Is NAMBLA for real or just propoganda?

[JoltSucker]

Something I've been wondering is whether NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association) is for real, or is it just gay-bashing propoganda that the far right invented to incense people? It seems unlikely that a group advocating pedophilia would form and go public? Whatever for?

Mind you, my opinion on pedophiles is that they should be executed by public vivisection, but I also know that gay bashers equate gay with pedophile, and the whole NAMBLA story smelled like a right wing-inspired UL.

[WallyM7]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

There's a lot of whackos out there.

But I also think a lot of gays are as repulsed with the idea as you are.

[Mojo]

http://www.nambla.org/

It doesn't look like a joke. But I can't say that I've ever met a person who claimed to actively be a member. But that's probably for personal safety reasons.

The price you pay for freedom of speech is that anyone can say pretty much anything, even if it is promoting pedophila. And if you want to form a National Man-Boy Lover Vivisection Association, sign me up.

[Satan]

It's real.

------------------
Yer pal,
Satan

[divemaster]

Yes, it's real. I don't know from first-hand account, but here is some supporting wvidence:

Plenty of mentions in the newspapers.

John Walsh talks about them occassionally on America's Most Wanted, especially in molestation cases.

I was listening to an interview with ____ Podhoretz (can't remember his first name), a writer who traveled in the 60s intellectual literary circles. He was good friends with Norman Mailer, who Podhoretz claimed was an active member of NAMBLA, and often had boys around for sex.

[kellibelli]

Quotes from the intro to thier newsletter or whatever that contains ...basically tittilating stuff by kids.

NAMBLA believes that children need more than just sexual freedom, but it also recognizes that the denial of sexual pleasure can inflict severe and lasting pain.
What????
NAMBLA believes that any child, regardless of age, should have the right to say "yes" or "no" to any person. The child should have the right to initiate the relationship, as he often does.
horrifying myth often used by pedophiles to defend themselves
The authors are multi-racial, and span the teenage years, but none are younger than 13.
this is the list of articles they provide
The Best Thing That Ever Happened to MeGreg, age 16
I Love Him, and I Know That He Loves Me Darrel, age 16
It Shouldn't Be a Crime to Make Love Bryan, age 12 1/2
Boys Help Men, Too "College Boy", age 19
I'm Not Going To Be Kept Away from Him (An Interview) Thijs, age 11
none younger than 13 ?????

if any of those sick fuckers came near my boys I would happily rip the cocks off them.

I have nothing against homosexuals, this is not the same thing at all....

[handy]

Visit your library & look them up in the Directory of Associations or Organizations. They should be there. There is a straight version of them, Rene Guyon Society, should also be there. Both are real groups.

[HubZilla]

When I first heard of that site, I thought it would be pornography and whack-off stories.

The actual site is far more disturbing.

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"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument" - William McAdoo

[kellibelli]

Hubzilla...I echo that exactly...it was strangely more disturbing.

[RavingMad]

I'm happy to report that if NAMBLA is for real, they don't have any Washington lobbyists fighting for their cause.

My 1999 lobbyist directory skips merrily from North American Interstate Weather Modification Council to North American Meat Processors Association with nary a mention of NAMBLA in between. Whew!

At least if the sickos exist, they aren't trying to push their agenda through congress.


------------------
~ Complacency is far more dangerous than outrage ~

[Boris B]

A scary thing about that site is that they come right out and say there against all age of consent laws. So really, the boy could be any age and it would all be the same to them. Yipe!

I do think legal ages of consent should be the same for heterosexual and homosexual relations. I think it is in some states, but I'm not sure which. Some of the relationships on the site would be perfectly legal - if the boy is 16 he has reached majority in many states. But the stuff about the 12-year-olds has got me all creeped out.

[NanoByte]

What happens if you go to the site Mojo gives the URL for? Do the authorities check your IP address?

Ray

[handy]

STARK, plenty of congresspersons have sex with boys or underage girls....also, what about that teacher having sex with her 6thGr student, ack.

The owner of a website can monitor IP address but the FBI can't without some warrant & then again, there is free speech.

Some countries allow men to legally have sex with young boys [I think that some african tribes actually used to do this for a manhood
ritual?]. Also, doesn't Maine, USA have an age of consent of only 14?

Well, I don't condone all this stuff but it exists.

[Markxxx]

The idiots at NAMBLA only exist to guilt gay men into accepting them. (e.g. Since straight people think sex between two guys is unnatural then don't judge us)

What the problem is people are not making rational analogies.

Boys will persue sex at an early age. Sex between a boy say 14, and a woman of 21 is simply not the same as a 15 year old girl and a 8 year old boy. Or whatever sex. It don't think the first case is exactly healthy, but I doubt it is tragic.(this assumes no pregnancy or STD, which is a BIG reason why not to)

NAMBLA preys on that difference. They fail to recognize the power that they play off of. In the first case above the 21 year old woman(or man) may break the 14 year old's heart but in 99% of the cases he will boinking someone else and forgetting her in a few months.

[phouka]

I think that's a very dangerous assumption to make, MarkXXX. Fourteen year old boys don't necessarily go from one fuck to another without emotional entanglement, and a broken heart can be the least of the damage done in a relationship where one participant is a child and the other is an adult.

At 14 years old, male or female, a young person does not have the skills necessary to defend themselves from emotional and sexual predation. Sure, a relationship between a 14 year old boy and a 21 year old woman may only be about sex, but that doesn't mean it's healthy. What healthy, fulfilled, well-rounded 21 year old woman is going to be satisfied with a boy? That five year difference in age is, at that point, much larger than a ten year age difference between two adults.

