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NAMBLA's Internet Forum

by Editorial StaffPublished: 2021Updated: 1 October 2022





In ancient Rome, the Forum was where people often gathered to discuss philosophy and politics.

With this forum we hope to present ideas that viewers to our Web site wish to contribute. Even ideas contrary to our  views will be considered as long as opinions are presented courteously and in understandable English. We reserve the right to correct spelling and minor errors without altering meanings.

None of the arguments presented in this forum should be assumed to be in line with NAMBLA's policies. They may or may not be. The purpose is the creation of a series of debates that may ultimately distill unassailable truths. We encourage readers, even when they agree with an opinion, to find flaws in logic or fact that the writer did not see. This is the best way of arriving at sound conclusions.

Contributors are free to identify themselves by any actual name or alias they choose. Send your thoughts to: info@nambla.org


* * *

Double Standards

We publish this verified email to a NAMBLA volunteer because the letter genuinely expresses an orientation that is not only real and benign but potentially benevolent to society. The writer understandably does not want to be identified, but the particular experience he relates will surely bring recognition to many.

Thank you for your quick reply. It is exciting to communicate with someone who shares my values. With your explanation, I now understand why you do not have membership cards. I do fully support NAMBLA and its goal to remove social and legal barriers to what should be considered normal expressions of love. It brings me great comfort to know that there are others who share my orientation toward boys. I have become more accepting of myself over time and my feelings are as strong as ever.

I recall about the same time NAMBLA was started, there was a movie out named, Pretty Baby. It was about a 12-year-old prostitute in New Orleans. Brooke Shields played the part and briefly appeared nude in the movie. Although they did not actually show it, she was depicted as having sex with several men throughout the movie. I watched the movie several times. It was very affirming to me as I thought if it was normal once for adult men to have sex with 12-year-old girls, why is it not normal today for adult men to have sex with 12-year-old nude boys. When I was 12, I had very strong sexual curiosity and desires and would have welcomed sex with men. I have since realized there are many men like me around the world and throughout history who think alike.

I remember years ago hearing that there was a bookstore in Toronto that sold NAMBLA publications. I drove all the way there. Sure enough, there was the section as plain as could be. Nobody else was looking at it. NAMBLA was controversial and well-known to the public and was often discussed in the media. I did not anticipate there would be several other men and women in the otherwise somewhat mainstream store. It took all the courage I could muster to stand by the NAMBLA publications, look through them, and select the ones I wanted to purchase. I then had to stand in line, in great fear, and place the publications on the sales counter, as I felt everyone in line could see what I was buying, knew what NAMBLA was, and judging me to be a gay pedophile (which I am, but never broke any laws). As I stood there, I looked at the people in line and could see some were looking direct at the NAMBLA publications I was about to buy. The clerk must have sensed my fear and she said to me: “these are great magazines, and you will enjoy reading them.” I walked out of the store with a wonderful sense of excitement that I had, in a sense, publicly stated that I am a gay boy-lover, and nobody complained or beat me up.

Although I must keep my feelings secret, I am very proud to be gay and very proud to be a bl. I hope that someday we can all be ourselves in real life.

Editor’s Note: The entertainment media have always been antsy about sex. At one time, even married couples could not be shown together on a bed even if fully clothed. In TV shows, one person had to have at least one foot on the floor if lying in bed with a partner and only of the opposite sex. By the time he movie Pretty Baby was made, attitudes were more relaxed. However, depicting a 12-year-old girl as a prostitute would be less offensive to popular attitudes than depicting the young actress otherwise.

For a truer portrayal of youthful sex, the movie For a Lost Soldier relates the actual experiences of Dutch choreographer Rudi van Dantzig when he was an 11-year-old boy during World War II. The movie shows simulated consensual anal sex between a Canadian soldier, whom the boy had befriended, and Dantzig as a boy. The boy is briefly seen nude in a bath scene but not in the scene showing sexual intercourse. This bit of cinematographic legerdemain is done by having the adult actor’s body covering most of the boy’s body as they simulate sex.

