Biographical essay on the life of famed Scottish artist, writer, boy-lover and anarchist John Henry Mackay. Mackay wrote much of his work under the nom de plume “Sagitta” and eventually used his own name to write the classics “The Hustler” and “Fenny Skaller,” the latter revealing Mackay’s favorite gratification from boys—kissing. Mackay is celebrated along with other great boy-lovers of the period, like writer Magnus Hirshfield and acclaimed boy photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden. Mackay devoted his life to the political, legal and artistic promotion of man/boy love. Since he was most attracted to guys in the 17 to 18 range, he did not consider himself a pedophile, although several pedophiles supported his work.
“I sing of the love whose joy
You bury, proscribe, and ban!
I sing a man’s love for a boy,
A boy’s love I sing, for a man.”
—Sagitta GM

Publisher: Mackay Society
Pamphlet: 54 pages
Illustrated

This NAMBLA publication helps members across the nation in their struggle to change the media’s attitude toward man/boy love. There is useful information here, whether or not you are a boy-lover, in that the lessons are applicable to anyone who deals with the media. The booklet starts by reprinting an article about NAMBLA that appeared in February 1995 in a gay Philadelphia newspaper. Among other things, the article discusses how the International Gay and Lesbian Association (IGLA) was threatened refusal into the United Nations because NAMBLA was an IGLA member. The article briefly offers NAMBLA’s take on the difference between consent and coercion, and the maturity level of a boy versus the boy’s age. In the back there is advice on how to write to the media effectively. The booklet then reprints all the letters to the editor that followed. GM

Publisher: NAMBLA
Pamphlet: 64 pages

Who better to speak on man/boy love than the boys themselves? Each boy writes about their own experiences in a singularly positive way. Some stories are downright celebratory. In editor Miller’s preface, he says the idea of boys viewing their sexual relationships with men as positive and non-threatening is supported by many quality studies. A jewel of an essay on ageism hides in this booklet. The fiery diatribe was written by an 18-year-old member of the Gay Youth of New York, a group founded before the Stonewall riots. Several boys describe what happens when the police haul them in for questioning. It seems clear that most, if not all, of these accounts are actually written by the boys themselves, but there’s always that nagging doubt that some may be fake. GM

Publisher: NAMBLA
Pamphlet: 64 pages

“We can, also in passing, note some forms of Victorian pedophilia that seem especially marked, perhaps specific to the period. The particular attractions of the sick or dying child seem to have figured importantly for the culture generally, and certainly for pedophiles. The surviving pedophile poetry and what we know of public activity suggests that, next to dying and the even-more-popular flogging, bathing may have provided the most popular subject: ‘Breasting the wavelets, and diving there/white boys, ruddy, and tanned and bare.’ Francis William Bouidillion’s ‘The Legend of the Water Lilies’ (1878) is one of several poems of this sort that combine naked bathing with death: When one of the group swims out too far, the others, all of them, try to save their comrade and drown in the attempt. Some water lilies… grow there to mark the grave and preserve the erotic image of the bonanza of naked, dying bodies.”

Publisher: Routledge
Hardback: 416 pages
Illustrated

NAMBLA estimates that upward of 30,000 males are in jail for having underage homosexual encounters. This booklet is the voice of those prisoners. Included is a revealing and insightful essay by A. Shneur Horowitz on the downside to boy love… incarceration. One prisoner writes of a 99-year sentence for the crime of sodomy. Another speaks of a 10-to-life sentence for his first offense, performing oral sex on a 9-year-old. Some of the prisoners in the system are themselves boys. Some of these stories are truly compelling:
“I’m behind the wall with the most violent criminals, in a state with no death penalty. My charges have been announced by guards in front of other prisoners. I have been violently attacked three times and raped twice. I’m still HIV negative, though. Condoms are forbidden. Anal sex is rampant. Most prisoners practice it.” GM

Publisher: NAMBLA
Pamphlet: 63 pages

Traces the glory days of teen buggery, when a young boy’s ass was his ticket to the top. “Maintains the Cretan sages established a system under which a young warrior in his early 20s took a teenager of his own aristocratic background as a beloved until the age of 30, when service to the state required the older partner to marry. The practice spread to other Greek-speaking areas. In some places it emphasized the development of the athletic, warrior individual, while in others both intellectual and civic achievements were its goals. In Athens it became a vehicle of cultural transmission, so that the best of each older cohort selected, loved and trained the best of the younger.” Evidence is given to show that this popular brand of butt-busting male bonding gave rise to Hellas and the “Greek miracle.” It gave rise to something, that’s for sure. GR

Publisher: University of Illinois
Hardback: 261 pages
Illustrated