Adults should not have sex with children. Period. We can quibble about age of consent. We can talk about other cultures where it exists in a healthy, positive manner. The trouble is, in our culture and society, there is no way to protect our children from sexual predation without unequivically "adults do not have sex with children".

But that's a topic for the Great Debates.

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"I think he said 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'"

[Rocko]

You sure that's not them in camoflage?

My 1999 lobbyist directory skips merrily from North American Interstate Weather Modification Council to North American Meat Processors Association with nary a mention of NAMBLA in between. Whew!

[NanoByte]

The trouble is, in our culture and society, there is no way to protect our children from sexual predation without unequivically "adults do not have sex with children".

Well, I understand the situation is somewhat different in some European countries, and our society doesn't differ all that much, in general, from that of those countries.

Ray

[Boris B]

nanobyte
Can you be a little more specific? I confess total ignorance here.

[RavingMad]

Thanks for sinking that low for me, Rocko. I had to try real hard not to make some insidious suggestion about that name! :)

------------------
~ Complacency is far more dangerous than outrage ~

[astro]

Yes NAMBLA is (amazingly) for real.

I hold not truck with gay (or other) bashing but the fact of the matter is that there is a signification orientation in gay culture to idealize and pursue young (sometimes very young) boys as objects of erotic desire and this has been the case for millennia.

While pedophiles can and do cross gender lines the dirty little secret is that the notion of "boy" attraction and "boy" love is much more tolerated and accepted in current gay culture than erotic attraction toward children (or near children) is in current mainstream heterosexual culture.

Nature or nuture issues are beside the point. Those who prey on children (regardless of specious "they really love it"
arguments) should be locked up.

[moriah]

astro contradicted astro's self when astro said:



and,

[quote]...but the fact of the matter is that there is a signification orientation in gay culture to idealize and pursue young (sometimes very young) boys as objects of erotic desire and this has been the case for millennia.

And you know this for a fact how? Pedophilia is not a gay thing, it's a human thing that crosses both gender and sexual orientation.
I'm not arguing that it's OK, I'm saying that it's as present among heterosexuals as it is among homosexuals. Just take a look at how the 'straight' mainstream media and culture glorify pubescent female sexuality. From Catholic school girls flaunting it in music videos to Calvin Klein teeny boppers in flimsy undies -- teen girlhood has become the standard of female beauty.

I hope you're just as disgusted about that.

So, in fact astro, you are gay bashing. You are focusing in on the youth-oriented culture of gays (and not all of them are like that, many homosexual men I know prefer older or mature men and wouldn't consider anyone younger than 30), and ignoring the youth-oriented culture of straights. It's a blend of ignorance, denial, and overgeneralization on your part.

While pedophiles can and do cross gender lines the dirty little secret is that the notion of "boy" attraction and "boy" love is much more tolerated and accepted in current gay culture than erotic attraction toward children (or near children) is in current mainstream heterosexual culture.

This line of complete and utter bullshit is just more ignorance and denial. The majority of pedophilia cases are with straight men molesting girls. The majority of pedophilia cases are with relatives, especially the father. The straight culture needs to wake up to this fact and deal with their own and stop pointing the finger at male-male instances of pedophilia as the only real problem.


Nature or nuture issues are beside the point. Those who prey on children (regardless of specious "they really love it" arguments) should be locked up.

Now here I agree with you. But my sense of compassion would also say that they should receive treatment at the same time.

Peace.

[furt]

I have nothing to add to this discussion, really, except to note that I once found myself at a beastiality advocate's site (a long story) and they had this long disclaimer about how higher animals are all capable of emotions like love and that they were fully capable of consenting relationships, etc; and then how we should all respect other people's sexuality and not judge, and try to understand and tolerate them, etc.-- except pedophilia--they then followed with this intense attack on pedophiles and how they were sick perverts who should all be shot.

To which I wanted to ask "What about the puppies?"


Sorry to drag this down further...

[Steviant]

Moriah, I also have a very strong sense of compassion, and I believe in forgiveness and rehabilitation, but there are some things that can't be cured. "You can't cure an egg-sucking dog." "You can't turn a pickle back into a cucumber." Unfortunately a lot of prison treatment programs are only endured by the inmates and seen as a necessary con to run to get out of jail. The people running the treatments have a vested interest in expansion and success of their treatment programs so they tend not to face up to reality.
Imagine finding yourself trapped in a society where heterosexual activity is criminal. Assuming you are hetro, imagine you are caught and jailed for hetro activity. You then undergo "treatment" and you know you will be released if the treatment is successful. #1 - you will play ball and cooperate with your rehabilitation and #2 - when you are released you will, as soon as possible, plunge back into your criminal heterosexuality, because that is your orientation and it can't be changed. Unfortunately, it is the same with pedophiles. Once they have made that mental leap and perceive children as sexually desirable I really believe there is no going back. (With all due respect to the infinite variety of the human condition and the resultant exceptions to every rule.)

------------------
appearances are deceptive - Aesop

"I could never condone child abuse. In order to abuse a child, you'd have to be in the same room with one." --Florence King

[smilingjaws]

I heard that several years ago at one of the Gay Pride parades in New York City, they actually let NAMBLA march. Apparently the normal gays surrendered to the pressure that they couldn't discriminate against NAMBLA because that was similar to the way normal gays have been discriminated against.
That just reaffirmed the truth to me of
"If you can't stand for something, you'll stand for anything"

[JoltSucker]

moriah touches on a point I'd like to make, that most of us here want to lynch pedophiles, yet society at large makes this hypocritical exception for men who want to have sex with teenage girls. Surf to any sex site, and half the banners on them are for things like "Barely Legal Teens". They make that distinction only because they know that the FBI will be on them like flies on shit if they have underage girls on their site. But make no mistake - they are selling the fantasy of sex with underage girls. I've had carpoolers express desire for underage girls. I've heard comedy routines where that desire was expressed.

