“On its Web site and newsletters, the North American Man/Boy Love Association advocates sex between men and boys and cites ancient Greece to justify the practice. It goes by the acronym NAMBLA, and the FBI has been following it for years, linking it to pedophilia and recently infiltrating it with an agent successful enough to be asked to join the group’s steering committee. Law enforcement officials and mental health professionals say that while NAMBLA’s membership numbers are small, the group has a dangerous ripple effect through the Internet by sanctioning the behavior of those who would abuse children… Saturday, the FBI arrested three NAMBLA members at Harbor Island as they waited for a boat that undercover agents told them would sail to Ensenada for a sex retreat over Valentine’s Day with boys as young as 9… The FBI said four NAMBLA members were arrested in a Los Angeles marina where they also planned to set sail to the bogus rendezvous. The seven men represent a cross-section of America: a Dallas dentist, a Pittsburgh special-education teacher, a South Carolina substitute teacher, a New Mexico handyman, a Chicago flight attendant who is also a psychologist and two Florida men, a worker at a paper company and a personal trainer.” —SignOnSanDiego.com (US)

This is a long, fascinating article about NAMBLA. It was occasioned by the bust of seven NAMBLA members who were preparing to go to Mexico for — well, it wasn’t just for fun in the sun. If they were guilty as charged, their motivation was closer to the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

And in fact that is the very reason NAMBLA is a flash point: it speaks the name of a love that, though it’s not exactly uncommon, is entirely taboo in the present day and age. NAMBLA publicly advocates pederasty and has been doing so for decades. Naturally this has made it a lightning rod for controversy. Is it a group of sick child molesters hiding their criminal lusts beneath a First Amendment cloak? Or is it the vanguard of sexual liberation, today’s version of what the gay rights movement was to the 1960s or 1970s?

Whichever you think it is, you’ll be fascinated by some of the details in this article. For example, there’s the very fact that the group is constantly being infiltrated by law enforcement. And while obviously child abuse and sexual tourism are crimes, somehow it’s always unsettling to imagine the FBI infiltrating the bedroom. There are states where a blowjob is technically illegal — you half imagine yourself in a moment of pleasure, lying there in your own bed, and suddenly a secret agent pops out of the pillowcase to arrest you…

Then again, maybe it’s not a matter of “infiltrating the bedroom,” since NAMBLA has in effect opened up its own bedroom to the world. By going public in its advocacy of a private —and illegal — practice, it invites scrutiny. How hard can it be to infiltrate a group that you can join over the internet?

VideoBox

It's like the iTunes Music Store for Porn. Download unlimited high-quality video for only $9.95/month.