GERALD HANNON was a Canadian journalist, born on this date (d: 2022), whose work appeared in major Canadian magazines and newspapers. Hannon gained fame as a result of references to pedophilia in his article “Men Loving Boys Loving Men” (1977), published in the now-defunct The Body Politic.
Hannon was acquitted of obscenity charges in connection with the article. He was later the subject of media controversy in 1995, when several mainstream journalists attacked Ryerson University for employing him as a journalism instructor while he was simultaneously, and openly, working as a male sex-worker.
In 1972, Hannon joined the editorial group that produced the Toronto LGBT magazine The Body Politic, and was one of its most prolific writers. In the magazine’s November 1977 issue, Hannon published an article titled “Men Loving Boys Loving Men”, a profile of three men who were having sexual relationships with underage males. The article contained sentences like “Boy-love is not child molestation,” which provoked a backlash. That December, Toronto Sun journalist Claire Hoy began publishing columns attacking Hannon and The Body Politic for promoting child abuse.
The magazine’s offices were raided by Toronto police in December 1977. Twelve boxes of material, including the magazine’s subscription lists, were taken. In January 1978, the paper and its publishers were charged under section 164 of the Criminal Code with “use of the mails to distribute immoral, indecent or scurrilous material”. The case reached trial in January 1979, with prosecution testimony by Hoy and Ken Campbell. In six days of testimony, only one piece of documentary evidence—a copy of the issue containing Hannon’s article—was presented to the court.
In February The Body Politic was acquitted of the charges. In May 1982, the appeal hearing on the criminal charges began, and on June 15, the magazine was acquitted a second time. On July 13, the Crown appealed again. That appeal was rejected.
In November 1995, the Toronto Sun ran an exposé on Hannon’s occasional prostitution under the headline “Ryerson Prof: I’m a Hooker”. Hannon acknowledged that he occasionally worked as a prostitute. Ryerson suspended Hannon on November 26. The following day, the Canadian Union of Public Employees filed a grievance on Hannon’s behalf, asserting that there were no grounds for a disciplinary enquiry since no staff or student of the university had complained about any inappropriate behaviour on Hannon’s part. Ryerson reinstated Hannon for the winter semester and placed a letter of reprimand in his file, but did not renew his contract at the end of the school year. He has not taught at Ryerson since.
The spring 1996 issue of Ryerson Review of Journalism, published by the journalism school, ran an investigative piece on the Hannon controversy. The writers concluded the mainstream media’s coverage of the Hannon affair was almost entirely based on falsehoods, distortions and selective application of facts.
In a February 1996 article in The Guardian, Hannon argued that adults introduced children to many of life’s pleasures, and that there was no “a priori reason why we shouldn’t introduce them to sex”. In addition, he went on to say that while penetration “may be of little interest to most children… [i]t makes good educational sense to push a child’s limits, much as we do in sports or academics, by requiring of them things they might at first feel incapable of doing”.
A profile of Hannon in the June 1996 issue of Toronto Life by journalist Sandra Martin began “I’ve talked to dozens of people and I haven’t found anybody who agrees with Gerald’s ideas on pedophilia — and that includes Gerald.” After grilling Hannon extensively on his sexual practices and confirming that he was interested in the subject of pedophilia purely as a philosophical debate, Martin concluded Hannon “refrains from sex with children not because he thinks it is morally or ethically taboo, but because it doesn’t turn him on.”
He did, however, describe himself as “cock crazy.” Huzzah!
Hannon died in May 2022. He chose medical assistance in dying (known as MAiD), while he was still fully capable of making the difficult decision. His quality of life with atypical Parkinson’s disease – a rapidly moving, cruel condition — had so deteriorated that he decided now was the time to call it quits. His memoir Immoral, Indecent and Scurrilous: The Making of an Unrepentant Sex Radical will be released in July 2022.