* * *
Correcting Misconceptions

We present the following email exchange to shed some light on current misconceptions that some in the putative Gay community hold. The first email is from someone who identifies as openly Gay. Because he does not specifically give his permission to publish his name, we are leaving it out.



To whom this may concern,

a gay individual who is out and accepting of my self, I do not understand your organization. There are plenty of issues facing the homosexual community at large and one of the biggest is being labeled unjustifiably as groomers; and organizations such as yourself add to that hatred. Your organization uses same sex love to support a perversion of it. The gay community already is at risk without people like you adding to it.

Please stop using our life and our love to justify you and your supporters' interest in children. Homosexuality and being into kids have zero to do with each other but this type of movement undermines that. I urge your organization to consider these issues and consider the negative impact you have on a group who are trying to live their life.

Our Response:

You are at least to be commented for a minimum of civility in a request that is otherwise quite arrogant and absent of historical and sociological perspective.

Of course, we will not accede to your presumptuous request, but are glad to use it to demonstrate to you and to all who read our pages why it is so wrongheaded.

From what you write, it is apparent that you lack a historical perspective. You may not be aware that the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) was once known only as the International Gay Association (IGA). NAMBLA was then a welcome participant in its conferences. Hypocritical self-interest and shameful bending to political winds were the reasons for the attitude you now so well mimic.

You also seem to be unaware that Harry Hay, an icon and pioneer of Gay Liberation was a strong supporter of NAMBLA. So was renowned Gay poet Allen Ginsberg. Anyone familiar with his works would know that much of his poetry expressed love of adolescent boys. That love has been and is still prominent in many cultures not subject to Western domination with its perverted morality and dubious science.

Though you are free to love whom you want, historically it is the mutually desired love between youths and older males that has been the actual model of same-sex love. That love, in earlier times, was a driver of mentorship that is woefully absent in present Western society.

Beyond using the ancient Greek exemplar, some more modern examples are da Vinci, Tchaikovsky, Oscar Wilde, Alan Turing and Michael Jackson. Current men who love boys, who are or were prominent in their fields, have either been oppressed by a vicious judicial system or fear coming out lest they be wrongly accused. This should sound familiar to you, as this was just the case for your brand of homosexuality not that long ago.

Though NAMBLA disagrees with current laws dealing with sexuality, it does not and has never counseled breaking the law. Quite the opposite. Breaking even unjust laws creates harm for all involved. We still have faith in a democratic process that will eventually recognize the wrongheadedness that your email demonstrates.

That your ilk will endure accusations of "grooming" will not disappear if NAMBLA disappears. Those who hate are very resourceful in finding new rationales for their hate. We suggest that you grow up and learn the realities of the world.

* * *
Confusion About the 2nd and 4th Amendments

Our article on Cognitive Distortion further dow this page brought disagreement from a correspondent. We are publishing his comments as well as our response.

Dear Staff Report,

I just saw the rant, and I couldn't disagree more.

Weren't individuals in fact allowed to own the same weapons as government in the time of the framers? Muskets, cannon, etc. Do you think they had a problem with that? I think your sort of thinking mainly exists in modern times when most folks think that we lowly individuals should bow to a god-like government with powers far above and beyond those of individuals. I don't believe that sort of thinking was common back then. And why should a government that has committed genocide and crimes against humanity have any control over the weapons that we may own for self-defense? The U.S. government has no moral authority to tell anyone anything.

You say "Are they not aware of the many gun deaths caused by the inevitable carelessness that comes with keeping track of our possessions?" but you do not say how many deaths that is. If you mention a statistic of such importance to your argument, why not go ahead and tell readers what it is? You're arguing that anyone who knows the statistic would necessarily agree with your view, yet you don't even bother to tell the number.

Resources could perhaps be better spent engaging in activism for our liberation instead of campaigning to increase government control over our lives.

You guys are a trip.

Dear Staff Report,

Also, your claim that the use of the word "people" instead of "individual" means that only the collective was meant to be allowed to own weapons is incongruent with the wording of the Fourth Amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."

It says people, not individuals, are to be secure in their persons, houses, etc. So does that mean you also believe the Fourth Amendment does not apply to individuals? How much government control is enough for you?