It's all pedophilia.

My wife lost her virginity at 15 to her mother's boyfriend, and she has been fucked up ever since. I'm only now appreciating how deeply she got fucked up, and we are both continuing to pay the price.

It's all pedophilia.

[NanoByte]

Boris B:

In re my comment on European attitudes on this subject, an e-mail message I once received from a young Dutch woman was apparently of a date far enough back that I have deleted it. I also once noted once a Usenet message questioning whether comments of three European women the poster had talked to on the subject were representative. I don't recall the wordings of either of these well enough to repeat any of them here; I just recall they indicated a much a much laxer view on a range of consensual sexual behavior between adults and children. The outlook may be getting more conservative in Europe, either in sync with the US or as a result of some events in Europe, such as the child killings in Belgium awhile back.

I have heard the conservative extreme in the US, where fathers make some statement like, "I'd rather see my child dead than. . ." -- a line one can actually believe sometimes, and which seems to me to indicate that such criminality (of whatever level) is actually seen, in such cases, as perpetrated against the speaker, rather than the child.

furt:

I haven't heard anything on puppies. Maybe there are some things being left out of the many Websites on family pets.

Steviant:

I believe in forgiveness and rehabilitation, but there are some things that can't be cured. . . . I really believe there is no going back.

How do you decide, then, which things you are going to "believe" should be on one side of the fence rather than the other?

BTW, what is "Steviant" derived in respect to?

Here's a relevant news item I didn't become aware of earlier in the year when it appears to have occurred: The American Psychological Association published a study, "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples", in their journal "The Bulletin", and the Family Research Council responded with the comments given on this page (http://www.ageofconsent.com/comments/numbertwentyone.htm). Another site on this (http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/rebuttal.htm).

BTW, is there a NAWGA? I've never heard of one, but there're a lot of things I haven't heard of.

Ray (no pets)

[Ayesha]

NAMBLA's motto is --------


"Sex before 8 or it's too late." John Walsh,
America's Most Wanted


These are some sick people.

[Steviant]

Oopsie. Oh gee, I seem to have violated some kind of Straight Dope message board protocol by saying "I believe" something. NanoByte, I wish there was a nice clear fence and I could make simplistic decisions (good/evil, right/wrong, ying/yang) about things. Discussing pedophiles, and sexuality and human nature in general, I think beliefs are going to enter into it, because there is no, and there never will be, exact science applicable to it.
NAMBLA is real. I read a news story about a couple of creeps in the eastern USA who were arrested concerning dead boy stored in a big Rubbermaid tub and their car had NAMBLA lterature in it.
I repeat, I BELIEVE there is no going back for pedophiles. I BELIEVE there is no treatment that will re-orientate their sexuality. Incarceration until their testosterone is reduced by old age is the only treatment I can think of. I BELIEVE that once they have enjoyed sexual experiences with children thay have an incurable personality defect.
NanoByte, as for your comment: "BTW, what is "Steviant" derived in respect to", I'm going to take that as a really cheap shot when the serious subject under discussion is of a sexual nature. I see you are a promiscuous poster and I am going to BELIEVE that you are a male being territorial with a new kid on the block. I hereby retire the UserName Steviant. I don't give a shit about establishing a reputation or a personality on this board. I just like reading, and participating in, intelligent discussions. I'll be back under a new name.

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appearances are deceptive - Aesop

There was a segment on the local news that a major rep of nambla lived close to a local school.Of course,they wouldn't say his address,just gave a p.o.box.I thought that was so sad,here they are protecting this guy,cause they knew what would happen if they gave his address.Protect the criminals. :(

[smilingjaws]

I believe that the slogan "sex before eight or else it's too late" comes from another deviant group in California which promotes child molestation. I'm sorry I can't remember the acronym.
Also, according to a BBC article I read a couple of months ago, there has been some effort to reduce the age of consent for homosexual activities.
Sex with underage girls is accepted far too much! How many times have you seen some stupid talk show on tv where some 11 or 13 year old was pregnant or having sex and the boyfriend was 28 or 35! That is child molestation and should be prosecuted vigorously.

Activists in Britain are just trying to lower the age of homosexual consent to be the same as it is for heterosexual consent--they aren't trying to lower it to eight!

[CatInHat]

... another deviant group in California which promotes child molestation

Smilingjaws, you're kidding, right? That's too sick even to be a joke. Tell me you're kidding. :(

------------------
The Cat In The Hat

It was reported in some book(im with the band) that when Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson got together and had sex she was 15,and him 22!

[Stoid]

I recognize that some standard must exist in terms of "age of consent" in order for "children" to be protected.

HOWEVER... having been a child myself at one time, and then a teenager (female, by the way) I remember CLEARLY being perfectly capable and comfortable with my sexual choices. I was never coerced or manipulated. I started having sex at 16. I had sex with men many years older than me, and I often enjoyed it. I had friends who started having sex, or nearly sex, as young as 13. Even then, I disapproved and knew I was not ready, but they made that choice. I am still friends with most of them and we are all in our 40's. None of them feels exploited by their early sexual experiences.

I think it is ludicrous to take the stand that because a given human being has not yet turned 18 that any sexual choices they make, especially those which include persons siginicantly older than themselves, are wrong, bad, or examples of exploitation or rape. Sometimes they ARE, often they are not.

