Submitted On: November 1, 1993

NAMBLA's Position Papers are available via snail mail for anyone 
who requests them. It should be noted that NAMBLA has taken stands 
on A WIDE RANGE OF ISSUES relating to individual freedom and youth 
liberation, in addition to those relating to youth and sexuality.

Our position on age of consent was adopted in December, 1983. 
I first posted this statement to USENET in August of 1991.

Please note that we are NOT proposing that ALL young people
must or should engage in intimate sexual relationships.

Our position is that the present state of affairs in this 
country: 

   1) fails to consider individual differences and the 
      wishes of the young person, his parents, or any
      one else.

   2) does not take into account the QUALITY of such a 
      relationship. Loving, supportive, consensual
      relationships are treated the same way as those
      that are violent, coercive, and destructive.

   3) deals more with repression of individual choice 
      and the intrusion of the police into people's 
      private lives, rather than the education and 
      empowerment of youth to have more control over 
      their own bodies, and

   4) for the most part this current approach does more 
      harm than good to everyone involved.


Other countries have successfully examined this problem
(with perhaps a lesser degree of prejudice and hysteria)
and have come up with laws which are more responsive to
the needs and wishes of all its citizens.

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The following is NAMBLA's official position on age-of-consent laws,
adopted at our seventh General Membership Conference in Boston, on
December 4th, 1983.

WHEREAS it is impossible to say at what age a person is capable of
consenting to sex because every individual and every case is
different; and therefore any attempt to set an age is capricious,
arbitrary, and unfair; and

WHEREAS any attempt to set an age would weaken NAMBLA's identity as a
sexual freedom organization, and limit it to advocating the point of
view of only a segment of its membership and of youth; and

WHEREAS the state has no business intervening in any mutually
consensual relationship, and NAMBLA has correctly refrained from
asking it to do so;

BE IT RESOLVED that NAMBLA reaffirm its position of abolition of all
age-of-consent laws and of other laws that violate the freedom of
young people to control their own lives.

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In Liberation,

Roy

Roy Radow               roy@panix.com         ...rutgers!cmcl2!panix!roy
North American Man/Boy Love Association -For a packet containing a sample
Bulletin, publications list and membership information send $1.00 postage
to: NAMBLA Info,  Dept.RR,  PO Box 174,  Midtown Station,  NYC NY  10018.