Gerald Hannon

Gerald Hannon (July 10, 1944 – May 9, 2022) was a Canadian journalist whose work appeared in major Canadian magazines and newspapers.

Hannon gained fame as a result of references to pedophilia in his article "Men Loving Boys Loving Men" (1977), published in the now-defunct The Body Politic. Hannon was acquitted of obscenity charges laid in connection with the article.

Background Hannon was born in Bathurst, New Brunswick, in 1944, and moved with his family to Marathon, Ontario, at age 3. His father was emotionally and physically abusive, and his mother would later come out as lesbian.

The magazine's offices were raided by Toronto police on December 30, 1977. He also occasionally worked as a sex worker,

On March 11, 1995, The Globe and Mail published Hannon's "The Kiddie Porn Ring That Wasn't", an investigative piece on "Project Guardian", an operation led by then-London, Ontario police chief Julian Fantino into an alleged child pornography ring. The investigation resulted in the arrest of 45 gay men, but the alleged child pornography in fact involved not children but male hustlers older than the legal age of consent. while all of the other defendants were charged with offenses unrelated to the stated purpose of the investigation, such as prostitution and drug-related charges. On November 9, the press council ruled that the article should have been labelled an opinion piece.

On November 14, Toronto Sun journalist Heather Bird alleged that Hannon had used the press council hearing as an opportunity to prosyletize pedophilia to his journalism students. Bird's claim sparked a police investigation that was dropped a few days later due to a lack of evidence.

Michael Valpy, one of Hannon's defenders in the press, wrote: "Mr. Hannon ... teaches in an adult setting whose purpose is to encourage debate, discussion and challenge. Does freedom to philosophize, however unpopular, necessarily undermine society and conventional morality? Or is a good society impossible without freedom to philosophize?"

Prostitution

On November 25, 1995, the Toronto Sun ran an exposé on Hannon's occasional prostitution under the headline "Ryerson Prof: I'm a Hooker". Hannon acknowledged that he occasionally worked as a prostitute.

Ryerson suspended Hannon on November 26. The following day, the Canadian Union of Public Employees filed a grievance on Hannon's behalf, asserting that there were no grounds for a disciplinary enquiry since no staff or student of the university had complained about any inappropriate behaviour on Hannon's part. Ryerson reinstated Hannon for the winter semester and placed a letter of reprimand in his file, but did not renew his contract at the end of the school year. He has not taught at Ryerson since.

The spring 1996 issue of Ryerson Review of Journalism, published by the journalism school, ran an investigative piece on the Hannon controversy.

A profile of Hannon in the June 1996 issue of Toronto Life by journalist Sandra Martin began "I've talked to dozens of people and I haven't found anybody who agrees with Gerald's ideas on pedophilia — and that includes Gerald." After grilling Hannon extensively on his sexual practices and confirming that he was interested in the subject of pedophilia purely as a philosophical debate, Martin concluded Hannon "refrains from sex with children not because he thinks it is morally or ethically taboo, but because it doesn't turn him on."