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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Doctor Who’s Pervert Masters

Speaking of Mr. Berman and Horace Mann, there are now more stories of institutionalized sexual abuse at the BBC back in the 1980s, this one involving senior figures on the Dr. Who program screwing teenage male fans, if you can believe it. Walter Russell Mead observes: The more we hear about what was going on […]

Speaking of Mr. Berman and Horace Mann, there are now more stories of institutionalized sexual abuse at the BBC back in the 1980s, this one involving senior figures on the Dr. Who program screwing teenage male fans, if you can believe it. Walter Russell Mead observes:

The more we hear about what was going on in the era of sexual liberation, the more the Catholic  scandals look like a symptom of the times rather than a special pathology of the Church. The BBC was apparently a hotbed of abuse for underage female and male fans, and revelations about abuse in schools, the Boy ScoutsJewish organizations and other institutions in which adults regularly interact with youth keep coming to light.

It’s almost enough to make a person think that when a society casts sexual restraint and self control to the winds, the young and the weak become victims of a culture of exploitation and gratification. It’s almost enough to make someone wonder if unbridled and socially glorified libertinism rather than celibacy is the leading cause of the sexual exploitation of minors.

But no… Thoughts like that are much too depressing. That train of thought leads to the dismal conclusion that some sort of, well, original sin has twisted human nature so that terrible things happen in all our institutions, however modern and freethinking they are. Let’s stop that kind of thinking as quickly as possible; it’s much more comfortable to think that good resolutions, lots of police, and a healthy attitude toward recreational sex will make everything right. Eventually.

UPDATE: Changed the subject line at a reader’s request so no one thinks that the Doctor himself, or one of the actors playing him, is or was a perv. I love having typed “Doctor Who’s Pervert Masters.” Prytania 4evah!

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