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David Wilson's avatar

Dear Andrew, I admire your forensic focus on this, which is very different from others. I think what has been missed -although it's obvious - is the bizarre attitude of public schools to homosexuality, which as many have observed, was fundamental to the experience of going there, whether you liked it or not. (I found "In Memoriam" very moving in that respect, because it took it all seriously.) From today's viewpoint, as you say, it's easy to miss the public homophobia, but the weird 'see/not see' attitude of public schools to homosexuality at the time is even more obscure. But that was what was behind all the reticence, don't you think?

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Andrew's avatar

Thank you for this, Andrew. I agree with what you have written, with one small caveat. I’m not sure that, even in the culture of the 1980s, the abuses of John Smyth would have been seen as consensual sado-masochism. Almost all of the victims report blood having been drawn, which is one of the thresholds that separates consensual sado-masochism from GBH.

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