Clifford May, associate editor of the Rocky Mountain News, in a 1994 exchange with acclaimed American poet Allen Ginsberg, which was joined by fellow beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

May:

Allen, you still advocate some pretty radical ideas.

Ginsberg:

NAMBLA, NAMBLA.

May:

NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. In other words, you say it's OK for adult men to have sex with kids.

Ginsberg:

You said that.

May:

All right, you tell me how to say it.

Ginsberg:

NAMBLA is a discussion group, not an assignation group. It was attacked by the FBI and they're constantly trying to set them up after the sleazy Meese Commission decided that pornography increased rather than decreased crime. Actually, people masturbate over pornography. They don't go out and rape people. So they got this guy who organized Citizens for Decency Law. He was the main homophobe on the Meese Commission, which set up a series of police state units which go around to places like Boulder and try to entrap and bust people. And NAMBLA is partly a legal defense and social defense organization.

May:

OK, but let's get this straight. Are you advocating sex between adults and children?

Ginsberg:

Well, how do you define children, sir?

May:

You tell me how to define children.

Ginsberg:

I would say anyone above puberty is OK. As long as it's consensual and nobody complains. But usually it's the cops who rape the kids by brainwashing them and intimidating them so they'll turn against their older friends.

May:

Larry [Ferlinghetti], you've got kids. Do you agree with Allen on this?

Ferlinghetti:

I agree with him.

Ginsberg:

At what age do kids start getting laid on their own?

May:

But they can be influenced by an adult in a way they might not be by one of their own.

Ginsberg:

Sure, yes, and so could a citizen be influenced by Rush Limbaugh. That mind rape is worse.

[Ed.: Ginsberg succumbed to cancer in April, 1997. As a 15-year-old in 1980, I called on an acquaintance—an occasional columnist for the Village Voice who often bragged that he knew Mr. Ginsberg personally—to try to get the world-famous poet to do a reading at my high school in New York. After a few weeks, he responded sheepishly to my request, saying that Ginsberg may be willing to do the reading—but only in return for unspecified sexual favors. Well, so much for that bright idea! Since I regarded this man as fairly disreputable in the first place, I wasn't sure if he was relaying the request or initiating it himself. I pass along the account for what it is worth.]

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