North American Man/Boy Love Association

North American Man/Boy Love Association
FoundedDecember 2, 1978; 45 years ago (1978-12-02)[1]
FounderDavid Thorstad
TypeUnincorporated association
FocusPedophile and pederasty activism
Location
Area served
North America
MethodRemoving age of consent laws
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The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA, stylized as NAMbLA) is a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age-of-consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors[2][3] and campaigns for the release of men who have been jailed for sexual contacts with minors that did not involve what it considers coercion.[2][4]

The group no longer holds regular national meetings, and as of the late 1990s—to avoid local police infiltration—the organization discouraged the formation of local chapters.[4][5] Around 1995, an undercover detective discovered there were 1,100 people on the organization's rolls.[4] NAMBLA was the largest group in International Pedophile and Child Emancipation (IPCE), an international pro-pedophile activist organization.[6] Since then, the organization has dwindled to only a handful of people, with many members joining online pedophile networks, according to Xavier Von Erck, director of operations at the anti-pedophile organization Perverted-Justice.[7] As of 2005, a newspaper report stated that NAMBLA was based in New York and San Francisco.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gayhist was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Holmes, Ronald M.; Stephen T. Holmes (2002). Current perspectives on sex crimes. SAGE. p. 165. ISBN 0-7619-2416-7.
  3. ^ M DeYoung (March 1989). "The World According to NAMBLA: Accounting for Deviance". Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. 16: 111–126. doi:10.15453/0191-5096.1885. S2CID 55149751.
  4. ^ a b c d Soto, Onell R. (2005). 'FBI targets pedophilia advocates: Little-known group promotes 'benevolent' sex Archived March 25, 2005, at the Wayback Machine', San Diego Union-Tribune, February 18.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference boston was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Whitfield, Charles L.; Silberg, Joyanna L.; Fink, Paul Jay (2001). Misinformation Concerning Child Sexual Abuse and Adult Survivors. Haworth Maltreatment & Trauma Press. p. 129. ISBN 9780789019004.
  7. ^ Pearl, Mike (March 25, 2016). "Whatever Happened to NAMBLA, America's Paedophilia Advocates?". VICE US. Archived from the original on March 29, 2016. Retrieved March 30, 2016.