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[[File:Oz magazine issue 28.jpg|thumb|The one-off segment titled "Jail Bait of The Month". An example of provocative imagery printed in ''OZ magazine'', the counterculture publication Richard Neville edited and became famous for.]][ | [[File:Oz magazine issue 28.jpg|thumb|The one-off segment titled "Jail Bait of The Month". An example of provocative imagery printed in ''OZ magazine'', the counterculture publication Richard Neville edited and became famous for.]][[wikipedia:Richard_Neville_(writer)|'''Richard Neville''']] (15 December 1941 – 4 September 2016) was an Australian writer and social commentator who came to fame as an editor of the [[wikipedia:Oz_(magazine)|counterculture magazine ''Oz'']] in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and early 1970s. Neville first published the magazine in Sydney in 1963, launching a parallel version of ''Oz'' in London from 1967. | ||
In both Australia and the UK, the creators of ''Oz'' were prosecuted on charges of obscenity. | In both Australia and the UK, the creators of ''Oz'' were prosecuted on charges of obscenity. Of most relevance here, ''No. 28, Oz: Schoolkids Issue''<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20180116150441/http://ro.uow.edu.au/ozlondon/28 No. 28, Oz: Schoolkids Issue]</ref> became the subject of a high-profile obscenity case conducted at the UK's Old Bailey in the summer of 1971. The defendants were initially found guilty and sentenced to up to 15 months imprisonment, but their sentence was later quashed on appeal. At the time, the case was the longest trial under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, lasting from June 1971 to 5 August 1971. For Neville, "The long-running Oz trial was both a victory for free speech and the end of an era."<ref>''Numerous scoundrels were drawn to the ‘underground scene’: thieves; bullies; junkies; paedophiles. We were so busy trying to make the best of a moment we feared might be fleeting that our eyes were averted from the underground's underworld. [...] As for free love, it was rarely free of repercussions. At one point, VD was almost a status symbol. When a number of young ladies collapsed with salpingitis I was forced to face up to the dark side of hippiedom – which I did with a rant in Oz: ‘All God’s Children Got the Clap’.'' | ||
'' | '' | ||
Just as I was getting cranky with the counterculture, the police swooped on Schoolkids Oz, so I was compelled to crank myself up and dwell on the movement’s brighter side.'' - Quoted in Richard Neville, [https://annas-archive.org/md5/acac37eaff5214a5fc2d82a9d4acf6b1 ''Hippie Hippie Shake''] (London; New York: Duckworth Overlook, 2009).</ref> | Just as I was getting cranky with the counterculture, the police swooped on Schoolkids Oz, so I was compelled to crank myself up and dwell on the movement’s brighter side.'' - Quoted in Richard Neville, [https://annas-archive.org/md5/acac37eaff5214a5fc2d82a9d4acf6b1 ''Hippie Hippie Shake''] (London; New York: Duckworth Overlook, 2009).</ref> | ||
The ''Schoolkids Issue'' had been edited by 20 British teenagers, 5th-and 6th-form students (usually aged 15/16-18). Among various aspects discussed in media and raised in Court, sensitive items included a cartoon montage of Rupert Bear having sex (created by Vivian Berger, male aged 16), and a "Jail Bait of the Month" photo page featuring Berti Graham (female aged 15).<ref>"‘Fuckin’ great,’ said Felix, as a papier mâché Honeybunch Kaminsky, Robert Crumb’s nubile comic strip character, hove into view on the back of a truck. She was twenty feet high, bare-breasted, wore hot pants and had her hands in her crotch. Honeybunch was a personal favourite of Felix’s. In the Schoolkids issue, one of Jim’s full-page jokes had been to have Berti, the youngest of the editors, pose as Honeybunch and label her, in a parody of the original Crumb poster, JAIL BAIT OF THE MONTH." - Op. cit.</ref> Vivian (16) was named in the trial indictment,<ref>''Oz Publications conspired together with Vivian Berger and certain other young persons to produce a magazine containing divers obscene lewd sexually perverted articles, cartoons, drawings and illustrations with intent thereby to debauch and corrupt the morals of children and young persons within the Realm and to arouse and implant in their minds lustful and perverted desires.'' - Op. cit.</ref> and of the six editors who were interviewed, "all were enraged by the sentences." Berti (15) said that "The charge of corrupting minors is a fallacy [...] We were the minors, and we did it." In his memoir (2009), Neville described Berti as "a fifteen-year-old from Aldershot who was sweet and pretty, and dreamed of living in a commune." "Beside her," he wrote, "was Vivian Berger, sixteen, the wildest of the bunch, a self-proclaimed anarchist who claimed to have smoked pot at nine and tripped at eleven." Anne Townsend, 16 when she contributed the article "''I Wanna be Free''" - described by Neville as a "plea for spontaneous copulation" - reportedly "found it crazy that we were in the nick for what she and the others had written."