JOINING
NAMBLA was a
significant step in my evolution from isolation to seIf
acceptance. I was exposed for the first time to others with
sexual feelings similar to mine; as heinous as my thoughts and feelings
about boys might have seemed to me there were others in this world who
had similar leanings.
The first NAMBLA meeting I attended surprised me because not only were
there others like me, they were as diverse as those of any single-
purpose group could be. There was a range of social, ethnic and
political representations. There were people I respected: men and
women who were honest with themselves and others, who saw the need for
examining the issues surrounding the love between children and adults
from broad social, political, legal and personal perspectives and whom
I considered to have personal integrity. My association with
these people has helped me increase my self-respect tremendously.
As my "perversion" became less perverse, I started looking outward for
sources of my feelings of inadequacy caused by my pedophilia. The
more I examined my life, the more obvious it became to me that my
predilection for young boys was not necessarily bad. What was bad
were the repressive measures inflicted upon children who chose to love
an adult completely and upon those adults who chose to so love a
child. My pedophilia allowed me to see my repression as but one
facet of a much larger pattern of social and political oppression.
There is potential for political stagnation in NAMBLA if we lose sight
of this broader context, stagnation which can occur in spite of the
willingness of some members to put their reputations, jobs and lives on
the line to confront the legal system about cross-generational love and
sex. The system arrayed against us is strong, hence the need for
sophisticated political awareness and wider political support.
When viewed in a purely sexual context, the subject of child-adult sex
can be quite limited. But it is very difficult to view it solely
in that context. Hard upon the heels of the question of the
legitimacy of children engaging in sex with adults or other children
comes the more important issue of the right of children to have control
of and consent in all areas of their lives, non-sexual as well as
sexual. With the dependency which we adults have fostered in
young people, it would be unrealistic to expect them to assume the full
responsibilities attendant with complete social liberation
immediately. But if adults would admit to prior mistakes in child
rearing and undertake it instead as a process for inculcating
self-sufficiency and self respect, then such a time would be hastened
in coming.
There are reasons for the reluctance of our political and social
institutions to accept the liberation of children. Principal
among these is the concept of children as chattel, that is, movable
property. Legally, children are not owned by their parents, but
nonetheless are completely subject to their parent's domination and
consequently, have the status of slaves.
Children have no rights. If black people were barred from the
streets after 10:00 pm, if women were prohibited from frequenting video
arcades except on weekends, if 30 year olds were banned from having
consensual sex with 40 year olds, there would be a vehement outcry
against the obvious discrimination. But in their supposed wisdom,
adults have decided what is right, safe or harmful for young
people. Status offenses (crimes such as truancy, curfew
violations, running away from home and others so defined based solely
on the age of the perpetrator) are by definition discriminatory.
A logical ramification of pedophilia should be an acceptance by the
pedophile of children's liberation as opposed to externally imposed
"children's rights". Children, for example, have the right in
this country not to be treated as an adult in the juvenile justice
system but forfeit as a consequence any and all of the legal rights
adult citizens may possess. Children have a right not to work at
arduous or dangerous jobs (though many do) but have been denied the
right to earn a living and to live independently except at the
convenience and behest of adults. Those rights granted to young
people currently are those which when given still allow for easy
maintenance of children as second class citizens.
From an acceptance of the concept of children's liberation it is not a
large step to the acceptance of the idea of general social liberation
for all people. When special cases of discrimination against
children are examined, the specialness of the examples
diminishes. The discrimination against children is similar to
that experienced by all socially oppressed and disadvantaged groups in
this country such as women, the aged, lesbians, the poor, the mentally
retarded, gay men, and the physically disadvantaged.
Ultimately, though, it is not classes or groups that are oppressed; it
is individuals. It is each of us, as it is each and every child,
who is being kept in her or his place, made to toe the line, to power
the economic juggernaut, to fuel the military machine, to obey the
self-serving rules of the oligarchy.
The liberation of the individual from control by the oligarchy is the
only sure way to the liberation of children. If boys are to be
free to love men in any manner the boy wishes, then we as members and
friends of NAMBLA must be willing to assume active roles in the
struggle for individual liberation in all of its manifestations.
Our first role would be to become active and open advocates of freedom
for all people. We must become vociferous supporters of women's
liberation, economic self-determination for people of color, nuclear
disarma- ment (nuclear war being the most sweeping violation of
individual liberties) and other issues seemingly not directly related
to pedophilia.
Second, we should eschew adherence to political rectitude but in its
stead question all authority including our own intentions in our
political activities. We should promote discussion and argument
on important social issues. This may seem to contradict the first
point, but it does not. Unquestioned acceptance of dogma or a
party line in areas with which one is politically sympathetic does not
provide the environment necessary for growth and needed new
perspectives.
Third, special groups should be allowed their own rights of decision
and self expression. For instance, a woman I know took umbrage at
a gay man's insistence that homosexual women should be called
"gay.” Her comment was that all of the homosexual women she knew,
herself included, considered themselves and called themselves
"lesbian.” This is not a minor point but reflects the overall
issue of self-determination and self-expression. identities,
names or designations imposed from without are an indication of the
attempted imposition of external control.
The need to become aware and involved politically is particularly acute
at this time. The involvement of the FBI, postal inspectors and
police in trying to entrap us is an example of our government's
willingness to restrict and deny personal freedom in the name of what
it claims to be the general welfare. These tactics are
historically-based. There were, for instance, the internment of
the Japanese in the Second World War and the quasi-legal and illegal
tactics used to infiltrate, discredit or destroy anti-war and social
activist groups in the 60's and 70's, including our government's
destruction of the Black Panther Party using violence and
killing. This was strikingly similar to the response to the
earlier civil rights movement.
Issues concerning children cry out for political action. When
will we insist that the government end its policy of attempted
domination of poor, unaligned and "colored" countries with its
attendant hideous massacres of children? How long will we permit
the continued erosion of social programs whose marginal beneficiaries
are those least able to exert political power: the poor, women, the
handicapped--and children? We have imposed upon our children a
nightmare of nuclear destruction because the proliferation and
production of nuclear weapons are good for business: when will we make
this planet safe for our children? When will we allow children
the right to do with their bodies what they please: to love as they
wish, to play as they wish, simply, to live?
We claim to love children. What price are we willing to pay to
prove it?
Most of the members of NAMBLA I have known are white, middle-class men
and thus relatively isolated from the socioeconomic repression felt by
large numbers of people on this planet. We have a responsibility
because of our relative freedom of action to the ideal we espouse of
complete liberation for children. It cannot come about in a
society where short term economic considerations take overwhelming
precedence over social concerns. There are many ways of working
for a socially resonsible society. Minimally, we can wear buttons
or use bumper stickers to urge for social change, and we can defend the
positions they express. More effective and involved techniques
include, but are not limited to, the use of the political system and
the ballot box as weapons for change, involvement in local political
organizations and contributions of money and time to organizations
whose goals are the liberation of all peoples. Extra-legal
activities such as tax resistance or support of draft resistors
(perhaps by the establishment of "safe houses" or underground railways)
are more dangerous but still effective ways of combatting a political
and social system which is becoming increasingly repressive.
Whatever we do, we must begin by articulating the links between a boy's
right to determine what he does with his body, young people's rights to
greater self-determination, and all individuals' rights to freedom.
But we must act. Failure to act now only signs the death warrant
for individual liberties and guarantees our ultimate enslavement.
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