Ginsberg was a member of NAMBLA - Kill Your Darlings (2013) Discussion

[–] angelx 11 years ago

Not really "pedophilia" but rather "ephebophilia" which is sex with teenagers.

reply

[–] coex 11 years ago

exactly. it's actually a big difference that is always lost upon straights. Ginsberg was not a pedophile and preferred to keep things of legal age. Simple as that. now let's move on.

reply

[–] IvyTempleton 9 years ago

If they are under 18 it is not legal.

When you are not concerned with succeeding, you can work with complete freedom.

reply

[–] Mary_Crewe 9 years ago

"exactly. it's actually a big difference that is always lost upon straights."

For anyone, gay, straight, or bi, etc., being with a teenager under eighteen is wrong, because today they are viewed as children and also fetishizing people, even if it was an eighteen or nineteen year old, isn't healthy. It's better to be in love in a monogamous relationship with another adult out of love and not a fantasy.

"Ginsberg was not a pedophile and preferred to keep things of legal age. Simple as that. now let's move on."

Other people on here are saying he said that kids who were twelve and thirteen were the right age to have sex with.

I'm white and I've been aware of white privilege since I was kid, but stuff like this makes me realize how bad it is. Men like Ginsberg and Walt Whitman are constantly remembered as people who were gay, but Ginsberg was part of a pedophile group and Walt Whitman may have had sex with boys who were not considered old enough at the time and he didn't want black people to vote.

However, real gay men are not pedophiles, but these are the men people choose to teach about and remember, but what about decent gay men like Bayard Rustin? There was a large age gap between him and his partner, Walter Naegle, but they were both men. I guess there aren't enough days in February to learn about a decent gay black man, but it shouldn't only be limited to February anyway.

reply

[–] sevenof9fl 11 years ago

Wrong. His relationship with NAMBLA had to do with gay rights and about being open about homosexuality from an early age, and nothing about pedophilia.

Ginsberg himself had a lifelong lover his own age, to whom he considered he was married.

"USE THE LADIES ROOM!!!"

reply

[–] MWallace77 10 years ago

But still, married or not, I think Ginsberg fooled around. I think if he met an attractive young man who worshipped him, he probably indulged himself, it's just my opinion.

reply

[–] Milkdoesabodygood 10 years ago

Yuck and we read his trash!

IMDB rulers and moderators as of late, sold out and became like City data, Worthless bureaucrats.

reply

[–] lloydbowman 10 years ago

Grow up.

reply

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] lloydbowman 10 years ago

How tiresome ... And incorrect!

Ginsberg was NOT a pedophile. He liked young men, not little boys! Just like every straight guy likes young women/girls (if porn alone is any evidence of heterosexual male proclivities and fantasies!). Attraction to people who are "young and pretty" isn't pedophilia; it's pretty stereotypical maculine sexuality, whether heterosexual or homosexual.

Ginsberg was enough of a counter-cultural lighthing rod with plenty of powerful Establishment enemies that I'm sure the authorities would have imprisoned him and ruined him in a heartbeat if he had actually engaged in pedophilia.

reply

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] TheBoz 10 years ago

Really, Nambla doesent care how young the person is. So stop the deflection about what Ginsburg liked. His support and membership was no less then an endorsement of their charter. If a Heterosexual joined a movement that championed rape, because thats the nature of man, to get it when he wants it, then that is no less loathsome. Ginsburg says he joined to support their right to free speech even if he didnt sleep wit little boys. You could say the same for joining the White Power Parties or any other group with the disclaimer that you are doing it for the sake of helping protect their free speech. Ginsburg wasnt a lawyer so to put himself with such company makes one wonder how much about Ginsburg is not revealed.

Ginsburg was no lightning rod. He was a homosexual libertine who used the media to make Ginsburgs sex life better. His only concern was were his next piece of azz was coming from and his poetry was so much smut, not even good Gay porn from what some Gay people I have met have opinionated

"NAMBLA is strongly opposed to age-of-consent laws and all other restrictions which deny men and boys the full enjoyment of their bodies and control over their own lives".-Namblas Self Description.

reply

[–] Felicia-Hardy 10 years ago

I didn't know this about Ginsburg but anyone who joins nambla is sick no matter their "excuse".

reply

[–] shellmine 10 years ago

Ginsburg was no lightning rod. He was a homosexual libertine who used the media to make Ginsburgs sex life better. His only concern was were his next piece of azz was coming from and his poetry was so much smut, not even good Gay porn from what some Gay people I have met have opinionated