Whatever we may think of the ADULT in that relationship, the fact is that biologically, puberty=sexual readiness. I think each case is individual. Believe me, I am deeply saddened when i see 12 year old girls who are pregnant, whether it is by their 12 year old boyfriend or their 30 year old boyfriend. But I believe that each sexually active person (Past puberty!!!) is different, and we can't make blanket assumptions about them.


(for those of you having coronarys over my words, keep in mind that my sister was raped by her stepfather from age 8 to 10...this is not REMOTELY acceptable in ANY universe, ok?)

Stoid
Who thinks NAMBLA is deeply icky and most of their propaganda is horseshit...but had gay male friends in school and knows that gay boys DO like sleeping with older guys

------------------
*************
This is a non-smoking area. If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and act accordingly.

[Dalou]

NAMBLA is very real, and very dangerous. If you go to their site (nambla.org) and read some of the articles, you'll find that they are actually hostile to the mainstream gay community for not supporting nambla's desire to completely abolish the minimum-age requirement to have sex. Yes, that's right... they want it perfectly legal to have sex with virtually ANYONE, 16 years, 6 years or 6 months old.

You might find it sickenly interesting that here in British Columbia (they'd love this over at the Canadian vs. American thread) it is no longer illegal to possess child porn.

The asshole who challenged this law, and won, didn't even have a lawyer, he defended himself on the grounds that "it infringed on his freedom and privacy".

Hell in a handbasket? Ha! We've arrived!!

[NanoByte]

Here is the American Psychological Association's response (http://www.apa.org/releases/csa799.html) to the hullabaloo resultant from their Psychological Bulletin article on the "study" of the effects of child-adult sexual interactions.

I think it sort of puts the psychological "discipline" into a clearer view than a lot of people take it ordinarily. They would like to be seen as a branch of, or at least of the general nature of, (objective) science; whereas their subject matter is clearly subjective, and the nature of their doings is more related to religion, law and politics than it is to science. Here they have published a paper on a limited study, of what level of reputability -- from a dispassionate stance -- I know not; but then, after the fact of its reaction on the public and certain activist organizations, they have recognized that its academically distanced evaluation of the study's results is so far from the limits of sentiment of the public and powerful factions thereof as to highly threaten the degree of reputability that the discipline has rather sneakily gained over the years. Clearly this response is not a confident academic one, but a scared-to-the-gonads political one.

Clearly, societies have considerable leeway in evolving norms of interrelationships between individuals within the constraints of biological imperatives, but the related emotions of individuals present considerable inertia to rapid changes. Of course, there is a continuum in behaviors, sexual or otherwise between individuals of any combination of ages, and some of it is quite physically destructive to one or more of them, while some is only highly influential on developing minds, so that the issue there is really as to what the eventual situations of those minds, in the particular social context of their milieu and their times, will turn out to be. It's interesting that this factor of the context an individual finds her/himself in, under any eventuality of behaviors is not mentioned in any of these responses. Certainly the reaction of others to incidents, particularly sexual ones, occurring to underage individuals, and others' extrapolations of the consequences, can, in the case of behavior that is not physically damaging to such individuals, determine much of what may either be detrimental or otherwise constructive to them.

I don't follow what goes on in the field of psychology, so I don't know whether there are any inherent feelings in researchers who pursue such studies as this one that bias them personally to sexual behavior with underage persons.

Since psychiatry / clinical psychology in the past, classed homosexuality as a (pathological) disorder and presently it doesn't, one can view this sort of revisionism as an option within these disciplines in respect to all other behaviors, sexual or otherwise, that presently are on one side or the other of a movable border on such behavioral continua. Psychology and psychiatry have wormed their way quite far into legal and other institutions of our society. It's hard to say that any one of custom, religion, law or psycho/social "science" should be the ultimate source of decision in all cases, while generally both acceptable and preferable behavior ranges will change over time, depending on a wide range of environmental factors. . .whatever the preachers within each of these institutions/sectors should have to say about such things. And, of course, society, being a dynamic system of a fair degree of stability, its standards will tend to shift back and forth on such controversial matters.

My grandmother was married and had her first child at the age of 14 in CA-US, in approx. 1889. I don't know what the age of consent here was then (though I think it was either below that or nonexistent), or whether she had her parents' permission -- if they were alive. My mother was born considerably later, but still, where would I be if the law had created a big fuss over my grandmother's earlier situation? On the contrary to any of that, however, I was not, by a long shot, in the fast lane as to such matters -- probably for various reasons.

Apologies to ex-Steviant. I couldn't resist the temptation.

As to my question, "BTW, is there a NAWGA?", that should've been 'NAWGLA'.

I have not heard of an organization in CA-US that supports adult-child sex generally, although I do remember, at one get-together in Berkeley, back when things were more free-flowing, some conversation which seemed to head off in that direction (one which had no relationship to the nature of the meeting). . .but then you can find anything in Berkeley without a lot of trouble if you poke around just a little.

Ray

[handy]

'I have not heard of an organization in CA-US that supports adult-child
sex '

I saw a tv film one time that mentioned the Rene Guyon society in Calif that supports
adult-child sex. I went to my library, looked in the Associations directory & sure enough, there it was.

[tracer]

JoltSucker wrote:

most of us here want to lynch pedophiles, yet society at large makes this hypocritical exception for men who want to have sex with teenage girls.

And women who want to have sex with teenage boys. As well it should.

I personally find it abhorrent that the word "pedophilia" is applied both to the desire to have sex with a 3-year-old, and the desire to have sex with a 15-year-old. (Or a 17-year-old if you're in a state where the age of consent is 18.)

