at all. It's a physical thing and just, wham, I'm here one minute and gone the next. Well, that's the boy himself, I'd say. Yes, but talking of the dirty old man... Doesn't that strike any of you as being a bit exploitive to the boy, that you are conning the boy? No, no, not at all. Can I just say that the boys of that age... and naturally commercial in this society or in any society, and if they're going to be given lollies or a Honda or a ride on a motorboat and just have their cock pulled or get off or something, if they're 11 or something, and a bit later on they might want something more. No, it's not exploitive at all because the boys want these particular things that are around them. Well, anyway, Mark, you're the youngest one of all of us by about 12 years. Why don't you comment about that? Well, I think a dirty old man starts He wants sex and that's all he wants. And he just comes straight out and does it roughly. And there's none of these bribes, that's how I put it. And I want those things too. I'd love to have a Honda if I could obtain it through this way. It's only another way of making a Honda and that's really commercial. But at the same time, I do want a relationship friend-wise, mind-wise. Yes. Don't you think that you are risking the day of causing, you know, a trauma in a young boy who hasn't kind of worked out what his sexual instincts are, hasn't he? No, no, no. The boy is going to be traumatised by a son and by the family in any way. Young children don't necessarily know what their sexual predilection is. Boys and young girls get traumatised all the time. By politics, by their family, anything. Even related to boys. Women who have never sort of, you know, might easily be traumatised by the baker. Anybody might be traumatised. But with boys... think it's a particular no because very often they do have a sexuality quite you know a secret sexual life that they would never dream of confining their parents it's impossible although it's quite it's the thing in other societies I believe or for many of you I mean have you ever been got enmeshed in the parents in relation with the parents very frequently yes I have well how do you cope with that I mean what sort of level does that relationship with the mother or the father and if so what level does it conduct anything The consistent things are that the mother is usually well disposed towards me, and very often the father as well. Do they realise that your interest in their children may not be entirely social? Well, frequently the mother might sort of intuit it, but the father wouldn't be, no. Do you feel sometimes uncomfortable that you have to participate in a deception like that? Bored more than... Yes, uncomfortable, I suppose. Are any of you involved in trying to change public attitudes about pederasty? No, I'm not, but I want to make a point here that being involved with the mothers is a very serious point because most of the mothers, most of us in Western society, and that's the only society I know, sort of intimidate the boy in the family, the boy, the sensitive boy, and the boy ends up in the position that he ends up. The father's usually castrated by the mother, and a lot of us, I feel, see our role as to save boys again from the fate that we've suffered, from being castrated and seeing this terrible figure of our father who is absolutely nothing, being knocked down by them, sort of dragging them away from these sort of overbearing mothers who are going to override them with guilt and fear. I think you You see, buried in there is a kind of attitude of hostility, perhaps, towards mothers and perhaps women generally. No, no, no. Do you think that there's an element of misogyny in your make-up? No, there's certainly an anti-maternal thing, but not misogyny. No, not at all. I think I'm misogyny. Colin, have you ever been in national relationships with the parents? With the parents, yeah, many, many times. Has a father ever discovered that you've ever been having a sexual relationship with a son and as a result of that has had it out with you at all? Yes, only, well, actually, yeah, once or twice this has happened. and it's been basically a punch-up, because the father involved was of a labour type, and here you knew that, you know, these fists were only a way of sort of getting out of the whole thing. But, um... Sure, but most of the boys I've known, Richard, um... don't have any relationship with their father at all. And I step in as a big brother. I'm not really old enough to be the father of that particular boy. And I've given that boy all that he wanted from his father. And I've discovered also... another subject, another point, that that boy's been getting off with countless boys at school, that all involved in mutual masturbation and so forth, and even sodomy with each other. And I've found a boy has introduced me to several other boys that he's been getting off with at school, and they just love the whole sexual thing of knowing, for instance, their wealthy poof, we'll call it, that has sort of materialistic things that he may be able to provide for them as well. Yes, again, this inspiration does get rejected. is to this objective level, both by your desire and by the contrary. I don't agree with any of that. I don't agree with any of that. You don't mind, because boys are basically very materialistic in many, many ways. It goes back to what I said previously about your guilt. Do you feel