What do you think?
Rate this book
Immoral, Indecent, and Scurrilous: The Making of an Unrepentant Sex Radical
When 18-year-old Gerald Hannon left his small mining community in Marathon, Ontario, to attend the University of Toronto, he never would have predicted he'd become part of LGBTQ+ history. Almost 60 years later, he reflects on the major moments in his career as a journalist and LGBTQ+ activist. From the charges of transmitting immoral, indecent and scurrilous literature laid against him and his colleagues at The Body Politic to his dismissal from his teaching post at Ryerson University for being a sex worker, this memoir candidly chronicles Hannon's life as an unrepentant sex radical.
- GenresNonfictionCanadaQueer
328 pages, Paperback
First published July 16, 2022
5 people are currently reading
153 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 9, 2022
I only met Gerald Hannon once, in 1999. I was then working for the City of Toronto on a violence prevention initiative. Police had been ignoring a molester who preyed on young girls in High Park. Local women’s groups were rightfully furious and organised a public meeting. The following week, the police arrested 8 men; the molester and 7 cruising gay men. Gerald Hannon interviewed me while writing an article on it for Xtra Magazine, in which I expressed my surprise that the police still didn’t understand sexual consent and posited that cruising men might be keeping that part of the park safer. Needless to say, some politicians were not pleased with me.
I knew who was interviewing me: this kindly moustachioed fellow, this good writer, this muckraker. I knew he had his own issues with consent, having published not one, but two articles defending child sexual abuse, leading to a famous legal battle. Hannon didn’t see it that way, pointing out (correctly) that until recently, the age of consent for homosexual activity was 21, a full 7 years older than heterosexual activity, and that 10 and 11 year olds often have sexual urges. He contended that teens and even pre-teens could have consensual relations with adults. I don’t agree and the law doesn’t either, although the publishers were acquitted of ‘immorality’ and ‘indecency’ (the charges were as much about publishing an article on fist-fucking - which again shows the complete lack of understanding about consent). I don’t think The Body Politic, the absolutely seminal (pun intended) queer magazine should have published the article. But I am grateful for the magazine’s existence.
What a good memoir though! Hannon vividly describes his abusive father and hardscrabble small town childhood. He brings to life the early years of the gay liberation movement. He (unsurprisingly) writes honestly about sex and love and friendships and relationships, about AIDS, activism, censorship, prostitution, growing old and getting ill. He remind the reader about key moments in Canadian gay history like the Bathhouse Riots of 1981. He writes great pen portraits of key figues. He’s more than a bit bitchy and gossipy and I am there for it.
Hannon knew he was dying and chose medically assisted death soon after finishing his memoir. He followed his own rules and I’m so glad he left us with this wonderful book before he left this world.
I knew who was interviewing me: this kindly moustachioed fellow, this good writer, this muckraker. I knew he had his own issues with consent, having published not one, but two articles defending child sexual abuse, leading to a famous legal battle. Hannon didn’t see it that way, pointing out (correctly) that until recently, the age of consent for homosexual activity was 21, a full 7 years older than heterosexual activity, and that 10 and 11 year olds often have sexual urges. He contended that teens and even pre-teens could have consensual relations with adults. I don’t agree and the law doesn’t either, although the publishers were acquitted of ‘immorality’ and ‘indecency’ (the charges were as much about publishing an article on fist-fucking - which again shows the complete lack of understanding about consent). I don’t think The Body Politic, the absolutely seminal (pun intended) queer magazine should have published the article. But I am grateful for the magazine’s existence.
What a good memoir though! Hannon vividly describes his abusive father and hardscrabble small town childhood. He brings to life the early years of the gay liberation movement. He (unsurprisingly) writes honestly about sex and love and friendships and relationships, about AIDS, activism, censorship, prostitution, growing old and getting ill. He remind the reader about key moments in Canadian gay history like the Bathhouse Riots of 1981. He writes great pen portraits of key figues. He’s more than a bit bitchy and gossipy and I am there for it.
Hannon knew he was dying and chose medically assisted death soon after finishing his memoir. He followed his own rules and I’m so glad he left us with this wonderful book before he left this world.
December 3, 2022
This is really really really important history - Canadian history!
I really wanted to score this book a ‘5’... but I can’t.
There are - at least - three books worth of material in this book. It’s all “too much.”
The density of the text.
The number of words on the page.
The pages long paragraphs.
The number of things he tries to address.
The minutiae of detail he goes into.
So yes, important history that needed to be recorded. But this needed a much firmer editorial hand on it.
A great and necessary addition to a body of knowledge of what it meant to be gay back in the day, and how things have changed over time.
But I wish he’d written three books and given each one more time to its own self.
I really wanted to score this book a ‘5’... but I can’t.
There are - at least - three books worth of material in this book. It’s all “too much.”
The density of the text.
The number of words on the page.
The pages long paragraphs.
The number of things he tries to address.
The minutiae of detail he goes into.
So yes, important history that needed to be recorded. But this needed a much firmer editorial hand on it.
A great and necessary addition to a body of knowledge of what it meant to be gay back in the day, and how things have changed over time.
But I wish he’d written three books and given each one more time to its own self.
October 27, 2022
I don't have anything to add that the other reviewers haven't said, other than Gerald Hannon's memoir made me realize that I should read more autobiographies. This was a fantastically written book. I highly recommend it.
May 14, 2023
This is an important piece of Toronto queer history. It’s also a window in to someone’s deeply personal life. The people in our history are not figures, they are people. They fought for themselves and for us and are figureheads and make mistakes and have messy interpersonal lives and have thoughts we disagree with and they are important. I thank Gerald for sharing himself with us (and I hope he would appreciate the double entendre).