Yawn, what a messy and pointless response. You've just heard NAMBLA and gone completely off on your own. Why are you talking as if you knew Ginsberg's motivation more than anyone? Why do you seem so determined to villainize someone you don't even know, or even know much of, based on shaky opinions and assumptions?
FREE SPECH IS NOT LOATHSOME IN ANY FORM, EVEN IF IT MAKES YOU SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE.
Yeah, NAMBLA does sound icky as hell, however I certainly wouldn't compare it to a heterosexual rape club, because NAMBLA seems to dance around their opinion of statutory rape with pretty prose, whereas this imaginary rape club would blatantly encourage violent behaviour (I assume, given that 'rape' is in the title, rather than 'love' as NAMBLA has).
He was a Beats author, so he was nuts, and Beats authors were all about freedom of expression, so Ginsberg supporting controversial groups like NAMBLA (who in some ways are just pro-free expression) is actually fairly normal for his type. Ah, I see. He's gay, so he must have been a pedo right? I'm sure if it was a straight crazy Beats author with a wife you would have been content to call him quirky.
Plus his writing is awesome; pretty sure your gay friends are philistines.

Biased, but honest.

reply

[–] rocky100 10 years ago

We are not calling him a pedo because he was gay, but because he was a member of NAMBLA, a group that believes adult men should be able to have sex with four year old children. THAT is why we are calling him a pedo supporter, you fool.

Or you can excuse the pedophile and their supportersby just looking the other way and just being content with Ginsberg as simply being "nuts" "haha don't worry everyone, Ginsberg was a member of NAMBLA and supported pedophilia but it's just cuz he was just a nutty author! All is forgiven!"

reply

[–] Ramonesgirl707 10 years ago

long post warning, i have a lot of thoughts about this

Im not a huge fan of andrea dworkin (some of her work is okay but she was a trans-exclusionary radfem) but she was friends with allen and stopped this relationship when she found out he was a proponent of sex with children as young as 13. there is an interview online where she discusses this, some cursory googling should produce it. i believe that what she purports is true.

let's get this out of the way: engaging in sex with people that young is entirely reprehensible (and i'm not straight so idk what that other commenter was trying to get at.) i don't care about the microscopic semantic differences between "pedophilia" and "ephebophilia" or whatever it is. if you're an adult (and an adult over 50 at that!) there is such a power difference with someone so young, and by default you are going to have lived more experience than that child. you are probably not only fetishizing that child, but are going to manipulate and/or scar that child in some way, regardless of your intentions or how they feel about it at the time. i know certain teens are "more mature" or "more experienced" than others, but the sad truth is that that just usually isn't the case. coercion takes on many forms.

now,
i was a huge fan of the beats in high school. ginsberg is probs the reason i still write poetry if we're being honest. and i always just sort of ignored the nambla thing when i read about it, i figured he was old and bonkers and irrelevant by the time he started endorsing it anyway. which is true (even if you're a fan, reading through his collected works it is obvious that there's a point when his poetry loses its power and becomes just not good.)
but the fact that people just brush it off like i did, and like in this thread, is something scary. ginsberg shouldn't have endorsed nambla, period. i don't give a *beep* if he said it was for "free speech" reasons. there are (and were at the time) plenty of LEGITIMATE gay organizations that don't endorse having sex with children that he could have gone for. he literally read his poems at their meetings (the film "chicken hawk" shows this happening.) what the *beep*!!!

it really irritates me that with all this new interest in the beats (from james franco's film to on the road to this) no one is bringing this up. the fact is that ginsberg (and burroughs too, all that tangier nastiness) had sex with boys who were too young and nobody wants to bring this up. just sweep it under the rug so that these abusers can have more praise poured upon them for doing some cool things 60+ years ago.
also, there are plenty more influential and exciting literary and art movements than the beats imo. let's talk abt the new york school or fluxus or even dada itself.

TLDR, thank you OP for bringing attention to this, and i'm not surprised that this thread is full of people saying that it isn't a big deal.

edit: also, speaking more to why i didn't like the movie itself (in addition to the coming-of-age cheese).... http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/24/son-of-famous-beat-murderer-lucien-carr-disputes-kill-your-darlings-films-version-of-events/

l don't care about you or your *beep* hot chocolate.

reply

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] rocky100 10 years ago

LMFAO at all the morons trying to defend Ginsberg by saying "oh he was just a quirky poet who defended free speech" Like someone else said, it would be like joining the KKK and saying "oh I just joined because I support free speech"

NAMBLA is a group that believes men should be able to have sex with children as young as 4 and 5 years old. Ginsberg was a member and supporter of this group. These are 100% facts that no Ginsberg movie ever brings up.

reply

[–] shellmine 10 years ago

LMFAO at moron using other peoples arguments to join a conversation!