<ref>Neville. Op. cit.</ref> An example of the guilt-free, playful spirit of ''Oz magazine'', 16-year-old Anne | The ''Schoolkids Issue'' had been edited by 20 British teenagers, 5th-and 6th-form students (usually aged 15/16-18). Among various aspects discussed in media and raised in Court, sensitive items included a cartoon montage of [[wikipedia:Rupert_Bear|Rupert Bear]] having sex (created by Vivian Berger, male aged 16), and a "Jail Bait of the Month" photo page featuring Berti Graham (female aged 15).<ref>"‘Fuckin’ great,’ said Felix, as a papier mâché Honeybunch Kaminsky, Robert Crumb’s nubile comic strip character, hove into view on the back of a truck. She was twenty feet high, bare-breasted, wore hot pants and had her hands in her crotch. Honeybunch was a personal favourite of Felix’s. In the Schoolkids issue, one of Jim’s full-page jokes had been to have Berti, the youngest of the editors, pose as Honeybunch and label her, in a parody of the original Crumb poster, JAIL BAIT OF THE MONTH." - Op. cit.</ref> Vivian (16) was named in the trial indictment,<ref>''Oz Publications conspired together with Vivian Berger and certain other young persons to produce a magazine containing divers obscene lewd sexually perverted articles, cartoons, drawings and illustrations with intent thereby to debauch and corrupt the morals of children and young persons within the Realm and to arouse and implant in their minds lustful and perverted desires.'' - Op. cit.</ref> and of the six editors who were interviewed, "all were enraged by the sentences." Berti (15) said that "The charge of corrupting minors is a fallacy [...] We were the minors, and we did it." In his memoir (2009), Neville described Berti as "a fifteen-year-old from Aldershot who was sweet and pretty, and dreamed of living in a commune." "Beside her," he wrote, "was Vivian Berger, sixteen, the wildest of the bunch, a self-proclaimed anarchist who claimed to have smoked pot at nine and tripped at eleven." | ||
Anne Townsend, 16 when she contributed the article "''I Wanna be Free''" - described by Neville as a "plea for spontaneous copulation" - reportedly "found it crazy that we were in the nick for what she and the others had written."<ref>Neville. Op. cit.</ref> An example of the guilt-free, playful spirit of ''Oz magazine'', 16-year-old Anne had written that: | |||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
''This society, although labelled permissive (by society itself) is not free enough to permit man | ''This society, although labelled permissive (by society itself) is not free enough to permit man to revert to his natural instincts in public. This ruling does not extend as far as animals.'' | ||
''Freedom of sexual expression in public has many tight restrictions. One may kiss in certain places but only fuck in a few places at certain times. Surely this idea is as pretentious and puritanical as the old forms of censorship. Its purpose is to prevent corruption and protect the individual from disturbing or immoral sights. This is ironical in itself and only made to satisfy the so-called moral conscience of | ''Freedom of sexual expression in public has many tight restrictions. One may kiss in certain places but only fuck in a few places at certain times. Surely this idea is as pretentious and puritanical as the old forms of censorship. Its purpose is to prevent corruption and protect the individual from disturbing or immoral sights. This is ironical in itself and only made to satisfy the so-called moral conscience of society. Everyone knows what copulation is. Animals perform the act everyday in public, so why not let humans have the same freedom if they wish it. Surely we should have the right to make the choice. If the act disturbs some, then they do not have to watch, and if they want to then why not?'' | ||
''The act making love is beautiful and natural and should be admired.'' | ''The act making love is beautiful and natural and should be admired.'' | ||
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</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
In the 2020s, more than 50 years later, this barely known factoid arising from a brief piece of text, has entered into public discussion of Neville's legacy. | In the 2020s, more than 50 years later, this barely known factoid arising from a brief piece of text, has entered into public discussion of Neville's legacy. One former fan was upset, writing on their 2022 blog: "I'm not sure I fully comprehended the enormity of it at the time."<ref>Bobby Seal, [https://psychogeographicreview.com/play-power-by-richard-neville/ ''Play Power by Richard Neville'' [Book Review<nowiki>]</nowiki>] (''Psychogeographic Review'', January 2022). See comments section.</ref> In 2025, the conservative British tabloid the ''Daily Mail'' included the factoid in an "exclusive" report on Neville, after the recording of [[Pederasty_(radio_program)|"Pederasty", a 1975 radio discussion Neville had hosted]], became available to the general public.<ref>Stephen Gibbs, [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15186353/ABC-pederasty-paedophile-radio-segment.html Average Aussie DEFIES the ABC in 'extraordinary action' and publishes revolting controversial segment from 50 years ago that still shocks today] (''Daily Mail'', 13 October 2025).</ref> The recording was published to Twitter, YouTube and Rumble in October 2025, with Neville having introduced the program by distinguishing between [[pederasty]] and [[pedophilia]], and speaking of "consenting boys": | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