guilty? Have you ever felt guilty about being a pederist, Richard? No, no, no, I don't feel guilty about that. I just feel guilty about everything. I mean, guilt is a naturally Catholic inherited thing that I have, so I feel guilty about all my activities. I'm Catholic. Why haven't any of you... I tell you what, the Catholic boy is the incredibly spunkiest boy I've ever seen in my life. What were you going to say Well, I was going to ask you, why haven't any of you been involved with trying to change society's attitudes towards pederastic activities? Well, we've never thought of it because the first imperative is that you continue your pederastic activities. You have to do it in secret. So if you learn the ways of secrecy, you don't think about it. Is it not a burden to have to conduct your sexual life in secret? No. I imagine it's totally a pleasant additive. What happens when the boys get older, Colin? Well, Well, the boys get older, of course, but they ultimately leave me for, say, a girl. They become completely heterosexual, if you like to call it that. Well, you drive every boy heterosexual. No, I don't at all. You would have liked some man to come along in your life when you were young and drive you heterosexual. That's why you hate being a pederast. That's really what you're saying. That's right. No, I've always tried to keep a relationship going and just try to find out... Whether or not I would be able to cope with a homosexual relationship with a boy as he grew older. But can you conduct any relationship at all without it being in a sort of a militant way? You're on top and the other one's below. Well, I know it's difficult because, really, we had to talk about pederasty objectively, right? Sure. And so you've got all these ideas about that. But, really, you're just sort of speaking... But those dreams come true often. Well, that's arguable. I suppose, yeah, I'm sure they do. I love to guide that boy into what I feel is the best future for him. Okay, you might say, not so much you, but people may say that it's a corrupt thing that I'm doing. But in actual fact, it's not, because that boy will deal with somebody else anyway. He'll be getting off of his hands. What I interrupted for a moment, Colin, I think he should have been in a boarding school, like where I was at, educated and I think you were. I was. The Catholic boarding school where all those priests and brothers and things, how many of them, I don't know, 20%, 70% are pederists and have found their field there in, you know, an absolute glorified area for pederists and where you could just have the boys there and have them at the altar or have them in the dormitory and I can remember at school all the priests used to fuck boys and things like that. Your Yeah, of course. And you don't really want to have your thing out in society like that. You should be in one of those cloister areas where so many pederasts end up and all the boarding schools are there. That's his arena too. This open, so-called open society is his arena, you know, after school's time and in the eastern suburbs and so on. Where do you make contact with children in this society, Stephen? I have no particular place I usually make contact with them, anyway, recently at the sort of houses of other pederasts, other people who sort of, some have enough money, say, to have a house and a bit of a scene and some calling, but I've never known any perfect sort of brilliant... You don't sort of hang around school playgrounds or anything like that? Not yet. Oh, I've done it. I've gone and picked up boys at high schools. Did you know him? Some of his friends of mine that I've known, you know, and driven them home and... driven them some way. And we've talked about what happens to children when they become older. What happens to pederists when they become older? I don't know, but I believe by all accounts that it sort of becomes, you know, the passions might grow a little less, but I think that it's never a particular hassle, no more than for a heterosexual or for... Richard, let's rather know I want to move on. Nabokov's Lolita is 20 years old, as you said yourself, and what happens to a heterosexual when they become old? Some become... Get that. Yes, dirty old men, some sit on browns in rocking chairs. I have a great fear of becoming dirty old men. I want to... Have any of you tried to ask girls what it is that outrages society generally about the idea of pederasty? What do you think that the social animosity boils down to? It seems to me that it boils down to a fear of corruption. No, it doesn't. It originates from the denial of... child sexuality. The denial of child cerebral activity. Denial of child activity. It's still a Dickensian thing, really. The age of consent, the 21 down to 18 and repeatedly to 60, is ridiculous. So you don't think that there is any kind of a magic age barrier where a child becomes sexual? No. When I was about 12, I had such... like sexual relations with my three-year-old nephew. I got into the cot with him. You don't think that that could have freaked him out? It didn't, no. Do you think there is any kind of substance to the charge that a relationship between an older man and a boy is per se exploitive? I'm sorry, I've got to keep coming back to this because this basically is what animates the disapproval of society is because of the superior power, wisdom, talent and sophistication etc. of the older person and