You guys are a trip.

Our Response:

Please do not take us for fools. Most of us in NAMBLA's leadership are well versed in the English language.

In the Fourth Amendment, the word "people" is a collective noun. If you replace "people" with "public" -- another collective noun -- you do not change the meaning of the sentence.

One never says "I know a people" when one means "I know a person." You can know a people as in "I know the English people: They are a proud lot." A single unit of the English people would be an English person. One never says, "I am a people." One can say, "I am part of a people.

The Fourth Amendment narrows down the right to be secure as conferred to the collective "people" to the individual "persons," "houses," etc. The right of the whole nation or the people is SPECIFICALLY conferred to individual persons.

The Second Amendment never does this. It never narrows down from "people" to "persons," and from the two initial clauses gives the unmistakable meaning that the right is a collective one and not an individual one as in the Fourth Amendment. Please carefully re-read both amendments. Again, if the Second Amendment were as many gun enthusiast would like to believe, then owning tactical nuclear weapons would also be legal. See where that gets you!

From an etymological perspective, part of the English language is derived from the Norman French following their conquest of England in 1066.

The word "people" is close to the French word "peuple." In French, the word is also a collective noun.

Thanks for your comment. We hope this exchange when published without identifying elements will help educate our readers.

* * *

An Uncomfortable Truth

We publish this essay from a correspondent because it is emblematic of a truth we have always known – many children, even from an early age, have pronounced sexual feelings. They somehow find ways of expressing these. If they have ever suffered harm from freely doing so, the harm has been uniquely from overwhelmingly exaggerated negative reactions by caretakers and a censorious culture.

Individuals who self-identify as LGTBQ are too invested in the narrative imposed by the dominant society to gainsay what are essentially lies. In private, many will reveal experiences supporting that they acted with agency and never experienced physical or emotional harm. One former youngster, now an elderly gay gentleman we know, used to use his school issued bus pass to visit “tea rooms” for assignations. His open-minded parents were Beat Generation progressives and were fully aware of their son’s escapades. Their son never experienced trauma, and he not only graduated from a prestigious high school but went on to university and a successful career.

My name is Manny. I am from Scandinavia. The legal age in Sweden is 15 and it is 16 in Norway. I am now in my 30s and uniquely a boylover. When I was a boy, I preferred older men, but as I got older, boys became my preference.

At the age of 11, I first realized how sexy I was in the way only a boy could be in my now adult boylover opinion. I didn’t hit puberty until I was 14, so I had 2-3 years in that perfect body and dream about everything a man could do with me sexually.

That was some years before I had a computer, but there was a gay hotline listed in our newspaper, and I called a lot. Every man I called was really interested, and I never got turned down even once in those short calls.

Those calls were short because before the men could plan anything with me, the hotline supervisors would kick me off. My treble boy voice would give me away. It was impossible to hide that fact :)

Then my parents got a big phone bill and decided from then on to request that the bills had to specify outgoing calls. So, I never dared to try again :(

Just as fast I could get online when I was 15, I started to meet older men for sex. My only regret is that I didn’t have a computer, with an Internet connection, years sooner.

I bet there were a lot of boys like me then as well as now.

The supervisors on the gay hotline were, as far as I know, not obligated to report younger boys calling in. It is perhaps different today when everything is so illegal in a way that is hard to believe.

My parents never found out, and I kept it hidden from family and friends.

This is how it was for me in Scandinavia in the 90s.

It is important to remember that Manny’s youthful experience and the one described in our introduction, happened at different times and places. His essay and our introductory remarks should NOT be taken as encouragement to break any law. Even in a democracy, some bad laws do get passed. Those should be changed ONLY through education and a rational process – NOT by breaking laws. Our mission from the beginning has been to educate and to encourage rational thinking.


* * *
Cognitive Distortion

No sane person can ignore recent events of mass killings of children and many more innocent people. We could no longer hold off commenting on it and on the diseased thinking that allows the perpetuation of such atrocities.





