Vern Bullough

Vern L. Bullough (1928-2006) was a renowned scholar, prolific author and educator. He studied nursing and history at University of Utah, California State University, Long Beach and received his PhD in history from University of Chicago (1954). In 2004 he was awarded a honorary doctorate from the State University of New York, Buffalo.

Bullough has taught courses on history of sexuality and clinical nursing in several universities. He was an Emeritus Professor in the History Department at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and the Founding Director of The Center for Sex Research in the College of Social and Behavioral Science at CSUN. He was also a Dean at State University of New York, an adjunct professor at University of Southern California, and a Fulbright scholar.

He served at the editorial boards of many scholarly journals including the American Journal of Sex Education, the American Journal of Nursing, Journal of the History of Human Sexuality, Journal of Homosexuality and many others. He also served as a consulting editor of Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia and senior editor of Skeptical Inquirer.

His main research interests were clinical nursing, history of science and the history of sexuality. Within the latter, he wrote and lectured extensively on prostitution and homosexuality. In this capacity he (co)wrote and (co)edited 52 books, 122 book chapters and introductions/forewords to books, entries for 28 encyclopedias, 199 peer-reviewed articles and literally hundreds of articles in popular magazines, lectures, pamphlets, book reviews, etc.

In addition, Bullough was a champion of civil rights and served on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union for many years.

He died on 21 June 2006 after a prolonged illness. Bullough was married to the late Bonnie Bullough with whom co-wrote many of his books.

Works with reference to boylove

• Sexual Variance in Society and History (New York: Wiley Interscience, 1976) (reprinted in hardcover University of Chicago Press, 1978).

• "Child abuse, Myth and Reality," Free Inquiry (Summer 1985): 57-59.

• "Child abuse," Sage Family Abstracts 8 (February, 1986).

• "A History of Adult Human Sexual Behavior with Children and Adolescents in Western Society," in Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions, ed. J. Feierrman (New York: Springer Verlag, 1990), pp. 69-90.

• "Catholic Priests and Adult Child Sexual Interaction," Free Inquiry 15, no. 3 (1995): 59-60.

• "Problems of Research into Adult Child Sex," Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 8, no. 2 (Spring, 1996): 65-72.

• "Children of Table 34," Libido (Summer 1996): 3-4.

• "Boy Love: The Contemporary Storm," in Dare to Speak, ed. Joseph Geraci (Norfolk,England: GMP, 1997), pp. 55-63.

• "Pedophilia and Sexual Harrassment: Do They Have Similarities?" Archives of Sexual Behavior 31, no. 5 (2002): 481-82.

• "Bruce Rind, the Truth Teller," Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality 25, no. 1 (2003): 1-3.

• "Age of consent," in The Age of Marriage in Ancient Rome: Studies in Classics, ed. Arnold A. Lelis, William A. Percy and Beert C. Verstraete (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003).

• "Age of consent," in Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society, Vol. 1, ed. Paula S. Fass (New York: Thompson-Gale, 2004), pp. 45-47.

• "Children and Adolescents as Sexual Beings: A Historical Overview," Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America 13 (2004): 447-59.

• "Introduction," in Adolescent, Sexuality and the Criminal Law in Europe, ed. Helmut Graupner and Vern Bullough (New York: Haworth, 2004), also in Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality 16, nos. 2/3 (2005).

• "Age of consent: A Historical Overview," in Adolescent, Sexuality and the Criminal Law in Europe, ed. Helmut Graupner and Vern Bullough (New York: Haworth, 2004), also in Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality 16, nos. 2/3 (2005).

• "Adolescent American Sex," in Adolescent, Sexuality and the Criminal Law in Europe, ed. Helmut Graupner and Vern Bullough (New York: Haworth, 2004), also in Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality 16, nos. 2/3 (2005), (with David Weiss).