Just when I thought Academia couldn't sink any lower.

I think what is beginning to emerge here is the double standards that appear to operate in some university departments. Think of the experiences of Raquel Rosario Sanchez whose PhD was about men who pay for sex or James Caspian who wanted to research people who wanted to detransition. Both topics have the potential to benefit society. Both of them have described how they have faced major barriers and stressors to actually complete the research they wanted to do. I know I am understating their experiences massively.

Wasn't Jess Bradley at Manchester?

You wouldn't normally need permission from a university ethics committee to publish work based on previous research. If his supervisor has seen the substance of this paper, she should have intervened and told him that publishing would damage the university's reputation and would incur disciplinary action.

So depending how much she knew, you may have a problem at Manchester. But the real gatekeepers here were the editorial board of Qualitative Research. Unusually for a high profile broad subject journal, they're all from a single university - Cardiff.

There are some cracking comments on that substack.

I particularly liked the amusing illustration of the situation in anthropology where "wearing hats on your head is a Western imperialist construct. Before imperialism, everyone wore hats on their bums" is typical of the current attitude.

I notice that they don't explain what these "comics" are actually about, it's not just images of young boys it's explicitly sexual. I notice that they also don't quote any of the more grim extracts from the published paper which detail exactly the method and outcome of his wanking efforts. Yeurch.

Honestly, I'm staggered that anyone gives this seriously dodgy man any credibility at all. What is he doing in an academic environment?? It's not research, he's taking advantage of anyone who is gullible enough to nod along with his pseudo intellectual wittering. Rather than telling him where to go, whilst also contacting the police.

In the guardian!

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/aug/11/manchester-university-phd-masturbating-to-comics-of-young-boys

It gets worse.

He's got form for these "interests"

twitter.com/brucousin/status/1557479576271331328?s=21&t=NbgeJj-_0L0fhxzyNz5dgw

I suspect that Manchester will be asking Sharon Kinsella some very pointed questions about what she’d seen of this and what she was encouraging him to do.

Tbh, of one of her first year PhD students is publishing an article on the broad topic you’re supervising them on - you’d expect it to have come up in supervision meetings at some point.

It’s one of those areas where the better answer of probably a lack of competence (her having dropped the ball a bit with this student and not realised what he was up to) rather than a lack of judgement in relation to supporting this stuff.

PhD students can be a bloody nightmare - especially the arrogant ones who think they know much better than you (and would be likely to even want to write about wanking). But presumably she must have realised she had a difficult loose cannon on her hands (and needed help with not having it blow up on the university).

To be clear, when I talk about nothing happening to the researcher, I don't mean in relation to uni sanctions.

My opinion of academia was pretty low before this, but now, I hope it can't go any lower. I don't know how much taxpayer funding they get but for most humanities, it should be zilch, though science is now sadly questionable too.

I have a family member who is an academic and I am constantly amazed that there's a good salary attached to the pointless shit they do, and funding available for "no shit, Sherlock" studies. Fine if privately funded but this isn't stuff most people want to pay for.

I get news alert emails from The Times.

’“Wanking is not a research method,” says professor, as PhD candidate chronicles how he “enjoyed” cartoon images of boys’

well there’s a header and a half!

It is likely the work is from his previous studies. However, the paper is very clearly linked with them because he is currently a PhD student there and his author biography makes this clear. He’s been a registered student at Manchester for just under a year.

Yes - not debating this at all.

Just pointing out that Manchester may have been totally unaware the work had happened & been published.

I noticed he acknowledged another academic from LSE for commenting on drafts, but just gave thanks to "...PhD supervisor Sharon Kinsella for always encouraging me to go where my research takes me", which could mean anything.

The publishers have added a note about the paper online.

It is likely the work is from his previous studies. However, the paper is very clearly linked with them because he is currently a PhD student there and his author biography makes this clear. He’s been a registered student at Manchester for just under a year.

@EmmaH2022

I totally agree & I'm not trying to minimise the fact that people do get away with things, especially those in positions of power.

But this is a student who has admitted (indeed- provided a full written confession) to illegal activities whilst at university. It isn't something that can be brushed under the rug and Manchester won't need to tiptoe around expelling him.

Whether he benefits from the infamy in other ways remains to be seen though.

Trying to be careful what I say

look who has had a police visit recently ...certain people whose feelings can't be hurt.

look at what he got away with before. Look at anime type stuff generally. (Or don't, would be my advice).

Why do you say that?

I'm pretty sure the University will deregister him - they definitely would at my institute. Not that it should be a factor, but he's just a PhD student, not a tenured member of staff.

"The recent publication in Qualitative Research of the work of a student, now registered for a PhD, has raised significant concerns and complaints which we are taking very seriously.We are currently undertaking a detailed investigation into all aspects of their work, the processes around it and other questions raised. It is very important that we look at the issues in-depth. While that investigation is ongoing, it would not be appropriate for us to comment further at this time."

www.spectator.co.uk/article/manchester-probe-academic-over-self-love-text

To be fair it isn't clear if this work was actually done whilst he was a student at Manchester.

Oh I found it

his social media is all still there, he's not even protected it. Nothing will happen to him.

Could someone please link the statement from the uni please? I can't seem to find anything.

A lot of academics condemed the paper without naming it or the author, which was good in terms of not increasing it's publicity and downloads, but definitely contributed to the impression no one was talking about it.

I'm glad it's reached major news outlets now & there have been statements from the journal and university.

Academic twitter, from a STEM perspective, has been full of people baffled as to how something both illegal & methodologically bullshit has been published.

Good write up here:

stuartritchie.substack.com/p/circling-the-wagons

You dont want to go into one of those comic books stores then!

I went with DS recently and the amount of special sections was quite gobsmacking. An awful lot of LGBetc sections and some which seemed to specialise in ‘sexy schoolgirls’ or ‘sexy teen girls’. Needless to say the clientele was mostly male or girls with blue hair.

I’d never seen so many boobs outside the ‘top shelf’. Just because they are cartoon girls or weird cat/fox/ghost/other animal things, doesn’t make it less creepy.

I found old Dr Who books so I was happy…

There's a short article in the Telegraph about it.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/10/manchester-university-taken-task-publishing-phd-masturbation/

Sorry, the Telegraph doesn't do share tokens, but this bit caught my eye

"I happened to live alone during this experiment, and I had newly become single after a long relationship - these factors probably contributed to my willingness and eagerness to explore this method.”

I wish someone would do a PhD on the relationship between Manga (and related styles) and paedophilia.

My Dc were heavily into Manga art, and I was impressed with the amount of child friendly opportunities for them to take part in workshops, conventions, online clubs etc, led by adults.

Thankfully they just concentrated on their various art books.

Now when I see that every so-called MAP / No-MAP account on Twitter has a Manga style avatar, (DMs open… age of attraction advertised), and read stuff like the material discussed here, it would be interesting to see factual research undertaken.

@MangyInseam I would certainly agree that the pressure to regularly publish something is a very bad thing. There has been exponential growth in the amount of material published, and very little if it is worth sharing. It’s so often saying something because you need to be seen to be doing so, not because you have anything important or valuable to add to anything.

You can see it in the style and format used in some social science disciplines: intro (focused entirely on the discipline), 3 sections of regurgitating whatever theory is fashionable, 1 very short section about whatever the title purported to be about (generally vague and more in service of the theory than anything else), conclusion (return to pointless whittering about the discipline). And repeat.