Peter Scott-Presland
Peter Scott-Presland (formerly Eric Presland),[1][2][3][4] (born 1949) is a British gay writer and cabaret artist, and founder of the Homo Promos theater company.
In 1981, his chapter Whose power? Whose consent?, was published as an original contribution in the landmark text The Age Taboo: Gay Male Sexuality, Power and Consent, edited by Daniel Tsang. In 1986, he contributed a chapter to The Betrayal of Youth, edited by the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE's) Vice-Chair Warren Middleton. Presland states this "opened a polemic about the nature of consent", but "has been quoted extensively out of context on the internet by members of the Christian Right anxious to show that all gay men are paedophiles."[5]
In the former (1981), he wrote:
In the last six months, the pressure to isolate pedophiles as a lunatic fringe has been enormous. [...] It would be easy to give in to that, but I prefer to continue talking positively about pedophilia, because I feel a certain sense of loyalty to the gay 8-year-old that I undoubtedly was. [...] Looking back on it now, I see that what I really needed at that early stage of my awareness was a relationship with a nice pedophile; my contemporaries were stumbling as much as I was. (pp. 73-74).
[P]atriarchal sexual power is undermined by the assertion of the right to control one's own body regardless of age, sex, and sexual orientation, etc. That must include both the right to say "yes" and the right to say "no." I would have thought that a [Feminist] movement which so effectively challenged anti-abortion bills on the slogan "A Woman's Right to Choose" would have great sympathy for "a child's right to choose." (p. 76).
His stories and plays sometimes feature consensual age-gap relationships, between people under 16 and older people over 18[6] - rendered under law as statutory rape or sexual assault regardless of the willingness or wishes of the sexual partners. Stories of his were published by the notably pederasty / age-gap sympathetic press Gay Men's Press (GMP), in Cracks in the Image (1981, ed. by one of the Press's founders, Richard Dipple).
In 2010, he was contracted by the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) - notably supportive of PIE in the 1970s - to write the official history of the organization. Volume One of Amiable Warriors[7] was published in February 2015.
In 2021, Islington Pride created a plaque in Huntingdon Street, where Presland had lived, to honor his connection to the borough.
See also
References
- ↑ LGBT History Wiki: Eric Presland
- ↑ He changed his name in the year 2000. As stated on his website: Footnote: Eric Presland changed his name to Peter Scott-Presland in 2000. This has made it difficult to identify references to him on the internet. On this site, all performances, scripts etc prior to 2000 are attributed to Eric Presland, later ones to Peter Scott-Presland.
- ↑ "Specifically, and most usefully from Peter Scott-Presland, formerly Eric Presland, who's been running the gay theatre group Homo Promos ever since 1988 - the year of Section 28" - Quoted from Interview with Tom Robinson part 4 - Glad To Be Gay.
- ↑ We can deduce further that Peter Scott-Presland is, in-fact, Eric Presland, by his own stated history of working with the Pub Theatre Company in Birmingham, England, which makes up part of the author description in his 1981 chapter for The Age Taboo.
- ↑ Quoted from the Homo Promos Website, including Footnote 1.
- ↑ See his description of his play Star Turn ("born on 9 January 1988 [...] the day of the first demonstration against the proposed Section 28"): "I needed a fictional offence more serious than a grope in a toilet; I came up with a relationship with a 15-year-old boy. I thought by locating the boy at that age, I would place the character on the cusp of audience sympathy. Some would regard it as paedophilia, and some wouldn't." The page links to the script for the play and a Youtube recording.
- ↑ Amiable Warriors - 2015