Gert Hekma

Gert Hekma

Gert Hekma (24 September 1951 – 19 April 2022) was a Dutch anthropologist and sociologist, known for his research, publications, and public statements about (homo)sexuality, including pedophilia and sadomasochism. He taught gay and lesbian studies at the University of Amsterdam from 1984 to 2017. Hekma became fascinated with the Marquis de Sade, Hekma has served as editor or editorial board member of many periodicals, including Sexualities (1998-death), founded by Ken Plummer, ''Paidika'': The Journal of Paedophilia (1988-1997), GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (1993-2005) , and Journal of Homosexuality (1985-death), ran until recently by the MAP allied psychologist John de Cecco He has also co-organized several conferences, including Among Men, Among Women (1983), Organizing Sexuality (1994), Queer Sports (1998), Sexual Cultures in Europe, and smaller ones on the Marquis de Sade, masturbation, the history of sexology, the rise of the gay and lesbian movement and same-sex marriage, and has studied the life and works of Jacob Israël de Haan, Louis Couperus, and Gerard Reve.

In youth, Hekma was a member of the radical "Red Faggots" (Dutch: "Rooie Flikkers"). Hekma was a prolific book collector, and had a fetish for satin. Hekma advocated against masculinity, paternalism, traditional gender roles, and for a return to sexual practice over sexual identity.

In 2007, after a group of adolescents asked for his support, he received death threats after supporting their idea to include a canal boat for adolescents at the Amsterdam Gay Pride. In 2014, Hekma co-created a petition addressed to the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, requesting that the Dutch Supreme Court not ban MAP association Vereniging MARTIJN. His support of MARTIJN resulted in death threats and an attempted burglary. Hekma was not a pedophile, and was in a lifelong adult-adult partnership sociologist Mattias Duyves (1953), who were together for more than forty years. Duyves had been a sexual partner of Michel Foucault, with Hekma meeting Duyves in 1977 and marrying in 2007.

In a 2013 book chapter "Same Sex, Different Ages: On Pederasty in Gay History", co-authored with Donald Mader, Hekma argued that pederasty comprised the vast majority of recorded history of homosexuality.

Selected Publications

• Wrong lovers in 19th-century Netherlands, in: ''Journal of Homosexuality'' 13:2-3 (1987), pp. 43-54 (Also in the book: A.X. van Naerssen (ed), Gay life in Dutch society (New York: Harrington Press, 1987).
• Sodomites, platonic lovers, wrong lovers. The backgrounds of the modern homosexual, in Journal of Homosexuality 16:1/2 (1988/89); also in Kent Gerard & Gert Hekma (eds), The Pursuit of Sodomy: Male Homo­sexua­lity in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe (New York 1989, pp. 433-455).
• Rewriting the history of Sade, in: Journal of the History of Sexuality 1:1 (July 1990), pp. 131-136.
• "A Female Soul in a Male Body": Sexual Inversion as Gen­der Inversion in Nineteenth-Century Sexology, in: Gilbert Herdt (ed), Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Di­morphism in Culture and History (New York: Zone Books, 1994).
• Sexual Minority Rights in Europe
• Jacob Israel de Haan: sexology, poetry, politics
• Pro-Gay and Anti-Sex. Sexual Politics at a Turning Point in The Netherlands (2008)
• The decline of sexual radicalism in the Netherlands (in English, published in Gert Hekma (ed) Past and Present of Radical Sexual Politics (Amsterdam: Mosse Foundation, 2004).
• Queering Anthropology, in: Jan Willem Duyvendak, Theo Sandfort, Judith Schuyf & Jeffrey Weeks (eds), Lesbian and Gay Studies (London: Sage, 2000), pp. 81-97.
• D.H. Mader and Gert Hekma, "Same Sex, Different Ages: On Pederasty in Gay History", in Censoring Sex Research: The Debate Over Male Intergenerational Relationships, ed. by Thomas K. Hubbard and Beert Verstraete (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2013), pp. 161-193.