January 9

Events

1987 - Not a rut or an obsession. Just a "recurrent theme." - The Guardian newspaper published a review of the newly published Vladimir Nabokov novel, The Enchanter on this date. The book was written in 1939 - before Lolita - and was actually a precursor to that more famous work. The review describes the novella as "an erotic fable composed in a perfumed style that affords a queasy contrast to the straightforward brutality of the plot, describing as it does how a paedophile marries a dying woman in order to obtain sexual access to the latter's twelve-year-old daughter. The effect is that of raw liver exquisitely arranged in a pink frilly box." Like the best modern porn, the Enchanter was created in Russian. About the girl in the story The Guardian says, like good Russian porn, we "are told more about her panties than we are about her personality."

1996 - Livin' la vida loca - On this date the director of Public Shows in Guatemala stated that more than 200 night clubs existed in the capital city, the majority of which were not legally authorized. Police investigators declared that there were "more than 2,000 minors being exploited in approximately 600 clandestine bars and brothels in the capital... Approximately 1,200 of the youth were Salvadoran, 500 were Honduran and Nicaraguan, and the rest were Guatemalan." A more stunning revelation than the fact that so many of the youths were from other countries was that the majority of the patrons were home grown - not the stereotypical Anglo-European sex tourist.

2002 - The first rule of pedo club is you don't talk about pedo club - The Vatican announced new guidelines for the Roman Catholic Church to handle accusations against pedo priests on this date. It ordered church officials worldwide to inform it swiftly of such cases and declared them subject to secrecy. The rules, approved by Pope John Paul II, were aimed at centralizing Vatican control over pedo crises. The new guidelines were issued in a letter by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a close aide of the pope and the guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy. He wrote that pedo cases were subject to pontifical secrecy and that only priests should handle such cases, including those serving as judges, prosecutor, or defense advocate in church tribunals. He also said victims must make their accusations within 10 years after turning 18. When asked if these guidelines would really help the young victims of priests, on supporter said, "Fuck the kids." Indeed, that seems to happen a lot.