John P. De Cecco

John P. De Cecco

John Paul De Cecco (April 18, 1925 – November 2, 2017) was an American academic. He was a professor of psychology at San Francisco State University (SFSU), a member of the editorial board of Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia (1987-1995), and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Homosexuality from 1975 to 2009, which published many non-sensationalist articles about topics relating to age and age-disparate relationships. This included a 1990 special issue on boylove under the title Male intergenerational intimacy, with guest editors Theo Sandfort, Edward Brongersma and Alex Van Naerssen, which remains as one of the most important scholarly works on the topic. De Cecco co-founded the Center for Homosexual Education, Evaluation and Research (CHEER) at SFSU in 1975, and a member of the Gay Activists Alliance and was a "member and sponsor" of the GLBT Historical Society. His university obituary described him as a "pioneer of sexuality studies", and stated that he was:

a staunch (even strident) advocate of sexual and social justice and spent the majority of his career righting the wrongs done to sexual minorities. He believed strongly in academic freedom and took unpopular stances both in the classroom and in his own academic work to advance the rights of those who were outside of societal sexual norms. He never backed away from controversy and was unflinching in his convictions. (University obituary in Wind City Times).

Minor attraction and the journal of homosexuality

Under De Cecco's editorial lead, many significant publications relevant to MAPs and other sexual minorities were published. Examples include: Tindall's study of loved boys that grow to be heterosexuals (1978), Jones' bibliographical survey of pederasty (1982), Sandfort's article on pedophilia and the gay movement (1986), and Harris Mirkin's articles on pedophile politics (1999) and the social construction of child pornography (2009), Graupner's work on the Age of Consent (1999). Other relevant articles include C.K. Li's community sample study of self-identified pedophiles (1991) Donald Mader's article on Uranian homosexuality (2005), and James Hunter's ‘The Political use and abuse of the “pedophile” (2008).

In the academic journal Sexualities (founded by MAP ally Ken Plummer), after being informed by Dr. Richard Yuill, the PhD independent scholar Dean Durber summarized how Haworth Press - the publisher of the Journal of Homosexuality - censored a planned journal issue on pederasty which was to contain a lengthy article by psychologist Bruce Rind, with responses from other academics. While discussion of pederasty and age-disparate sex and desire was not uncommon in the journal, the publisher conceded to Right-wing political pressure. De Cecco's radical freedom of speech position as editor-in-chief was undercut by the journal's publisher. Durber wrote:

It was to include a chapter – ‘Pederasty: An Integration of Cross-Cultural, Cross-Species, and Empirical Data’ – written by Bruce Rind, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Temple University. In his abstract for this proposed chapter, Rind makes the claim that ‘empirical data show that pederasty is not only not predestined to injure, but can benefit the adolescent when practiced according to the ancient Greek form’ (Rind, 2005). Such an assertion challenges the current dominant narrative that speaks loudly of the abuse involved in all sexual relationships between adults and children. (p. 487).

In response to this censorship, most of the planned articles saw publication in a separate book: Censoring Sex Research: The Debate Over Male Intergenerational Relationships, ed. by Thomas Hubbard and Beert Verstraete (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2013).

De Cecco and Paidika

In 1987, as a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam, De Cecco gave an interview to Paidika: The Journal of Pedophilia. Click here for an archived PDF copy.