''Tonight’s program is about pederasty, which means the act of sodomy between men. Tonight we’re using the term as explicitly defined by the Penguin English dictionary; that is, a homosexual relationship between a man with a boy. It is not to be confused with [[pedophilia]] | ''Tonight’s program is about pederasty, which means the act of sodomy between men. Tonight we’re using the term as explicitly defined by the Penguin English dictionary; that is, a homosexual relationship between a man with a boy. It is not to be confused with [[pedophilia]], a term which implies a sexual assault on a young child by a man. In this studio are three pederasts. Men in the thirties who involve themselves in sexual relationships with consenting boys. With them is a teenager, who since the age of 12, has enjoyed sex with men.'' | ||
</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
Whilst Neville appears to have retained a broadly | |||
Whilst Neville appears to have retained a broadly positive perspective on sex throughout his life, and never promoted sensationalist attitudes towards consenting sex involving teens, there is no evidence he supported relationships with pre-pubescent children (i.e. [[pedophilia]]). As quoted above, Neville interpreted "pedophilia" to imply "a sexual assault on a young child by a man"; a false, gendered belief which fails to recognize that [[Attraction_≠_Action|pedophilia designates attraction rather than action]], that evidence exists for [[Accounts_and_Testimonies|positive sexual experiences involving young people before puberty]], and that [[Research:_Prevalence|women also have pedophilic feelings]]. In his last book and memoir (2009), Neville included "paedophiles" among a list of "scoundrels" who he felt represented the "dark" parts of the Sexual Revolution.<ref>See footnote no. 1 on this page, beginning: "Numerous scoundrels were drawn to the ‘underground scene’: thieves; bullies; junkies; paedophiles."</ref> His memoir shows an acknowledgment of [[Research:_Youth_sexuality|children's sexuality]] in the form of precociousness or experimentation, but indicates puberty to be the dividing line of acceptability; nowhere is a position taken on sexual relations between legally defined "adults" and "minors."<ref>Reproducing dialogue from ''Oz magazine's'' last and most serious court trial, Neville's memoir included the following: | |||
Q. "[A]m I right in supposing that you advocate every kind of sexual experience for children?" | Q. "[A]m I right in supposing that you advocate every kind of sexual experience for children?" | ||
| Line 41: | Line 44: | ||
‘In her early years, I imagine she’d treat it as a toy. When she reached puberty and realised its purpose, I’d have no particular objection as to how she used it.’ - Quoted in Richard Neville, [https://annas-archive.org/md5/acac37eaff5214a5fc2d82a9d4acf6b1 ''Hippie Hippie Shake''] (London; New York: Duckworth Overlook, 2009).</ref> | ‘In her early years, I imagine she’d treat it as a toy. When she reached puberty and realised its purpose, I’d have no particular objection as to how she used it.’ - Quoted in Richard Neville, [https://annas-archive.org/md5/acac37eaff5214a5fc2d82a9d4acf6b1 ''Hippie Hippie Shake''] (London; New York: Duckworth Overlook, 2009).</ref> | ||
==See also== | |||
*[[The Little Red Schoolbook]] - Another publication prosecuted under obscenity law in the 1970s. | |||
*[[Feminism|Germaine Greer]] - Feminist icon who wrote for Oz magazine. | |||
*[[Feminism|Kate Millett]] - Another Feminist icon who wrote for Oz magazine. | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
[[Category:Official Encyclopedia]][[Category:People]][[Category:People: Australian]][[Category:People: Popular Authors]][[Category:Law/Crime]][[Category:Law/Crime: International]][[Category:Law/Crime: Australian]][[Category:Law/Crime: British]][[Category:People: Critical Analysts]][[Category:People: Adult or Minor sexually attracted to or involved with the other]][[Category:People: Fence-Sitting Activists]][[Category:History & Events: 1970s]] | |||
Latest revision as of 22:30, 21 October 2025
Richard Neville (15 December 1941 – 4 September 2016) was an Australian writer and social commentator who came to fame as an editor of the counterculture magazine Oz in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and early 1970s. Neville first published the magazine in Sydney in 1963, launching a parallel version of Oz in London from 1967.
