The Spectator’s Notes: In the radical 1970s, logic was on the side of the Paedophile Information Exchange

People seem bewildered that the National Council for Civil Liberties in the late 1970s gave house-room to the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). It is certainly embarrassing for Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt that they held leading posts in the NCCL then, but the fact that this was going on should not be so surprising. I remember the row about PIE at the time. PIE’s argument was part of the wider doctrine about sexual liberation, which was that the only problem about sex was the repression imposed by society’s taboos. Virtually all sexual behaviour was seen as good and the exercise of sexual desire as an absolute right. The only qualification that liberationists grudgingly acknowledged was the need for consent. Even this they diluted by arguing that the distinction between adults and children was itself an unacceptable form of social control: children were quite capable of consenting to sexual activity, and should be left to get on with it. There was such a fuss that the NCCL eventually had to push PIE out. But from the liberationist point of view, logic was on the side of the paedophiles. Once you see sexual behaviour solely in terms of doing what you want, subject only to consent, then the protection against abuse becomes very thin. Nowadays, we are encouraged to abhor paedophilia, but celebrate homosexuality, and smile genially on sadomasochism, troilism, coprophilia, extreme promiscuity, even incest. Yet if we think that absolutely all adult sex is wonderful, why should we absolutely oppose child sex? We might prudentially caution waiting a bit — just as we would discourage a ten-year-old from driving a tractor — but why should we feel profound disgust? Without some sense of disgust, you cannot keep children safe. If you abandon any notion that some sexual roles are wrong, why make an exception of children? Even today, I notice, campaigners like Peter Tatchell pursue the old radical logic, arguing for the age of consent to fall.