you've already mentioned earlier wealth and money and the criminal bribery. That's a paradox. It's an exploitive situation. That is totally a paradox because for one thing when you confront a boy if you're knocked out by a boy you are immediately the victim of that boy in a sense. But only if you feel and you've already spoken that your things are fairly ephemeral. So I mean you're sort of a victim of a temporary lust but really if the boy has yet undefined his sexual predilection, couldn't he be the victim of your already hard attitudes? If you like to put it that way, he's a victim of your amazing interest. He's a victim because you're interested in maybe the things that he's got to say and you fall prey to him. That's what it's more like, the feeling that you fall prey to a boy if you're lucky enough to meet a beautiful boy and alright, you're fascinated by what he's got to say. So he starts to talk and then, of course, he's knocked over by the idea that you're this grand person who's able to understand and interact with him. Interestingly... My theory there is that we become the victims because the boy still has life ahead of them. All of adolescence and all of early manhood and we become the victims because we're looking back on youth and wanting to recapture it and gain it and recapture the feeling of being, feeling the expectations of life. So we become... The traditional idea of victim is always that you're moving in on the sacred area of virginity, you know. But that's a sort of hangover. Virginity is just an illusion. It's a Victorian morality thing. Mark, have you ever felt that you've been corrupted or in a situation where you were being exploited by an older person's power? No, I don't, because I feel that to work out whether you're heterosexual or homosexual, you must try both to work out what you are or where your priorities stand. I think doing either one of these opens or makes you more aware of the avenues of life, and it's helped me greatly decide what I want first. Well, I think the polarisation of homosexual and heterosexual is just like communist and capitalist, really. It's just... some kind of panic about morality because it's just sort of undifferentiated sexuality and children are the perfect example because they have that integration and they respond immediately to anything sexually and everybody's known surely that they can respond to anything even music in a sort of sexual way I want to get back to the point why society condemns so much and it's been answered quite fully I think but I think that the reason is because children and not only just denied their sexuality, they denied their political thought, they denied any social activity, they denied, well, they're even taxpayers, but they can't vote. And they're sent to schools and they've been conditioned. They denied everything. They're not people, they're non-people. They're in ghettos, like blacks or whoever you like to mention. Sure. And that's why society can't see, oh, that young man, they couldn't be fucking each other and they don't even think in those terms. But if they have to consider an older man playing around with someone who they regard who has no status in society, no opinions, no attitudes, and certainly the right to vote, they regard that as a big bloody thing. Well, they just can't believe that an older man will want to have anything to do with his non-person. That's how I see it. That's very, very important. And if that can be erased, well, then youth can become much more valuable. Well, why aren't their youth sitting in the parliaments? Look at the way the Parliament's carrying on the moment in Australia. Why isn't there anyone under 43 or something hanging around Parliament House? I mean, the substance of what you're saying is a pederasty for the child can almost be a sort of process of liberation because it's a contact with an adult culture. Well, I know it's happened with the boys that I've been involved with. They've become different people, or the potential is always there because I'm drawn to that type of thing, and their mind grows and they go out. Well, everybody's mind grows and they go out, presumably, yeah. Yeah, but sometimes... they grow and grow in because they're denied their privilege of being a human being when they're young. And this being a human being when they're young is their sexuality. It's true that the pederasties are pretty inevitable kind of thing in just about, I don't know, a very great many boys' lives that they will encounter it, especially if they're attractive. Stephen, do you think that, look, this whole thing of pederasties and fucking boys and things exists in an elite society, a wealthy society, a cultural society among those queens that wealthy or who are in the academy or whatever? Do you think it exists elsewhere? I think it's on every level. I've seen it among seasonal workers on two occasions. I've met different groups of seasonal workers and I've seen it there, I've seen it in factories, I've seen it in football teams. I mean, you know, just everywhere. The incidence is right through society as well. Have any of you been caught up with the law at all? Yes, I have, Richard. I was an Englishman. last year, and I happened to fall in love, we'll call it to be a little romantic with the whole thing, which is true. And the whole relationship went for, say, six months. And the boy was totally engrossed in me, I was totally