14 August - 13 September 2001 A liberal take on sex in the Scottish media? (Aye... right)! Look at The Scotsman! Up to its neck in conservative, sex-negating language bolstering its self-promoted image of propriety and superiority. Amongst their leading columnists we have an ‘anti-porn campaigner’, a churchgoer well past his sell-by date and a senior citizen from Peebles! Kirk Elder wrote: “Our culture is infected with indecency, pregnant with innuendo, overrun by depravity”. Not realising the ‘liberal sixties’ hadn’t crossed the Kings Road, let alone reached into the living rooms of Cheadle, he declared: “The 1960s only reached Peebles in approximately 1978, by which time the novelty had worn off”. And what a fab, happening place that was! Ask Willie, the local teenage hippie who befriended local girls and kept mice. “He was, we thought, harmless enough, until he started wearing make-up and flashing Christmas lights around the rim of his Stetson, whereupon he was beaten and shaved by a gang of men in rugby jerseys and balaclavas”. One of The Herald's leftover religionists, Stewart Lamont did his impression of an ostrich over accusations of sexism in the Kirk, begging: “Why is the question even being raised at all?” His impression of women appeared focused on a female minister he described as a “pain in the neck” for having, amongst some perfectly reasonable requests, “complained that the vegetarian option was salmon” at a lunch they shared. His reason for why there had been no woman Moderator in the Kirk was that “the ginger group promoting this kind of cause has chosen to vaunt leftist-feminist champions…” God forbid! And, if it carries on like this… “…Madam Moderator will be wearing jeans”. Occasionally turning The Scotsman into little more than a newsletter for Hicksville Baptist Church, they also promote Conservative Catholic Mother, Katie Grant who is ready to wag her finger of moral disapproval for anyone who asked for it. And believe me… there are plenty! The Scottish Daily Mail gave her space to howl: “On the Fringe this year we had Alex Heggie’s Wiping My Mother’s Arse, a satire about homosexuality and Alzheimer’s Disease…” And I’ll be wiping my arse with Katie Grant come the release of ‘Sexual Fascism’ next month! Then there is Linda Watson-Brown, an ‘anti-porn’ feminist employed to comment - almost every day - on sexual politics. Face it! She’s no Susie Bright is she? “If it is not schoolgirls themselves who are being sexualised at every turn, it is grown women who are photographed and displayed in scenes reminiscent of childhood”. Her dull copy habitually regurgitates this same old trot that women are always ‘victims’ of men’s sexual interests. Just about the most sexist point of view I’ve ever heard! It should come as no surprise when Iain Duncan Smith signalled his support for a repeal of Section 28 in England and Wales, The Scotsman should drag out their Scottish Political Editor, Hamish Macdonell who worked so hard to prevent the repeal of Section 2a in Scotland for the Scottish Daily Mail. Of Duncan Smith, an editorial in The Sun shrieked: “Does he really WANT the promotion of homosexuality by town halls?” (Duncan Smith’s spokesman quickly retracted the statement and old Conservative morality was restored). An astonished Macdonell wrote: “…This was one of the issues which helped to knock the Portillo campaign off course” and was “unlikely to go down well with the Tory grassroots”. With Scotland’s richest man, Irvine Laidlaw, (worth about $740m) promising to fund the Conservative Party in Scotland while sunning it in Monaco, gays should remain as vigilant as we always have been of moral crackpots and religious extremists. We are likely to be their first victims. Allan Kellman, a 34-year-old music teacher from Perth demonstrated how sexually backward we are as a nation after he was caught “performing a sex act” after a party. He was laid off work, leaving the Daily Record to gasp with indignation: “A teacher cleared of indecently assaulting a colleague has been paid more than £30,000 to do nothing for a year”. The Sheriff laughed it out of court… Well nearly! He cleared Kellman of ‘sexually assaulting’ a male colleague after suggesting he must’ve just been sleepwalking. I ask you! The Sunday Mail took what apparently only “used to be done behind net curtains” and proudly exposed “the sordid myth” of “SWINGERS” (in two-and-a-half inch letters across the page). Apparently, “couples pay a sad price for so-called sexual freedom”. We enter the strange world of reporter Natasha Weale to learn that ‘they’ “inhabit a bizarre world” where “outwardly respectable” people “sleep with strangers”. I thought her report was going to be interrupted by a Rediffusion flash and an advert for Murray Mints but instead, there were some honest responses from participants clouded by Weale’s own personal prejudices. Matty “thrives on her lifestyle” and only added “rather unconvincingly” that it was important not to get emotionally involved. Weale