In both Australia and the UK, the creators of Oz were prosecuted on charges of obscenity. Of most relevance here, No. 28, Oz: Schoolkids Issue[1] became the subject of a high-profile obscenity case conducted at the UK's Old Bailey in the summer of 1971. The defendants were initially found guilty and sentenced to up to 15 months imprisonment, but their sentence was later quashed on appeal. At the time, the case was the longest trial under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, lasting from June 1971 to 5 August 1971. For Neville, "The long-running Oz trial was both a victory for free speech and the end of an era."[2]
The Schoolkids Issue had been edited by 20 British teenagers, 5th-and 6th-form students (usually aged 15/16-18). Among various aspects discussed in media and raised in Court, sensitive items included a cartoon montage of Rupert Bear having sex (created by Vivian Berger, male aged 16), and a "Jail Bait of the Month" photo page featuring Berti Graham (female aged 15).[3] Vivian (16) was named in the trial indictment,[4] and of the six editors who were interviewed, "all were enraged by the sentences." Berti (15) said that "The charge of corrupting minors is a fallacy [...] We were the minors, and we did it." In his memoir (2009), Neville described Berti as "a fifteen-year-old from Aldershot who was sweet and pretty, and dreamed of living in a commune." "Beside her," he wrote, "was Vivian Berger, sixteen, the wildest of the bunch, a self-proclaimed anarchist who claimed to have smoked pot at nine and tripped at eleven."
Anne Townsend, 16 when she contributed the article "I Wanna be Free" - described by Neville as a "plea for spontaneous copulation" - reportedly "found it crazy that we were in the nick for what she and the others had written."[5] An example of the guilt-free, playful spirit of Oz magazine, 16-year-old Anne had written that:
This society, although labelled permissive (by society itself) is not free enough to permit man to revert to his natural instincts in public. This ruling does not extend as far as animals.
Freedom of sexual expression in public has many tight restrictions. One may kiss in certain places but only fuck in a few places at certain times. Surely this idea is as pretentious and puritanical as the old forms of censorship. Its purpose is to prevent corruption and protect the individual from disturbing or immoral sights. This is ironical in itself and only made to satisfy the so-called moral conscience of society. Everyone knows what copulation is. Animals perform the act everyday in public, so why not let humans have the same freedom if they wish it. Surely we should have the right to make the choice. If the act disturbs some, then they do not have to watch, and if they want to then why not?
The act making love is beautiful and natural and should be admired.
Richard Neville and Age-Gap Sex
In 1970, Neville wrote a manifesto for hippie culture, Play Power, which argued that the "underground culture" of the Sexual Revolution was "turning sex back into play"; "happy, hippie playful sex [...] free, uninhibited, fun-oriented sexual anarchy."[6] The book began with a poem from D. H. Lawrence ("A Sane Revolution"), which implores readers "If you make a revolution, make it for fun." Neville draws on other authorities such as Jean-Paul Sartre, who argued that "As soon as man apprehends himself as free and wishes to use his freedom ... then his activity is play."[7]
In Play Power, Neville briefly alludes to a sexual experience with a consenting 14-year-old female student, writing:
I meet a moderately attractive, intelligent, cherubic fourteen-year-old girl from a nearby London comprehensive school. I ask her home, she rolls a joint and we begin to watch the mid-week TV movie. It is The Woman of the Year, and Spencer Tracy, almost against his will, finds himself in Katharine Hepburn’s apartment. (He kisses her, flashes his look of ‘there’s a volcano bubbling inside me’ and hurriedly leaves.) Comes the Heinz Souperday commercial, a hurricane fuck, another joint. No feigned love or hollow promises. [...] A farewell kiss, and the girl rushes off to finish her homework.[8]
In the 2020s, more than 50 years later, this barely known factoid arising from a brief piece of text, has entered into public discussion of Neville's legacy. One former fan was upset, writing on their 2022 blog: "I'm not sure I fully comprehended the enormity of it at the time."[9] In 2025, the conservative British tabloid the Daily Mail included the factoid in an "exclusive" report on Neville, after the recording of "Pederasty", a 1975 radio discussion Neville had hosted, became available to the general public.[10] The recording was published to Twitter, YouTube and Rumble in October 2025, with Neville having introduced the program by distinguishing between pederasty and pedophilia, and speaking of "consenting boys":
Tonight’s program is about pederasty, which means the act of sodomy between men. Tonight we’re using the term as explicitly defined by the Penguin English dictionary; that is, a homosexual relationship between a man with a boy. It is not to be confused with pedophilia, a term which implies a sexual assault on a young child by a man. In this studio are three pederasts. Men in the thirties who involve themselves in sexual relationships with consenting boys. With them is a teenager, who since the age of 12, has enjoyed sex with men.