engrossed in him. And through incredible circumstances, the parents found out that this relationship was going on between the boy and myself. And straightaway, without any thought of repercussions toward the boy, and his mental outlook and the whole thing, they summoned the law and they had me charged with the whole thing, thinking in a naive way that the law would deal with me within a few days and I'd be locked up and that'd be the end of me. In actual fact, I appeared not guilty of the whole offence and it went on and on through three, four courts. Now, by the end of those four courts, the boy was totally wrecked. and I was proved not guilty, and the boy needed incredible psychiatric treatment after this, not through the relationship between the boy and I, but through the law. The trauma of the law becoming involved in his parents, the violence from his parents. Exactly, Richard. And in actual fact, the parents at the time were split. They'd remarried the father and the mother, and the boy was really incredibly, what shall we say? Vulnerable? Yes, very vulnerable. because he was torn between his mother and his father and didn't know which way to go, I came along and offered him a security which he wanted in as far as he had a permanent relationship with a person, which was me. But Colin, you started to manipulate unscrupulously in that family. In going between the father and the mother. You moved the boy from the custody of his father to his mother for your own convenience and so on. I don't know how you can say... No, you're quite... This is from what you've told me. Steve, that's quite wrong because I knew that the boy was getting nowhere with his father and he was given... He was granted custody. The father was granted custody of the boy eight years ago by the courts. And he was getting nowhere with his father. His father was an ignorant, arrogant bastard of a guy, really. A labourer, a gardener, or whatever he was. Maybe your attitude to the father is based on a kind of jealousy, that you really want to play the father role with these children. There's no father who could be a good father in your eyes. So you won't have to admit to our pederast. I think that many times pederasties have been victimised in the courts. in that way, you know, by being dragged through and the boy has been betrayed and embarrassed and the whole thing has been unfruitful, you know. Certainly. But not particularly in this case. The way the whole thing came about that I was really exposed is because the boy felt that the whole relationship between he and I was so relaxed that he told his stepbrother. And his stepbrother was most horrified of the whole situation and just told the mother and the father. Well, that's what frequently happens. The boy will tell in confidence. Yes. But that concept will be betrayed immediately in the name of the prevailing morality, which is that you can do anything. Anything is okay. Betray anybody's word to protect the non-existence of children. That whole idea that they don't have any sexuality. Aren't you all condemned to a kind of treadmill of just making playground contact with children that will have a temporary relationship with them? They're going to grow up. What do you want to do? I don't do that. What do you do, Stephen? I remain friends with the boys for many, many years and maybe forever. I don't know how femoral friendships are in other people's lives, but anyway, many of mine last sort of, all have lasted for 20 years and so on, boys that I've begun by fancying and then subsequently had a sexual relationship with. Do you think you're in pursuit of a sort of an unholy grail that doesn't even exist? It was designed to shoot as a whole. But fancy, for a revolutionary, Richard, what a ridiculous question to ask. What do you expect us to want? A house in Mossman with a boy and antique furniture? At the last point, in the last couple of weeks in Sydney, there's been this report, well, it was initially reported as a brutal, homosexual or pederastic murder of a three-year-old boy. I think subsequently in the coroner's court, it turned out that the boy was not assaulted. But from time to time, in the papers, there is a report of an outrageous, murder of a child by an older man for perverted sexual reasons. Now, do you think, as pederists, what goes through your mind when you read a story like that? Yes, well, the Australian press and Western press is naturally chauvinistic, not necessarily about pederistry or homosexuality, about anything. It was chauvinistic about you and Germaine Greer, and it is at the moment being about Jim Cairns. I want to go deeper than that. How How do you as Pedro's feel when you see that there is a blatant kind of, you know, homosexual murder of a young child? I feel insecure. Right, I just, yeah, yeah. Why is that? Because I feel a kind of implicit indictment in it, you know, about myself and my... Of your lifestyle. Yes, because at times when I am, you know, it could be said that I'm manipulating, but I just really do insist that I'm interacting, you know, with a young boy. Well, I don't know if you here would regard yourself as child molesters. No way. No, definitely not. Why are you even asking that? No, but I do. I am in the business of defending dirty old men or even murderers. Time's run out. Thank you very much for coming and discussing. Thank you very much. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you.