added: “Hearing Matty speak so freely about her sex life is incredibly disconcerting”. And found “…shockingly, swinging is on the increase”. Far from exposing a myth, Glasgow-based consultant psychiatrist Dr Prem Misra informed the Sunday Mail that in only two or three per cent of cases had the issue of ‘swinging’ ever became problematic for participants. They must’ve really been short of news that day. A “randy doc” on the Isle of Coll who had – wait for it – “set up home with a married schoolmistress” held the front page of the Scottish Sun. This might have been “one of the biggest scandals ever on Coll”, but hardly much to grab the attention of readers in the work’s canteen. White on black headlines squealed: “Sex scandal has sickened us… we feel like throwing randy doctor into the sea” after the pair - George Cole, who started “dressing like a youngster” and Marion Forsythe, who is “no better as she dresses up in sexy frocks to go to the pub” - were “shunned”. Not surprisingly, the General Medical Council “refused to comment” when asked to do so by the Scottish Sun! Some of Cole’s poetry, printed as a book called ‘Every Emotion’ on the Internet, proved a bit controversial for the delicate Scottish Sun… “Two of his verses called Doing It and First Time are too disgusting to print in a family newspaper…” they advised. We love to distance ourselves from anything sexual, don’t we? French ticklers, Dutch Caps… It all belongs ‘over there’… Not in jolly old Blighty. As “vice girls move to designated zone” in Edinburgh, it’s no surprise it should become “Scotland’s only continental-style ‘official’ red light district” in The Herald. But not for long though before the police moved them on once more. Scottish News of the Worldhas been making some changes to its otherwise juvenile and zipped-up portrayal of sex. Anvar Khan has begun portraying sex positively with such features as her hands-on jaunt to a gay club: “It’s really chic to chat up chicks… if you’re a girl!” Such opinion still sits uneasily beside a news report on a sex conference that received a “limp response from shy lovers”. If you want to study the effect of sex on juveniles, then you must dip into the world of S.N.O.T. World reporters! A “graduate who makes a mint from web porn” is just the sort of thing that excites the boys at Kinning Park. His website contained pictures such as the one taken from a secret camera in a bag aimed up a women’s skirt on an escalator. (Whatever turns you on, I suppose)! There are “sick pics” of naked women asleep, “snapped through bedroom windows with night vision equipment” and “unsuspecting women secretly photographed by pervs in swimming pool changing rooms or public lavatories”. Hungry for more, Scott Douglas’s report was finished off with: “Do you know a scandal? Call our newsdesk any day between 10am and 6pm”. Do their wives know? S.N.O.T. World does not concentrate its efforts chasing murderers who have been released from prison. Presumably, they’ve done their time. For ‘perverts’ in all cases it has to be a life sentence. But when do reports stop being a story and start becoming an incitement to violence? They sent an undercover reporter to watch “sex beast”, George MacDonald carrying out charity work for the Tong Church on the Isle of Lewis. He was jailed for two years in 1997 for sexually abusing a girl when she was aged between 10 and 13. He was reported “kicking a football with a group of boys”. It gets worse! A 16-year-old was in court, accused of sex offences against little girls. Hold on though… The offences were committed when he was just nine-years-old! Of course, when Steven Christie told the court: “I am a member of my grandfather’s church and there’s no way I would ever do that as a Christian”, my eyebrows furrowed! His future looked decidedly shaky after one of the young girls acted out sexual play with a Fuzzy Felt toy. Christie’s father described her as “vindictive… disturbed…” and with “a grounding of a sexual nature that was far too concerning for a girl of her age. She used to act out sex scenes with Ken and Barbie. She would strip them off and place them on top of one another. She would put them to bed, underneath the covers, and was acting things”. Mattel Inc had some serious questions to answer after I melted down the glue holding up Ken’s knickers! Why was I different from normal boys like Ken? That experience could’ve damaged me for life had I not continued my investigations amongst classmates! But I digress… Sexual experimenting amongst kids is common. Fortunately Christie was acquitted by a majority verdict. The 'perverts' were being rounded up in their droves to help sell the newssheets faster than front seats at Hampden Park. The Daily Record had a “depraved toff” and “child sex beast”, Fraser Darling who was imprisoned in Phuket, Thailand, after pictures of naked gypsy children was found on him. He was pictured in front of a shot of gypsy children. Later, the Record ran an even bigger exclusive on its front pages