Whether or not you believe that sex between teen-agers and adults is bad, it should not be placed in the same category as sex between pre-teens and adults.

------------------
The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.

[voguevixen]

I believe the Rene Guyon society is the one with the "Sex before 8 or else it's too late" motto. I don't have a source for this I'm afraid but I do remember reading some article in Readers' Digest about rampant pedophilia ages and ages ago. Wish I could be more specific, sorry. They did use that actual quote and this was maybe 15 to 20 years ago. Amazing.

[tracer]

There's been a lot said in this thread about how sex between adults and pre-adults is psychologically harmful to the pre-adults. I hold the opinion,, based on a few stories I've heard, that consenting sex between a teen-ager and an adult is viewed by the teen-ager as a positive experience, both at the time and later when the teen-ager reaches adulthood. Obviously, not everyone's opinion here agrees with that assessment.

Since this IS the Straight Dope message board, what I/we really should ask is: What studies have been done on this subject? Have impartial surveys been done of people who, as teen-agers, had sexual relations with adults? What were the results of these studies?

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Quick-N-Dirty Aviation: Trading altitude for airspeed since 1992.

[Stoid]

I was 16 when I became sexually active. A dick was a dick to me, the age of the dick mattered not a whit.

And my best friend, a gay boy, started having sex a little earlier. With adults. He loved it.

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*************
This is a non-smoking area. If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and act accordingly.

[divemaster]

Last Friday, a Maryland man got sentenced to 36 years in prison for having two sexual relationships, one with a 14-year old girl; the other with a 15-year old. In both cases, the fact that the girls initiated the 'relationship' and were willing partners mattered not.

In fact, the judge said that it was the man's duty to be responsible and act the adult, as children need to be protected from themselves in spite of themselves in matters of sexual conduct with adults.

One may have a cavalier attitude toward high school kids having sex with adults, but the truth of the matter is that there is a very real risk of the adult spending a long time in prison, whether the child wants that or not.

Maybe Stoidela and her friend would not reminisce so fondly if the two men involved were still in prison.

BTW, I agree with the judge, and the man going to prison, even though 36 years seems a little harsh.

[jazzmine]

I have a problem with teen/adult sex, depending upon the circumstances. I had sex with an adult when I was a teenager. Liked older men. Still do. Married one.

On the OTHER hand. I have teenager girls. I don't think they're even close to being emotionally responsible enough for sex. Especially with an older man. And no, I'm not deluding myself. At least for the moment, they're not sexually active. *crossing my fingers*

I know that I probably wasn't anymore mature than they are at that age. But it would really break my heart to see them hurt. So, if it happens to them, even with their consent, I'll press charges. Which is a lot more civil than what their father would do.

trisha

[jazzmine]

aw jeez. *sigh* teenAGE girls

I checked out the Web on the Guyon Society. It has a fair presence there, but essentially only as an unelaborated weapon used on pages concerned about child sexual abuse, on right-wing Christian anti-gay pages and on other conservatives' pages.

I found this on a Canadian page:

*******

3.5 One of the US support groups, the Rene Guyon Society, achieved a certain notoriety in the 1970s and early 1980s with its slogan of "sex before eight, or else its too late" and its claims of a membership numbering in the thousands. However, the 1986 United States Senate subcommittee report commented that the Society "is widely known by most investigators as a one-man propaganda operation whose membership claims are not credible". [note #78]

******

It's not clear to me, from what I find on the Web, whether the "group" was/is male-homo-oriented or hetero-oriented. Some of the info on the "group" on the Web was taken from this:

"Rene Guyon Society promotional/information package distributed in Beverly Hills, California, on March 20, 1981."

Typical hostile descriptions, on the Web, of this and other pedophilic organizations are:

******

The Rene Guyon Society in the United States is named after a notorious child abuser. To become a member you must have intercourse with a child younger than eight years old. Their motto is "Sex before eight or it's too late." It claims 5,000 members. The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) combined with the Rene Guyon Society claim a membership of over 25,000.

-------

(12) Another predominate homosexual/paederasty organisation
is 'The Rene Guyon Society' it "boasts" 10,000 members, they also feel no shame in
proliferating their slogan: "Sex Before Eight or it's Too Late!" (Thats not 8pm but Aged 8!). Other paederast groups include the the Childhood Sensuality Circle, PAN, Lewis Carroll Collector's Guild, and the Eulenspiegel Society. The largest British Paedophilie organisation is the Paedophilic Information Exchange (PIE), which is 'fighting' to lower the age of consent to four years.

--------

The pedophilic Rene Guyon Society of Los Angeles is more strident: its crude motto is "Sex by eight or else it's too late." The British Pedophile Information Exchange (P.I.E.) wants the age of consent dropped as low as four.

******

I doubt there is much of any real organization of pedophiles in CA-US, since the political climate is extremely hostile to them, and the penalties extreme -- for even the most minor of acts, or suspicioned acts, with children. Most of this state is quite right-wing, despite some relatively liberal centers in SF and LA. I have seen news items indicating that certain unorganized but intercommunicating blocs of pedophiles have been picked up by law enforcement.

As for René Guyon (1876 -1963) himself, he apparently was first a French and then a Thai judge, who had quite extreme and controversial views, some apparently influenced by, probably selected Thai views:
http://www.rki.de/GESUND/ARCHIV/COLLGUY1.HTM
http://www.rki.de/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUYBIBL.HTM
http://www.rki.de/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUYTX.HTM

Apparently some of the above cames from the LA namesake source:

"Reference: Rene Guyon Society
promotional/information package distributed
in Beverly Hills, California, on March 20, 1981."