Cognitive distortion is what our kinder detractors accuse us of. That somehow our perception has been twisted into some unrealistic view is their best way of understanding us. They imagine, "How can a man unrelated to a boy be drawn to him? What could such an adult find appealing in a youngster?" They are however blind to the possibility that a boy's incipient intellect, his personality or joie de vie holds great joy for both adult and youngster and that all of this can sometimes bring about mutual physical attraction. A comprehensive answer to our detractors' distorted thinking needs to be explored in a separate essay, but a different cognitive distortion is the actual theme we are pursuing here.

The incident that brings us to examine our current societal twisted notions is the latest of too many unspeakable acts – the butchering of young children. "Butchering" is too weak a word, but there is no alternative in the English language for a massacre where bullets decapitate children and where their riddled bodies are reduced to unrecognizable meat.

To begin, let's look at the distorted view of the Second Amendment that has taken on near religious proportions among gun fanatics. It reads thus:

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The framers of the Constitution were no imbeciles. They understood grammar and the importance of the meaning of words. The amendment did not say "the right of individuals to own and bear arms." Moreover, the first two clauses of the amendment modify the latter part. That right is granted only with state regulation and in the service of the state.

The framers guaranteed the right to bear arms to the individual colonies, now states of the United States, but not to individual persons – the word "people" is a collective noun. Were our view not so, why would the Second Amendment, as currently interpreted by a politicized Court, not permit private ownership of weapons of mass destruction? Those are arms too, are they not? If ownership of cars can be regulated, certainly firearms deserve the same consideration. Even the operation of a barbershop or beauty salon can be regulated. Give us a break!

When a literate and moderately educated person can correctly parse a basic English sentence such as the Second Amendment, how can one not suspect Supreme Court members of being biased along the views of the parties that promoted their elevation?

Gun aficionados like to suggest that training and arming teachers is a solution to school mass shootings. Really? Are they not aware of the many gun deaths caused by the inevitable carelessness that comes with keeping track of our possessions? Misplacing a gun is orders of magnitude more serious than losing one's keys or wallet. Teachers and schools are no exception to our epidemic of accidental gun death including those motivated by extreme anger. Then, what are we teaching children when teachers must carry weapons? Is it really the lesson that students need to learn that violence can only be dealt with violence? Must children in schools with armed teachers constantly fear that they are only moments away from being maimed or killed?

Then there is the puerile notion that the best way to counter a bad person with a gun is to have a good person with a gun. That may work in movies where these infantile notions originate but not in real life. Imagine a "good person" happening on a situation where a gun is being used. How does he ascertain, in the heat of the moment, what is actually happening? Is the shooter a "good person" or a "bad person?" The shooter might actually be a cop not in uniform defending himself or another. Imagine yet a "good person" now shooting at a "bad person." How are subsequent "good persons" able to figure out who is who? With just about every person armed as the gun lobby would have it, there would then be a free for all with bullets flying indiscriminately in every direction – a plot line for a gruesome comedy sketch.

It is disheartening to realize that many with otherwise adequately functioning brains can formulate misconceptions of the world the way gun apologists do. And guns are far from the many other policy issues that a sane society needs to deal with. Unfortunately, distorted cognitive ability is the case for too many who either do not have the ability for critical thinking or for those who are have it but who cynically work to advance their own agenda.

For us, the struggle is long and hard, but we have reason and virtue on our side.

Recent updates reveal that there were indeed "good people with guns" to thwart the "bad person with a gun." These "good people," if indeed pusillanimous, were well armed and donned with body armor. Yet it took over an hour for these "good people" to act.


* * *

Magic Numbers
by John P.

I am John, a healthy gay man in my early 50's. For purposes of "identifying" myself as it pertains to this writing, I would self-analyze myself under the labels of a hebephile and an ephebophile. When I was an adolescent boy of around 13-16, I had insatiable attractions to boys around my age and fantasized constantly.

Something happened as I aged into adulthood. Or should I say nothing happened. I grew older but my physical attractions did not. I can now find myself attracted to older guys but the young men hold a special place. It's not just about sexuality. Sometimes I just want them to be my companion. The utter fascination of experiencing a vacuum in the presence of a perfect creature who floods my senses with undivided stimulus, if only for a fleeting moment. It's as if I would trade a lifetime of sexual interaction for just one second of knowing I pleased him.