of an alleged ‘paedo-ring’ being run by Sally Army leaders in Germany. With the flames of ‘paedesteria’ stoked high, it is difficult to read stories without hyperbole. The so-called ‘innocence’ of children took a knock when a 14-year-old girl accusing 44-year-old George McCarron of Cowdenbeath in Fife for molesting her, admitted she had been lying. The girl’s 15-year-old schoolmates who had made similar allegations were not asked to give evidence and the case was halted. In a separate case, Barrhead News reported how “twisted pensioner” George Dunn who was 80-years-old, was sent down for 30 months for “abusing two brothers, during the 1960s and ‘70s”. It took three years with a psychologist before one of the victims could confess to how he had sucked off ‘Uncle George’ when he was eleven. Dunn said he was acting as a 'tutor'.
The Scottish Sun reported “seedy” and “perverted” Gordon Taylor who used the computer of a tenant’s association in Paisley to trawl “sick websites” before landing him a place in the ubiquitous sex offenders’ register. Even The Herald joined in with an exclusive by Graeme Smith: “Professor tells of sex abuse at top school”. The Herald temptingly emboldened the words of the unnamed Professor who attended the independent boarding school outside Edinburgh on the front page: “Many prominent men were victims at Loretto over 16 years…” None came forward in the copy. The words of filmmaker Don Boyd - whose feature in The Observer encouraged the Professor to speak out over allegations of abuse during the sixties by his French teacher, Guy Anthony Ray-Hills, now 76 - was telling. He told The Herald he was a victim of “a determined campaign to seduce me into his world of illicit homosexual sex… I was about to become a victim of one of the most serious crimes anybody could possibly commit – the sexual rape of a child. Guy was a paedophile. I was his prey”. Considering the period of alleged abuse, 1958 to 1965, Don Boyd was correct in his assessment of how “illicit” homosexuality was. A time when homosexuals expected electric-shock treatment or psychiatric help to overcome their ‘disorder’. Is it not surprising that the legacy of such repression should be unearthed today by examples of sexual pathology and crime? Behind the repressive rhetoric lay more sexual misdemeanours. The Scottish Sun called him a “gay predator”, adding helpfully that he was “also a registered children’s doc”. The 40-year-old married GP, Dr Allan Buchan practiced at the Airthrey Park Medical Centre at Stirling University. It is interesting that after years of ‘fondling’ students who visited his surgery, it was a German student who blew the whistle. It was a story of a married man too weak to face up to his gay sexuality and “dozens of students who had been assaulted”, too ashamed to blow the whistle on a horny doctor who stripped and massaged them. They were offered a helpline and counselling. Despite the Daily Record’s opinion that Markus Pissarek, the German student had been “scarred” after having his life “turned upside down”, Markus admitted he wasn’t left with any lasting damage but warned if it hadn’t been for him blowing the whistle, Dr Allen would have gone on doing it. In the same paper on the same day was a report covered previously in the Scottish Media Monitor. It concerned Charles Doran, a 46-year-old social worker whose fire at his flat unearthed some collages where he had stuck the faces of kids - between nine to 12 according to a consultant paediatrician at Yorkhill Hospital - on pictures of naked adults. Personally, if children sexually aroused Doran, I wouldn’t have thought superimposing their heads onto adult bodies would’ve quite done it, but there you go. Doran was placed on the sex offenders’ register and The Herald hinted darkly how he too had previously worked at a children’s home in Forres. The report in several papers on Glasgow University post-graduate student, Richard Yuill was symptomatic of the hysteria over paedophilia that had crossed the academic boundary. Researching inter-generational relationships between males, Yuill had been e-mailing former members of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). His e-mails were intercepted by an academic on the continent and handed to the Scottish Mail on Sunday for reporter Marcello Mega to add: “They reveal an organised campaign to drive down the age of consent across Europe”. Although the department of sociology approved the subject of paedophilia as a subject, Yuill’s computer was seized and the secretary of the University court, Mr Dugald Mackie launched an investigation while the press went into overdrive. The Sunday Mail’s contribution to the latest ‘Name and Shame’ wave was a double-page spread of three separate ‘investigations’ simply labelled: “UNMASKED”. They included Gordon Emslie, a “grey-haired beast” who “tried to strike a deal with Mail investigators in a bid to keep his identity and location secret”, Julian Danskin (again) and George Gilmore. They also threw in a Catholic monk called Michael Murphy who appeared in court charged with abusing boys at St Ninian’s School, run by De La Salle order. He was alleged to have thrashed boys with knotted laces, sexually molested another boy, forced a boy to sleep in a urine-soaked bed, hit a boy with a tree branch, sexually molested another, punched another in the face, scrubbed a naked boy with a floor brush until his skin bled before leaving him standing naked and cold for several hours, force-feeding him until he was sick and making him eat his own vomit. Did I hear the word ‘Church’? The same organisations Tony Blair wants more involved in education; championed in Scotland by his Scottish education minister Jack McConnell. The Daily Record’s editor Peter Cox was peeved at the BBC’s “sneering attitude” over his paper’s handling of the murder of asylum-seeker Firsat Dag on ‘Good Morning Scotland’ and wrote to BBC Scotland Controller John McCormick. Their PR man, Jack Irvine also responded angrily to a column in the Scottish Mail on Sunday by George Galloway who suggested boycotting the Record. Feeling targeted? Victimised? Misrepresented? Oh, don’t make me weep! The Big Issue in Scotland has a new editor, Nicola Barry. Changes under her were evident from the outset. There was none of the previous sensitivity to the Daily Record who donated photographs to the magazine. Ms Barry delivered fair and critical opinions of the Record and their treatment of the murdered asylum-seeker. If proof was ever needed that shit sticks together you need look no further than the outfit that ran Keep the Clause, Media House International, the Daily Record’s PR agency headed by Jack “slobbering queers” Irvine, former editor of the Scottish Sun and a former columnist in the Scottish Mirror, then edited by the current Record editor, Peter Cox. (Peter Cox boasts a more mature outlook on sexuality). Ramsay ‘Keep the Clause’ Smith, former editor of the Scottish Daily Mail has now dumped The Scotsman where he was Glasgow editor and taken up his new £75,000-a-year post as director of Media House. Pass me the sick bag. He might, just might, get a snigger from someone in a shell-suit on the back of a late-night bus through Bellshill. Ephraim Hardcastle, so short of anything to write for the Scottish Daily Mail commented on the allocation of an office for the Lesbian and Gay Police Association in Scotland Yard’s Great Queen Street. “A joke by disapproving officials?” he sniggered. Perhaps the Deputy Commissioner, “sometimes described as the nation’s most politically correct policeman, will investigate”. Perhaps you’ll take a flying leap at the moon, Ephraim. CUT IT OUT! Self-control freak and Conservative Catholic Mother, Katie Grant in The Scotsman: “When I did my finals at Glasgow University in 1997, during papers lasting a couple of hours at least five people always had to go to the loo. Nor could students manage to get through one-hour lectures without eating, drinking or chewing. What has happened to us? Are we turning into animals? We seem to have lost all ability to control our bodily functions and urges. Come summer, it is not a week in the sun we need but a month in a Trappist monastery to teach us how to control ourselves”. Host Gary Robertson coping with naturism on BBC Radio Scotland: “I’m not into baring my bits about at all… There should be a law to make you cover up”. A view expressed by a reporter in on Cardinal Winning: “…Seen by many as Scotland’s last voice of moral authority”. The delicate Sunday Mail’s ‘investigators’ visiting the Queen’s Chaplain’s sister, Deborah McLachlan-Moffat’s “tawdry den of sleaze” (a sauna) in Edinburgh: “She said that for £60 she and her colleague would do an erotic strip tease. The Asian girl then offered a range of “extras” - too disgusting to list in a family newspaper - for up to £75”. Ryanair chief executive, Michael O’Leary’s astonished PR, Piers D’éere in The Scotsman: “…I winced when he described his kilt as a skirt… Urged by the paparazzi to hug a pillar, he implied, jokingly, that it was a certain appendage and that he was excited at the prospect of his company’s low fares. Well, I ask you. So embarrassing”. John Macleod writing in The Herald on comic strip ‘The Broons’ (which started in the Sunday Post in 1936): “It’s another country: a Scotland free of high-flats, heroin needles, racism, Scot-Rail, and Wendy Alexander. Of course, there was ugliness even then; things of which it was a shame to speak. Yet there was aspiration to decency; a sense of the fit…” Quite why oor Wendy should be grouped amongst high flats and junkies by a closeted gay man is not explained. Old Mother Burnie, the new associate editor of the Daily Record, offers advice to a straight guy looking for sex in high-heels, stockings and sussies: “…There’s something ridiculous about watching a man trying to walk in stilettos, so don’t be surprised if anyone takes you up on it, but then laughs at the sight. …Fantasies are often better left as fantasies”.