Guyon didn't like the League of Nations' and UN views on sexual rights:

"'Rene Guyon proposed that we amend the Declaration of Human Rights with the following section: "Everyone has the right to sexual freedom and the free disposal of his or her body to that end; and no person shall be molested, prosecuted, or condemned by the law for having voluntarily engaged in sexual acts or activities of any kind whatever, provided they are devoid of violence, of constraint, and of fraud.' (quoted by Haeberle 1983, p.169)"

Another synopsis of Guyon:

"In Bangkok, the French judge René Guyon, who, earlier in the century, had been called to Thailand by the Thai government, begins his radical "Studies in Sexual Ethics". He demands the right to sexual fulfillment for all women and men as long as they do not violate the rights of others. Of the 9 volumes written until 1944, only 6 are published in French (2 also in English). In the 1940's, Guyon also attacks the repressive sexual policies of the League of Nations, and he repeats his criticism in 1951, when he
accuses the United Nations of betraying the idea of sexual rights in their Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Here is mention of another aspect of Guyon found on the Web:

Rene Guyon, a proponent of the woman as a "sexual parasite," wished to liberate people from what he called "the hideous bondage of conventional sexuality morality!" His unabashed proclamation of unfettered sexual license, Sexual Freedom (1950), is infested with parasitic expressions: "Woman is almost universally parasitic"; "parasitism . . . is woman's intrinsic nature"; "her parasitic instinct"; "woman's sexual parasitism is innate"; "the parasitism of women assumes multifarious forms, and is so much second nature that is may be regarded as a common place."[68]

Elaborating more fully on the nature of female "sexual parasitism," Guyon declared that women in general "regard parasitism on the male as their ideal, and if possible parasitism upon one 'host,' a man able to provide a stable position . . . that guarantee of permanence which is most congenial to a parasite." In addition, Guyon
maintained, "average women" exhibit a decided disinclination "to welcome social or legal changes which will interfere with their parasitic role." "There are," he continually reiterated, "many advantages in being a
parasite."[69]

The issue of age and age difference, chronologically by year, as opposed to volition or violence, in respect to any behavior interpretable as of a sexual nature -- or representative thereof, such as child pornography -- is probably one that will always be accompanied by outspoken disagreement. There certainly could be better conciliation on the subject and resultant improvement in laws in most jurisdictions, since much of the law has resulted from knee-jerk legislation after extreme crimes, and is further misused beyond its literal language. Academic views held, under the concept of 'science' or whatever, also really aren't going to act as suitable solutions alone either. The subject is inherently subjective, beyond the pertinent considerations of physiology in immature individuals. I certainly agree with some others here, that the general issue covers two distinctive psychophysiological problem areas, those where the minor is preadolescent and those where she/he is postadolescent. Of course, there are the problems of the transitional period and the age at which adolescence occurs in the particular individual, along with all the other psychosocially specific elements involved in sexual behavior in general. The extent of acts charged, however, can range from rather inconsequential ones to murder. If the full range of sexually indicative acts be determinative of the label 'pedophilia', I don't doubt the existence of the numbers of adherents to this preference that are attributed to these organizations, as cited on the Web, who engage in at least the minimal acts that are targeted.

The worst part of the right-wing descriptions is the lumping of all acts in any way related, or suspicioned as so, to sex with children, from the innocuous or nonfactual to the fatal. Some of this is present in this SD thread, but here is an extreme example from the Web:

******

. BUT BY FAR THE MOST DEADLY TYPE OF CHILD PORN IS "SNUFF"
PORNOGRAPHY, IN WHICH THE PORNOGRAPHER ACTUALLY KILLS THE CHILD DURING THE
FILMING SESSION TO ADD REALISN TO HIS

[Matt_Matt_]

Yes. Nambla does exist, and yes, gay men hate that organization with a passion...nearly all of us.

Yes NAMBLA is (amazingly) for real.

I hold not truck with gay (or other) bashing but the fact of the matter is that there is a signification orientation in gay culture to idealize and pursue young (sometimes very young) boys as objects of erotic desire and this has been the case for millennia.

While pedophiles can and do cross gender lines the dirty little secret is that the notion of "boy" attraction and "boy" love is much more tolerated and accepted in current gay culture than erotic attraction toward children (or near children) is in current mainstream heterosexual culture.

Nature or nuture issues are beside the point. Those who prey on children (regardless of specious "they really love it"
arguments) should be locked up.

This information is incorrect. Attraction to teenagers is actually very uncommon in the gay community. I have known 100s of gay men, and only two were more attracted to teenagers than to men in their twenties and 30s.

This dirty little secret you mention is actually completely backwards. There were a series of articles written by boys in the 18 to twenty range who had moved to San Francisco to find older boyfriends. They found that their older boyfriends were very badly ostracized by the gay community, and that the straight people in San Francisco were actually far more accepting to these relationships than the gay people were.

If anything, gay men tend to be quite prejudiced against chickenhawks.

I would never date a twenty year old myself because I have heard stories of younger people getting suicidal when their relationships don't work out, so I know that younger people have more difficulty dealing with relationships emotionally that older people, but I don't think I would ostracize someone for dating a 20 year old. On the other hand, 18 is a bit hard for me to fathom, but, evidently so many straight people wouldn't worry about the emotional stability of an 18 year old girl entering a relationship.

We have barred Nambla from our community centers and gay rights parades, and, I imagine that some within our community must have contacted the FBI at various points about them, if we hear any thing. What more can we possibly do?

[yanceylebeef]

Wow. A thirteen year old zombie!

I think that is a new record!

[Omar Little]

But what about zombie pedophiles...they surely are a right wing conspiracy.

[obbn]

I recognize that some standard must exist in terms of "age of consent" in order for "children" to be protected.

HOWEVER... having been a child myself at one time, and then a teenager (female, by the way) I remember CLEARLY being perfectly capable and comfortable with my sexual choices. I was never coerced or manipulated. I started having sex at 16. I had sex with men many years older than me, and I often enjoyed it. I had friends who started having sex, or nearly sex, as young as 13. Even then, I disapproved and knew I was not ready, but they made that choice. I am still friends with most of them and we are all in our 40's. None of them feels exploited by their early sexual experiences.

I think it is ludicrous to take the stand that because a given human being has not yet turned 18 that any sexual choices they make, especially those which include persons siginicantly older than themselves, are wrong, bad, or examples of exploitation or rape. Sometimes they ARE, often they are not.

Whatever we may think of the ADULT in that relationship, the fact is that biologically, puberty=sexual readiness. I think each case is individual. Believe me, I am deeply saddened when i see 12 year old girls who are pregnant, whether it is by their 12 year old boyfriend or their 30 year old boyfriend. But I believe that each sexually active person (Past puberty!!!) is different, and we can't make blanket assumptions about them.


(for those of you having coronarys over my words, keep in mind that my sister was raped by her stepfather from age 8 to 10...this is not REMOTELY acceptable in ANY universe, ok?)

Stoid
Who thinks NAMBLA is deeply icky and most of their propaganda is horseshit...but had gay male friends in school and knows that gay boys DO like sleeping with older guys

------------------
*************
This is a non-smoking area. If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and act accordingly.


The problem with your idea is that the issue isn't so much sexual desire and consent by the minor, but rather the position of power an adult has over a child. A child is not emotionally capable of fending off the advances of an adult. An adult can mentally convince a child or make the child feel he/she has to do something because an adult is in the position of authority.

As some others have said here, I will be more than happy to solve the problem if I find out an adult ha touched one of my children. they won't be happy and it will end up being a bad day for them.

[Mister Rik]

Wow. A thirteen year old zombie!

I think that is a new record!

At least we can safely assume this zombie is a hebezombie/ephebezombie, not a pedozombie.

[Chronos]

Heterosexuals idolize youth, too. Just look at how many porn sites there are advertising about their "hot slutty teenagers", or the countdown clocks on the Internet for when the latest child actress will become "legal". And yet the vast majority of heterosexuals somehow manage to keep their zippers shut around actual, real-live girls. I see no reason not to assume the same of homosexuals.

And to the OP's question, about six months ago I saw a car with a pro-NAMBLA bumper sticker on it. I was surprised, to say the least, to see a public admission of such (though I suppose it's conceivable that someone other than the owner put it on as a tasteless prank).

[Vinyl Turnip]

Which reminds me, my dues are in arrears.

[Jack Batty]

Ah Vinny. Still can't get his pluralization rules straight.

[Czarcasm]

Yes. Nambla does exist, and yes, gay men hate that organization with a passion...nearly all of us.This thread was last posted to 13 years ago, and the person you are responding to might not realize it has been revived after all these years, so you might not get a response.

[Mesquite-oh]

Wow. A thirteen year old zombie!

I think that is a new record!Just think, in 5 years it will be legal!

[Inigo Montoya]

Obligatory All Man lyrics:

"Lawd I was born a NAMBLA man,
Just tryin' to love the young'uns and help 'em become a man..."

[Asimovian]

This thread was last posted to 13 years ago <snip>If it's OK to be off-topic in this ancient beast, I'm curious about the cause of the posts that don't have a username listed (and, I think, one post that is devoid of username AND content). There are obviously other banned posters whose posts have shown up in the thread, so is this what happens when someone is wished into the cornfield?

[snailboy]

Just think, in 5 years it will be legal!

Actually, in most states it will be legal in three years and in Illinois (where the site is run), four years.

[Der Trihs]

If it's OK to be off-topic in this ancient beast, I'm curious about the cause of the posts that don't have a username listed (and, I think, one post that is devoid of username AND content). It's my understanding that there was a transfer of the SDMB from one format to another back then, and some data didn't make it across properly. So posts that old sometimes are missing things.

[Der Trihs]

This thread was last posted to 13 years ago, and the person you are responding to might not realize it has been revived after all these years, so you might not get a response.<checks>

"Last Activity: 05-23-2003 08:35 PM"

Nope, they probably aren't going to notice.

[md2000]

Actually, in most states it will be legal in three years and in Illinois (where the site is run), four years.

Doe it depend on the age of the poster, too?

I remember seeing NAMBLA mentioned in the news from time to time in the last 2 decades. My impression was that the guy(s) behind it (so to speak) were compulsive trouble makers who revelled in the publicity of spouting a socially provocative and contrarian cause, much like, say, neo-nazis.

Child abuse is a common and long-standing problem. I recall something published IIRC by Jeffrey Masson, who did authorized research in the Freud archives until he published his views and got the boot. His contention was that Freud in his early days as a psychiatric pioneer recognized that many of the messed-up women he was treating had problems due to childhood sexual molestation by adult family (or servants). However, he quickly figured out that accusing some of the top members of Vienna society of being child molestors was a career-limiting move, and the sexually-repressed society of the era did not want to talk about it. Hence he made up the whole Oedipus/Electra complex /childhood sex obsession bullshit and sent the psychiatric "profession" on a hundred year long wrong turn.

Equating homosexuality with abuse of boys is a long-standing gay-bashing tactic of the anti-gay lobby. I wonder, since I'm not gay, I don't know, but...