June 30, 2022
Just finished Gerald Hannon's memoir, Immoral, Indecent, and Scurrilous. It details his life as a sex-positive queer activist in Toronto and his involvement with the Canadian gay liberation magazine, The Body Politic. Because Hannon's life intersects with the development of not only The Body Politic, he was one of the original members of the collective, but also with larger historical battles for queer recognition, it is an important read for anyone interested in Canadian queer history. While at TBP, his articles interrogated the nature of identity and desire and resulted in landmark legal decisions about the nature of obscenity and publishing in Canada.
As he aged he graduated from the queer press to the more mainstream press contributing articles to Canadian newspapers and magazines. This in turn led to an offer to teach journalism at Ryerson University. At the same, he supplemented his income as a sex worker, which eventually became an issue for the university resulting in his contract not being renewed becoming another cause célèbre for the conservative press across Canada.
Hannon's style developed while at The Body Politic has always been fun, cheeky and irreverent with a wry sense of humour that appeals to a certain generation of gay men. As he discusses in the book this style has not always served him well landing him in trouble multiple times with the more suburban conservative side of Canadian society. While salacious and gossipy in tone, part of a gay man's life, it is also an honest and straightforward look at what life was like for gay men of a certain age and was enjoyable for me because I have known so many of the players that Hannon discusses.
"The people I met often had similar backgrounds to mine: small-town boys, frequently the first in their families to go to university, not committed to a career path, looking for sex, looking for love. It was a world of possibilities, at least for white, cisgender young men..." vi
"The story also makes me seem precocious, perhaps pretentious, and a little bit ridiculous-ways I like to think of myself." 1
"We found the world, though. Perhaps, better put, we created it." 7
"TBP...It was even less professionally put together than Guerrilla, the anarcho-lefty tabloid that in some ways helped birth it. (For a detailed history of the connections, personal, political and rancorous, see Rick Bebout's online history at rbebout.com, and for wonderful period photos and anecdotes about Guerrilla see Peter Zorzi's memories of decades of gay activism east onthebookshelves.com)" 109
"The Body Politic was unique: a publication that explored and celebrated gay culture without ever becoming a slick promotional rag, a news medium that decried objectivity and encouraged street-level dissent, a Canadian magazine respected internationally and particularly in the U.S., a kind of institution fearless in dealing with that third rail of gay activism-youth." 197
"...Quentin Crisp once wrote, "in an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis." 291
"There is a benign selfishness at the heart of most activism." 315
As he aged he graduated from the queer press to the more mainstream press contributing articles to Canadian newspapers and magazines. This in turn led to an offer to teach journalism at Ryerson University. At the same, he supplemented his income as a sex worker, which eventually became an issue for the university resulting in his contract not being renewed becoming another cause célèbre for the conservative press across Canada.
Hannon's style developed while at The Body Politic has always been fun, cheeky and irreverent with a wry sense of humour that appeals to a certain generation of gay men. As he discusses in the book this style has not always served him well landing him in trouble multiple times with the more suburban conservative side of Canadian society. While salacious and gossipy in tone, part of a gay man's life, it is also an honest and straightforward look at what life was like for gay men of a certain age and was enjoyable for me because I have known so many of the players that Hannon discusses.
"The people I met often had similar backgrounds to mine: small-town boys, frequently the first in their families to go to university, not committed to a career path, looking for sex, looking for love. It was a world of possibilities, at least for white, cisgender young men..." vi
"The story also makes me seem precocious, perhaps pretentious, and a little bit ridiculous-ways I like to think of myself." 1
"We found the world, though. Perhaps, better put, we created it." 7
"TBP...It was even less professionally put together than Guerrilla, the anarcho-lefty tabloid that in some ways helped birth it. (For a detailed history of the connections, personal, political and rancorous, see Rick Bebout's online history at rbebout.com, and for wonderful period photos and anecdotes about Guerrilla see Peter Zorzi's memories of decades of gay activism east onthebookshelves.com)" 109
"The Body Politic was unique: a publication that explored and celebrated gay culture without ever becoming a slick promotional rag, a news medium that decried objectivity and encouraged street-level dissent, a Canadian magazine respected internationally and particularly in the U.S., a kind of institution fearless in dealing with that third rail of gay activism-youth." 197
"...Quentin Crisp once wrote, "in an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis." 291
"There is a benign selfishness at the heart of most activism." 315
October 1, 2023
Great book, as others have pointed out the writing was a bit of a miss (long paragraphs) I do also agree that the book should have been made into 3 different books. All were important but it felt like it was just too much for one book. I would give this 4.5/5 so rounding it up to 5 because of the important message it showed. It is 2023 and it seems like we are going back in time to the times when being gay was illegal, we need more people to stand up and fight this fight. He was brave to fight for the gay rights over the decades and will be known for such acts.
April 29, 2024
While some of Hannon’s views and publishings as a journalist are extremely controversial and practically impossible to side with, this novel was a crucial overview of Queer history and liberation in Toronto. Nevertheless an incredible writer who holds no shame in his questionable views, Hannon’s story of getting fired from his job as a professor at Ryerson University (as it was) provides readers with an important lesson of the values of freedom of expression even for the most unpalatable views.
June 24, 2025
Truly a beautiful book that provides an insight into the gay history of Toronto and some important figures that fostered the community to advocate for their rights but also the rights of many queer Canadians to live their lives and be loud and proud of their identities.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews