Jeffrey Weeks

Jeffrey Weeks OBE (born 1945, in Rhondda, Wales) is a gay activist, historian and sociologist, specializing in work on sexuality. At time of writing, he is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at London South Bank University, regarded as "one of the leading British sociologists and historians within the field of sexuality", and "the most significant British intellectual working on sexuality to emerge from the radical sexual movements of the 1970s". He is among the early academics in Britain that emerged from the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), which he joined in 1970, and a founding member of the journal Gay Left which famously examined Pedophilia and platformed dissident voices such as PIE Chairman Tom O'Carroll. Weeks has written on intergenerational sexuality in various publications, including his book Sexuality and its Discontents (1985).

He has been on the editorial board of several journals, including the Journal of Homosexuality.

He was the Executive Dean of Arts and Human Sciences at London South Bank University (2003–2008), and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to social science.

Relevant Publications

• Jeffrey Weeks, Preface to the English translation of Guy Hocquenghem, Homosexual Desire (1972, English translation 1978), speculated to be the first work of Queer Theory.

• The Gay Left Collective. Happy Families? Paedophilia Examined. Gay Left: A Gay Socialist Journal, Issue 7 (Winter 1978/79), pp. 2-6. [O'Carroll's article titled Chemical Castration was published in this issue. Responses to the Collective's discussion on pedophilia were published in issue 8, with separate contributions by Jamie Gough and Tom O'Carroll. Issue 7 platformed Jean Le Bitoux, a French gay activist who went on to found the MAP friendly gay magazine Gai pied / Gai pied hebdo, while issue 8 reviewed Parker Rossman's Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys (1976, available in our chronological archive)].

• Weeks, (1981). Sexuality and Social Policy. Critical Social Policy, #2, 1, pages 111-118. [Reviews John Hart, Social Work and Sexual Conduct (1979), O'Carroll, Paedophilia: The Radical Case (1980, available in our chronological archive), and Brian Taylor (ed.), Perspectives on Paedophilia (1981)].

O’Carroll’s book is [...] an impassioned polemic, carefully researched and well written, but clearly and openly a piece of political argument, though nonetheless important and significant for that. Its author has, of course, already attained a public notoriety, and is currently serving a prison sentence as a victim of the catch-all crime of 'conspiracy to corrupt public morals' [...] The book is a testimony to his courage and honesty, but also, perhaps, to a certain political insouciance which has had unfortunate results.

[...]

At random one might cite the problems with age of consent legislation, where apprehension of the legal snares can lead the social worker to be preoccupied with chronological rather than emotional age. On the question of adult-child sexual relations, in particular, personal (and, again, legal) preoccupations can obscure the fact that such relations are often initiated by the child.

[...]

[O'Carroll] hints at the need to break the connections between sexuality and power while simultaneously devaluing the importance culturally assigned to 'the sexual'. It is on this point that O'Carroll’s work can be said to contribute to the debate as to what should constitute a radical social policy towards sexuality. The absolutist, liberal and libertarian approaches have all stressed the social importance of sexuality; its sacredness, or its status as the last refuge of individual freedom, or its centrality to human liberation. Increasingly, socialists are coming to recognize that the initial questions must be: why do we give sexuality such a crucial significance; what are the social factors that have shaped this central, organizing role of sexuality; and should this historically determined role continue to guide our actions[? ...] Sexual antagonisms cannot be finally eliminated, but they need not have the central significance we tend to assign to them today. What is needed is a framework of analysis and a process of empathetic decision-making which will eliminate arbitrary procedures and maximize the possibilities of a non-exploitative freedom of choice. Whatever their (necessary) limitations, these three books do provide invaluable material for the essential, basic, discussions we need on this issue.

• Weeks, 'Paedophilias?'; Gay News [London], Number 263; 29 April, 1983. [Reviews The Child-Lovers: A Study of Paedophiles in Society, by Glenn D. Wilson and David N. Cox (available in our chronological archive).