Frequently Asked
Questions About
NAMBLA and Man/Boy Love
Q: What do you seek to
accomplish?
A: NAMBLA was formed in the
belief that if
people knew more about the actual nature of typical man/boy love
relationships, that there would be less unjust scapegoating and
persecution of boys and men who
have such relationships.
Q: Why do you oppose
age-of-consent laws?
A: Opposing age-of-consent
laws is not our
only focus; it is one part of our broader criticism of North
American social and legal practices. We believe that these
laws
do great harm to people and relationships that do not deserve to feel
the crushing weight of the heavy hand of the law. Just as
important, age-of-consent laws do not adequately protect young
people. They have
often been applied arbitrarily and unjustly, and have long been used to
terrorize gay
males. Gay youth in particular have been targets of extreme
persecution through the selective application of age-of-consent laws.
Q: What is this “ageism”
you refer to?
A: Ageism refers to
age-based
discrimination, and includes the tendency to
discount and devalue the feelings and opinions of children and
youth. This tendency pervades our society and has
implications in
every area of a young person’s daily life: at home, at work, while
shopping, hanging out with friends or going places, and especially at
school. It has the socially corrosive -- and costly -- effect
of
breeding fear and distrust between the generations and isolating them
from each other.
Q: What do you propose in
place of
age-of-consent laws?
A: Age-of-consent laws are
those which say
that if you are under a certain age, then what you say doesn’t
matter. We believe young people would be much better
protected by
laws -- and social attitudes -- that take their opinions, feelings
and decisions into consideration. We have never proposed
specific
laws, but in
general we advocate changes in society and the law to include greater
respect and consideration for children and youth -- not merely in the
abstract, but in each individual case. We reject the
cookie-cutter approach often used by authorities, moralists, and
legislators who presume to know what someone wants without asking them,
and who claim to know what is best for every person without having met
them. Individualism -- the belief that each person is
important
and deserving of respect -- is one of the core founding values of North
American society. We advocate for a society that lives up to
this
ideal, as it applies to people of all ages.
Q: How can society best
protect vulnerable
people?
A: The claim is made that
age-of-consent
laws protect the vulnerable. In practice, they give undue
power
to those who already have power -- police and prosecutors -- while
removing power from some of society’s most vulnerable populations --
notably, gay youth. We believe that vulnerable people are
better
served by giving them more choices, not fewer. Children and
youth
can be made less vulnerable by giving them more options.
Those
who need to escape abusive family members or other abusive situations
need more options than we as a society currently provide them
with. Those who live in poverty, those who face racial,
religious, and sexual prejudice -- all need more options, not fewer.
Q: You make this seem like
such a noble
cause, but isn’t it really just a selfish one?
A: There is a much bigger
dimension to the
issues we raise, with implications for everyone. The interest
that all people share in widespread access to truthful information is
more than just philosophical. Too often, politicians take
advantage of gaps in public knowledge, and play on public fears to
divert attention from their own actions. When they are
allowed to
do this, the result is bad government for everyone (something we’ve all
seen plenty of in the last few decades). Our efforts to
educate
the public on the issues of man/boy love, ageism and anti-sexualism are
intended to help bring about better informed public policy
and an
electorate less vulnerable to politicians who would use their fears
against them.
Q: Do you believe it’s
possible for a boy
and a man to have a close, even sexual relationship, without any harm?
A: Yes it’s possible, and
it happens every
day. Many studies have confirmed that the large majority of
sexual contacts between boys and older partners are both consensual and
harmless. See below for a listing of some of these published,
peer-reviewed studies.
Q: But aren’t these
relationships always
initiated by the adult?
A: No. We know
from experience that
some boys do initiate sexual contacts with adults. This is
confirmed by several published studies, which have found that a
substantial percentage of boys' sexual contacts with older partners
were initiated by the boy (see references below for details).
Q: Do you believe there are
actually boys
who find men attractive that way?
A: It is well established
that some boys do
find men very attractive. Certainly, plenty of gay men have
reported being infatuated during early- and middle-childhood (5 to 10
years of age) with masculine icons such as the “Marlboro Man” and even
Peter Graves, the silver-haired leading man of Mission
Impossible. Gay novels, biographies and autobiographies
provide
abundant examples. And not all boys who find men attractive
identify as gay. It is very easy to underestimate the sheer
scale
of the multidimensional rainbow of human diversity -- and the strength
of teenaged male sexuality.
Q: Ok, but if a boy does
come on to you,
wouldn’t it be better simply to refuse the advance?
A: If your concern is for
the safety of the
man (any man), in today’s climate, then the answer is probably, yes --
walk away, and stay away, and just don’t have anything to do with kids
in general. But boys take rejection very hard, and they take
isolation even harder. It has a deeply negative effect on
their
outlook, which can have lifelong implications -- and broad implications
for society. Unfortunately, this kind of
self-segregation
of men from boys has become a major social problem in its own right --
a problem which will never be solved while man/boy love is stigmatized
as harshly as it is now.
Q: So, does this mean you
believe the
relationship can benefit the boy?
A:
We know it can; some of us have seen examples in person. And
several peer-reviewed studies have shown that boys who have consenting
relationships with men usually feel positively about their relationship
and feel that the relationship has had a positive effect on them.
Q: Ok, so if sex is
so great,
why do
educators and doctors tell us it's harmful to kids?
A: Well, people in very
similar positions
used to say with authority that
masturbation would cause insanity and physical infirmity.
They
told us that gay men had mis-shapen penises and weak fathers, and that
women who didn’t bear children would go crazy. They
recommended
clitoridectomy for girls who masturbated and circumcision for boys to
prevent them from doing so. Few know that this is the
sole
reason why infant circumcision became a routine practice in
Western
Europe and the U.S. in the late 19th-century (of course, it didn’t
work, and the practice was discontinued in Europe).
1
Q: But isn’t the
harmfulness of sex
supported by scientific research?
A: Actually, no it
isn’t.
Peer-reviewed studies have shown clearly that there is nothing
intrinsically harmful about sexual experiences between boys and
men. For a full explanation, see:
Outcomes:
Can Science Shed
Some Light?
Footnotes:
1. John Money.
The destroying angel: Sex,
fitness, and
food in the legacy of degeneracy theory, Graham Crackers, Kellogg's
Corn Flakes, and American health history. Buffalo, N.Y.:
Prometheus Books, 1985.
