Reply #79: Exactly. Nor would they want to "disappoint" the parish priest, or

[RazzleDazzle]

grandpa, or mom's boyfriend whose presence has otherwise made the family a little better off financially, perhaps. (Hmph, there was a case like that -- better financial circumstances -- on Oprah just a week or two ago.) Or the really nice neighbor who takes them to get cool things they like and couldn't otherwise afford, etc., etc., etc.

There is an innate, irreversible, irreconcilable power imbalance favoring the adult that forever elimates any possibility that the child involved can give fully informed consent from a position of full agency. It just can't be so. Period.

Now, that might not be so terrible were it not for the FACT of the horrible psychological damage that results from such alliances. This will vary from child to child (some more traumatized than others, perhaps), but it's totally inevitable AND you can't allow all children to be abused just because SOME children might take it better than others. It is ALWAYS abuse, it is ALWAYS damaging to some degree (and the exact degree is never predictable), it is ALWAYS "using" the child (which is always abuse), and it's ALWAYS wrong.

You cannot justify it under any circumstances. Not in good conscience, anyway.

So, Laelth, I guess the answer is yes, you support NAMBLA.