So now I cower in the shadows of fear and shame. It seems the times in history and the geographic places we dwell dictate what is acceptable within a population. Now in the early 2020's more than ever at least in the U.S., the political climate is unraveling the final frontier of human rights, and reversing over 100 years of progressive evolution. Society levies the importance of worth by who's sleeping with whom.

In my opinion most people seem to be locked inside a paradox torn between an obsession to live a formulaic existence, hence the "correct" career, home, family/peer relations, passions to the other extreme of a personal longing to just be left alone; a tranquil void of the pressure to remain relevant.

So, I wonder where I fall into this identity soup? What role do we "boy lovers" play? Phycology breaks this down in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), now in the everchanging editions of #5. Even though this could have monumental legal & reputational ramifications, isn't it all based on magic numbers? Ages of consent, Ageism, drifting borders? Splitting hairs of some law, somewhere a one-year difference in age could send a person to prison.

On a more personal level. What happens when Johnny the boy inevitably grows into John the man? Does that vicious cycle continue? On a side note, my older brother R.I.P. had feelings for younger boys and got into legal trouble many years ago, having to register as an offender.

In all my "careful" (fear) research for some kind of support, or more information I find very little. NAMBLA's (no offense) reputation & stature has diminished to whatever it is over the many years and other resources are scarce or driven underground. One of the biggest criticisms of the organization seems to be the lack of documentation of younger voices in numbers who seek age of consent reform, etc. (besides a handful of old letters)?

Editorial Note: We take no offense, but it should be noted that NAMBLA’s reputation has only diminished among those who easily swallow consumed popular media. No other organization has yet dared to hold up a prominent profile.

As for documenting younger voices, our emails in our letters section point otherwise. Our old publication Boys Speak Out was put together at a time when, especially in the Netherlands, attitudes were much more progressive. Doing so today is impossible.


Some Thoughts on Love and Consent
by David E.

When I hear the word "love," I don't think of age, race, sexual preference, or appearance. I think of commitment, mutual agreement, and understanding. The ability to bond and coexist as a communion of one. The nesscessary actions one takes to put his needs on the back burner, so he can provide for the needs of his significant other.

But society had abused this word and set limitations on it. They say that you've got to be a certain age to understand love, as well as consenting to any acts of love. Yet consent will vary with the individual. I could be twelve years old and know nothing of sex, then down the road, a boy my age has been sexual active since he was seven. So why is society treating all of this the same?

Is it because of their lack of understanding? Or have they never experienced this when they were young, so they assumed minors don't know as much as they give them credit for? I think there might be a couple of reasons. One, it could be the fact that they don't want to see their children and grandchildren as sexual beings, so they're in denial of this truth. But when we were born, we had this nature already instilled in us. We could be extremely sheltered from anything that's sexual related, and nature will always find a way to draw us to it.

And two, society may be concerned on the crime rate going up? Let me elaborate. If there's no age of consent, then it'll be very easy to lie about everything involving relationships, love, or sex. Even if at first it was consensual, later on, the boy might feel differently? So he says that he was raped or molested. That'll look very badly on people like us.

I can see things from both sides, but society's side is labeling it only one thing. We're cold hearted monsters that needs help, and children can't consent. Which I understand their point of view, but they're putting it all in one basket. We all aren't molesters, and all children aren't innocent. That's the truth, and once society knows the truth, the better.

I actually respect you guys at NAMBLA. From what I see so far, you aren't sexually crazed. You've got your own belief system, but you're not doing anything stupid to jeopardize that. Like society had labeled us, driving around in dark-tinted vans looking for children. But we're just normal people who's opposite in agreement with society and the law way of thinking. And once they come to terms with our reality, they'll see things in a whole new light.

I want to become a NAMBLA participant, because my belief is similar to yours. And I'm a good speaker, whether verbally or on paper. When I'm passionate with something, I keep at it. Hopefully someday, your work with come into the light with a different perspective. But for now, you've got to work in the shadows, so that it can happen eventually.