It's not like I'm a friggin supporter of NAMBLA, just saying he may have joined NAMBLA to be a freak, as opposed to the original opinion that he definitely was a pedo no questions asked. Yeah it's bad to support an organisation like that, but BECAUSE he's an insane person he might have just been doing it to show off. No proof that he was a paedophile has ever surfaced apart from being a member of NAMBLA (which either proves he was a pedo... OR an misguided insane person who could have thought he was making a statement in a dumb, over-the-top way), and I'm merely suggesting that it's not cut and dry.

Let's be clear and let me re-state: I don't think it's okay to join NAMBLA. Pedos are gross and under-age sex is wrong. BUT, until some victim or witness or anything of that nature comes forward with real proof that Ginsberg actually practiced paedophilia, I remain in the opinion that he was a tasteless wacko with bad judgement who wrote several things I like and a couple I love. Unless someone has been found guilty by a jury of their peers everything else is speculation... yes, even despite how bad it looks.

And yeah, someone could join KKK and justify it as free speech. Nobody would believe them, but it's not impossible and some people are obsessed with the right to free speech and don't care about their reputation.

Biased, but honest.

reply

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Ramonesgirl707 10 years ago

yes. vocally supporting pedophilia is about as despicable as pedophilia itself. you are enabling a horrible crime! and he openly told people he slept with dudes as young as 16. and there's that poem where he says he "sleeps with teenagers laughing," gross.

if we're being honest here the only beat i remotely care about is peter orlovsky

l don't care about you or your *beep* hot chocolate.

reply

[–] shellmine 10 years ago

"Guilty by association" means nothing. One is either a pedo or one isn't.

Again: bad, wrong, stupid, insane. Doesn't mean he's a pedophile.

Sick, twisted, immoral, even a supporter of a known pedophilic organisation, does not a pedophile make.

It's disturbing and I can understand that, but there's no proof he did anything himself and I don't think that changes his work or it's impact but that is personal opinion. Alfred Hitchcock regularly stalked, controlled, raped and beat his lovers, are his movies less scary? What about Gandhi? And his predisposition for sleeping naked next to underage persons (there were many), also naked? Or perhaps he is more deserving of the benefit of the doubt, as some seem to be.

How about we concern ourselves with proven pedophiles and stop retroactively witch-hunting? He's dead; so unless someone comes forward with something concrete (in which case i will stfu), an eccentric, talented, wildly inappropriate, lunatic writer is all he'll ever be.

Biased, but honest.

reply

[–] Ramonesgirl707 10 years ago

i can't find the interview where dworkin talks about it online, but apparently she wrote on it in her book "heartbreak." he literally was, while arguing with her, pointing out 12-13 year old boys at her son's bar mitzvah and saying they were old enough to have sex with. i think that is pretty disturbing. but if you do not, i am afraid we are at an impasse.
(edit) i also don't think its a case of "guilty by association", more like "guilty by vocal support of"? imo, it is important that this truth is not something that gets swept under the rug wrt ginsberg's legacy, because to do so would be ignoring what rly happened.

edit: ok also i just remembered in that same interview she recounts him openly telling her that he had done sexual things w/ 16 year olds. (i thought that addendum was important i don't rly have the energy 2 deal w/ this anymore, ginsberg is an influence of mine and his poems made a big impression on me but im willing to admit he was a big *beep* creep, especially later in life seems like (and he wrote some *beep* poems too but irrelevant)

l don't care about you or your *beep* hot chocolate.

reply

[–] shellmine 9 years ago

sounds compelling ramonesgirl and we are basically in agreement. Only I am a little funny about what some people say in reference to dead celebrities. Like with Michael Jackson, and to quote Chappelle, I am reserving judgement. Another example is a famous musician's autobiography, I forget who, who told an interesting tale of Freddy Mercury and a 13 (or under) year old thai boy who he threw out of his hotel room, bleeding, saying he needed a new one because this one was "broken". With MJ, and Freddy, and Ginsberg, it is all believable, also probably true, but never proven beyond all reasonable doubt, which is all I ever accept. I can understand if people aren't the same, I just find that sort of thing futile.

Biased, but honest.

reply

[–] BitterAsHell 9 years ago

Ramones:

Andrea Dworkin herself wasn't the most reliable source toward the end of her life. Remember her story about being raped in Paris? Even some of her close associates thought that one didn't quite ring true.

And I'm having some difficulty with the idea that Ginsberg, knowing what Dworkin's views on sexuality were, would have expressed to her an interest in 13 year boys. Then again, I was always surprised that the two of them had any sort of alliance at all. Did Ginsberg really think that her views on porn were compatible with his approach to sexuality?

Another thing...

Are we meant to be shocked and disgusted that Ginsberg went after 16 year olds? Sixteen is actually the age of consent in a lot of places. Granted, March/October romances are a little on the offbeat side, but it's not always considered bad enough to be criminalized.

reply