Homosexuality I think appears to be tied to brain maps... we have parts of our brain that recognize "old, young, cute, healthy, sick, male, female" etc. The part of the brain that says "horny" would be tied to the recognizer of opposite sex; sometimes, for some unknown developmental reason, it is tied to a different part- i.e. in gay men, it is tied to the "man" recognizer. The difference is that a fertile "barely legal teen girl" looks a lot more like a desirable adult woman to a straight man, than (I assume) a teen boy does look like a desireable guy to a straight woman. Evolutionarily speaking, men are looking for young healthy breeding stock while women are looking for big strong hunters. Presumably, then, gay men have the same "recognizer" for what cranks their motor and their ideal would be a buff six-pack sporting twenty-something? Of course, both are still looking for long walks on the beach and quiet nights by the fire...

So while the Ashton Kutchner-Demi Moore type of connections receive heavy comment, the massive number of older man-younger woman situtations receive very little such notice, simply because they seem more "normal".

[Lumpy]

If someone died when they were eight and have been a zombie for ten years, are they still underage?

Anyway, there used to be a lesbian pedophile site (now gone underground) called Butterfly Kisses, run by the International Female Girllovers Collective (IFGLC). If anything actually more reviled than NAMBLA.

[AHunter3]

If it's OK to be off-topic in this ancient beast, I'm curious about the cause of the posts that don't have a username listed (and, I think, one post that is devoid of username AND content). There are obviously other banned posters whose posts have shown up in the thread, so is this what happens when someone is wished into the cornfield?

[old fogey mode]
Nope. Once upon a time the Straight Dope Msg Board ran on ubb not vB. And for long-forgotten reasons an upgrade from ubb version something to ubb version something-plus-one made a difference in how posternames were stored; the later ubb version was backwards-compatible but a few years later when the vB transition took place, ONLY the later-version ubb-generated posts came over intact with the usernames properly retained; the yet-older ubb-version-whatever posts made back in the old old days came through as if posted by a Guest.

[/old fogey mode]

[panache45]

Homosexuality I think appears to be tied to brain maps... we have parts of our brain that recognize "old, young, cute, healthy, sick, male, female" etc. The part of the brain that says "horny" would be tied to the recognizer of opposite sex; sometimes, for some unknown developmental reason, it is tied to a different part- i.e. in gay men, it is tied to the "man" recognizer. The difference is that a fertile "barely legal teen girl" looks a lot more like a desirable adult woman to a straight man, than (I assume) a teen boy does look like a desireable guy to a straight woman. Evolutionarily speaking, men are looking for young healthy breeding stock while women are looking for big strong hunters. Presumably, then, gay men have the same "recognizer" for what cranks their motor and their ideal would be a buff six-pack sporting twenty-something? Of course, both are still looking for long walks on the beach and quiet nights by the fire...

So while the Ashton Kutchner-Demi Moore type of connections receive heavy comment, the massive number of older man-younger woman situtations receive very little such notice, simply because they seem more "normal".
Did you make this crap up on your own, or are you relying on someone else's misinformation?

Anyway . . .

I don't know whether NAMBLA still exists, but I met 2 or 3 of their members briefly, back in the '80s. They did not cause even one little ping in my gaydar, which is usually very accurate. At no time did I get any impression that they were gay men. They just seemed like very, very strange straight guys with some bizarre ideas about adult/child dynamics. I felt quite uncomfortable being in the same room with them.

[Czarcasm]

If it's OK to be off-topic in this ancient beast, I'm curious about the cause of the posts that don't have a username listed (and, I think, one post that is devoid of username AND content). There are obviously other banned posters whose posts have shown up in the thread, so is this what happens when someone is wished into the cornfield?It was an unfortunate side effect back when I was a moderator that when the mods got really ticked off and took away your birthday, your name would disappear along with it. We actually got nasty letters from the I.R.S. because posters weren't able to print or sign their names on various tax forms, so we got word From On High not to use that punishment any more.

[FrigidLizard]

I don't know whether NAMBLA still exists, but I met 2 or 3 of their members briefly, back in the '80s. They did not cause even one little ping in my gaydar, which is usually very accurate. At no time did I get any impression that they were gay men. They just seemed like very, very strange straight guys with some bizarre ideas about adult/child dynamics. I felt quite uncomfortable being in the same room with them.

My understanding is that the majority of child molesters are considered straight; that is, adult men who willingly engage in sexual acts with women as well as immature boys, girls, or both, but never adult men. Men who molest boys are a type of pedophile, not a type of homosexual.

[panache45]

Men who molest boys are a type of pedophile, not a type of homosexual.

Thank you for pointing that out. I think for many pedophiles who molest boys, it's pretty much a preference of opportunity. There are situations where a man has access to boys more easily than girls, and guys like Jerry Sandusky gravitate toward those opportunities. I suspect that someone like Sandusky may come to terms with being a pedophile, but never with being gay (which he probably is not).

[abel29a]

Seeing as this old zombie has been awaken, I have a somewhat OT question about this organization. Were they (are they) an organization operating outside the law, in the grey or clearly within the law?

Not knowing anything about NAMBLA, or whether they are active anymore - could someone sum up for me this: Do (did) they actively encourage pedophilic activities (as in, breaking the law) or did they merely argue that they felt the laws were wrong, and should be changed? If the latter, wouldn't this be a fairly open and shut case of free speech, political process and all?

After all, if I'm not much mistaken, there is no law against being a pedophile? Or even expressing that you think your pedophile ways shouldn't be banned under the law? The crime is acting on your pedophilia, and working to change that law cannot in itself be illegal?