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Arch Sex Behav (2011) 40:13291332 DOI 10.1007/s10508-011-9842-1
BOOK REVIEW
Michael Jacksons Dangerous Liaisons
By Carl Toms. Padstow, Cornwall, TJ International, 2010, 623 pp., 20
J. Michael Bailey
Published online: 6 October 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
This is an unusual book, especially for review in an academic journal. Its subject is pop icon Michael Jackson, one of the most famous, talented, and nancially successful entertainers of all timeand also one of the strangest. Specically, the book focuses on Jacksons interest in children, and whether that interestwassexualinnature.Theauthor,TomOCarroll(under the pseudonym Carl Toms), is himself an unapologetic pedophile, and his pedophilia has inuenced both his insight into Jackson and his aspirations for the book. Thus, there are at leasttworeasonswhyasexresearchermightapproachthebook skeptically. First, its topic might seem more appropriate for a lurid tabloid than for a book of more than 600 pages with detailedreferences,includingacademicjournals.Second,OCarrolls pedophilia raises the question of whether his opinions reect insight or self-serving pedophilic bias. To those with this initial appraisal, I advise: set aside your skepticism and you may be rewarded.
Was Jackson a Pedophile?
OCarroll argues persuasively that Michael Jackson was almost certainly pedophilic. Specically, Jackson appears to have been mostattractedtopubescentboysboysonthevergeofpuberty. (The precise term for this sexual orientation is homosexual hebephilia, although pedophilia is the more common if slightly inaccurate term, and the one I use herein for the sake of convention.) Jackson denied sexual interest in boys and more famously denied engaging in sexual activity with them despite specicaccusationsthathehaddoneso.Obviously,Jacksonhad
a considerable stake in people believing that his interest in children was innocent. Whats the evidence he was lying?
The most persuasive evidence for Jacksons pedophilia OCarroll would not put itevidence against Jacksonis the 1993 accusation concerning Jordie Chandler. (Details of the accusationareavailablenotonlyinDangerousLiaisons,butalso in leaked legal documents and a book written by Jordies uncle, among other sources.) Jackson befriended 13-year-old Jordie and his family during 1992 and the two became inseparable. JordiesbiologicalmotherandfatherwereseparatedandJackson especially ingratiated himself with the mother. Soon after Jordies father, Evan Chandler, met Michael, Evan became both resentful and suspicious of the relationship between Jordie and Michael. He was resentful because Jordie had little interest in anyone other than Michael and suspicious because Jordie and Michael often slept in the same bed and were obviously smitten. Thwarted by his ex-wife in his...