Whilst Neville appears to have retained a broadly positive perspective on sex throughout his life, and never promoted sensationalist attitudes towards consenting sex involving teens, there is no evidence he supported relationships with pre-pubescent children (i.e. pedophilia). As quoted above, Neville interpreted "pedophilia" to imply "a sexual assault on a young child by a man"; a false, gendered belief which fails to recognize that pedophilia designates attraction rather than action, that evidence exists for positive sexual experiences involving young people before puberty, and that women also have pedophilic feelings. In his last book and memoir (2009), Neville included "paedophiles" among a list of "scoundrels" who he felt represented the "dark" parts of the Sexual Revolution.[11] His memoir shows an acknowledgment of children's sexuality in the form of precociousness or experimentation, but indicates puberty to be the dividing line of acceptability; nowhere is a position taken on sexual relations between legally defined "adults" and "minors."[12]
See also
- The Little Red Schoolbook - Another publication prosecuted under obscenity law in the 1970s.
- Germaine Greer - Feminist icon who wrote for Oz magazine.
- Kate Millett - Another Feminist icon who wrote for Oz magazine.
References
- ↑ No. 28, Oz: Schoolkids Issue
- ↑ Numerous scoundrels were drawn to the ‘underground scene’: thieves; bullies; junkies; paedophiles. We were so busy trying to make the best of a moment we feared might be fleeting that our eyes were averted from the underground's underworld. [...] As for free love, it was rarely free of repercussions. At one point, VD was almost a status symbol. When a number of young ladies collapsed with salpingitis I was forced to face up to the dark side of hippiedom – which I did with a rant in Oz: ‘All God’s Children Got the Clap’. Just as I was getting cranky with the counterculture, the police swooped on Schoolkids Oz, so I was compelled to crank myself up and dwell on the movement’s brighter side. - Quoted in Richard Neville, Hippie Hippie Shake (London; New York: Duckworth Overlook, 2009).
- ↑ "‘Fuckin’ great,’ said Felix, as a papier mâché Honeybunch Kaminsky, Robert Crumb’s nubile comic strip character, hove into view on the back of a truck. She was twenty feet high, bare-breasted, wore hot pants and had her hands in her crotch. Honeybunch was a personal favourite of Felix’s. In the Schoolkids issue, one of Jim’s full-page jokes had been to have Berti, the youngest of the editors, pose as Honeybunch and label her, in a parody of the original Crumb poster, JAIL BAIT OF THE MONTH." - Op. cit.
- ↑ Oz Publications conspired together with Vivian Berger and certain other young persons to produce a magazine containing divers obscene lewd sexually perverted articles, cartoons, drawings and illustrations with intent thereby to debauch and corrupt the morals of children and young persons within the Realm and to arouse and implant in their minds lustful and perverted desires. - Op. cit.
- ↑ Neville. Op. cit.
- ↑ Richard Neville, Play Power (Paladin edn. 1971 [First published by Jonathan Cape, 1970]), pp. 224-225.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 5; Sartre, p. 225.
- ↑ Neville, Play Power (p. 60).
- ↑ Bobby Seal, Play Power by Richard Neville [Book Review] (Psychogeographic Review, January 2022). See comments section.
- ↑ Stephen Gibbs, Average Aussie DEFIES the ABC in 'extraordinary action' and publishes revolting controversial segment from 50 years ago that still shocks today (Daily Mail, 13 October 2025).
- ↑ See footnote no. 1 on this page, beginning: "Numerous scoundrels were drawn to the ‘underground scene’: thieves; bullies; junkies; paedophiles."
- ↑ Reproducing dialogue from Oz magazine's last and most serious court trial, Neville's memoir included the following: Q. "[A]m I right in supposing that you advocate every kind of sexual experience for children?" A. "No. Oz aims at the abolition of guilt among people who feel precocious or experimental." And: Leary displayed an ad for a vibrator. ‘This is used for the purpose of sexual stimulation, is it not?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘If you had a daughter, would you like her to have such a thing around the house?’ ‘In her early years, I imagine she’d treat it as a toy. When she reached puberty and realised its purpose, I’d have no particular objection as to how she used it.’ - Quoted in Richard Neville, Hippie Hippie Shake (London; New York: Duckworth Overlook, 2009).