- Allen Ginsberg's advocacy of pedophilia debated in community
By ANDREA JACOBS IJN Staff Writer
Poet and cultural icon Allen Ginsberg, focus of a major project at Denver's Mizel Center for the Arts June 23-Aug. 8, prized personal liberty until his death in 1997. One of the founders of the Beat Movement in the 1950s, Ginsberg raged against censorship and created searing poetic insights into the contemporary American soul. While few dispute Ginsberg's contribution to American poetry, some question whether a member of an organization advocating pedophilia deserves the Jewish community's applause. The controversy began June 14, when the Intermountain Jewish News received a letter to the editor alluding to Ginsberg's underground reputation as a lover of young boys. "Most of us would not survive the scrutiny of the morality police," the woman wrote. "However, I think there is room for discussion on whether an avowed pedophile deserves recognition." Pedophilia is defined as a sexual preference or an addiction in which children are the preferred sexual object.
The IJN conducted its own research into Ginsberg's alleged membership in the North American Man Boy Lovers Association (NAMBLA), which seeks to lower the age of consentual sex between men and boys below the current legal age of 18. The newspaper left a message at NAMBLA headquarters in New York requesting verification that Ginsberg was indeed a member of the radical organization. Wednesday morning, a NAMBLA spokesperson returned the call and said, "Yes, Allen Ginsberg was indeed a member of NAMBLA and often spoke out in support of us." Ginsberg is quoted on one of NAMBLA's Web pages as saying, "Attacks on NAMBLA stink of politics, witchhunting for profit, humorousness, vanity, anger and ignorance . . . I'm a member of NAMBLA because I love boys too -- everybody does, who has a little humanity." Ginsberg's defense of pedophilia is well known in the alternative press. For example, he gave an interview to the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review which was published in the
summer of 1997, shortly before his death. The public's propensity to narrowly define or label sexual feelings is like "the whole labeling of pedophiles as 'child molesters,'" Ginsberg told interviewer Lisa Meyers. "Everybody likes little kids. All you've got to do is walk through the Vatican and see all the little statues of little prepubescents, pubescents and postpubescents. Naked kids have been a staple of delight for centuries, for both parents and onlookers. "So to label pedophilia as criminal is ridiculous." In 1994, Ginsberg appeared in the NAMBLA documentary "Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys." Playing himself, he read a "graphic ode to youth" according to the July 8, 1994 edition of Newsday. Ginsberg was never formally accused of committing any sexual offenses against a minor. Last year, the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture staged the successful exhibit "Bob Dylan at 60," a tribute to the legendary Jewish folksinger and songwriter. This year, the center
characterizes its interdisciplinary project, "Snapshot Poetics," as a tribute to the life, work and influence of Allen Ginsberg. Simon Zalkind, director of the current exhibition, told the IJN he selected Ginsberg for this year's show because the poet was "a very prominent and public celebrity. He had a tremendous influence on our culture." Asked about Ginsberg and pedophilia, Zalkind responded,"If there ever was a case of predatory sexuality or what is broadly called pedophilia, no one ever accused him of it. "I locate the issue" of his pro-pedophilia stance "in terms of Ginsberg's whole life. He did a lot of fighting for free speech issues, regardless of how we might view the cause. He opposed the Vietnam war and proposed the open use of drugs. He was anti-authoritarian. "Ginsberg saw his defense of intergenerational love as a matter of free speech, and also in the tradition of poet Walt Whitman and the philosopher Socrates. However, it never surfaced in his
personal life." Zalkind said he located only one source that mentions the issue of Ginsberg and pedophilia. The book was written by Bob Rosenthal, Ginsberg's secretary in the early 1970s. "Rosenthal wrote that Ginsberg's membership in NAMBLA was a free speech issue and that Ginsberg was never a pedophile -- no matter how you read his life. "In retrospect, NAMBLA was an unfortunate cause for someone to support," Zalkind concedes. "But I wouldn't even call it a cause. It was a blip in his life. It never tainted him personally." Jayce Keane, media relations manager for the Mizel Center for the Arts and the JCC, cited Ginsberg's numerous honors, including the 1996 Lifetime Award from the National Jewish Book Council. "I can't imagine he would have received this award if there was any concern about him," she said. "Many organizations honored him. He was a distinguished professor of literature at Brooklyn College, which is predominately Jewish. All this grants him
legitimacy. We're honoring a man who had a major impact on our culture." Asked whether Ginsberg's advocacy of pedophilia was particularly disturbing in light of society's furor over sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Keane said the two issues were unconnected. "Ginsberg was a high-profile individual to whom free speech was very important. I don't think there's anything beyond that. And if there was, I'd be very surprised. "We're not trying to avoid anything," she added. "But we don't want to stir up anything that isn't there." Joanne Greenberg, the award-winning novelist who lives in Golden and belongs to Beth Evergreen, is able to separate the artist from his artwork. "I once spent a day with Allen Ginsberg, and he was an absolute joy," she said. "People warned me against him, told me not to sit on a panel with him. But he was a doll. A living doll." Greenberg has no objections to the Mizel exhibit "as long as it's not government-sponsored." Unaware of
Ginsberg's affiliation with NAMBLA but familiar with the organization's agenda, Greenberg said, "Do I approve of NAMBLA? No. Do I think it's a good idea? No, because the word 'consenting' is very strange when someone's just a kid. "But I don't think that has anything to do with Ginsberg's poetry -- which I'm not crazy about. I do realize it moves a lot of people, though." Ginsberg, she said, gave expression to a certain segment of young people. Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Ginsberg, the most famous members of the Beat movement, "were into experimenting. They were into drugs when we didn't know the negative boundaries of drugs. I have strong feelings against that. "Ginsberg celebrated artificial insanity. That's like eating Sweet 'n Low and getting diabetes. I think he got creativity and insanity all balled up. But so what? He was a doll to me." Ginsberg's declaration that it's ridiculous to label pedophilia as criminal strikes Greenberg as equally
ridiculous. "They should hang a picture of Ginsberg with that quote running underneath and add, 'ridiculous.' Then they should go ahead with the exhibit." Elise Katch, a licensed clinical social worker in Denver, has been familiar with NAMBLA since the early 1990s because of her work with child abuse victims. "NAMBLA tries to discount the negative experience of what it calls man-boy love," she said. "It doesn't see that kind of relationship as abusive." Jews should respond negatively to the advocacy of pedophilia, she said. "It's extremely harmful to children. Listen to what the adults who were abused by priests as children are saying now. It's a huge and pervasive wound that lasts a lifetime." Though she doubts the planners of the Mizel tribute were fully aware of NAMBLA and Ginsberg's support of the organization, Katch feels that honoring Ginsberg is inappropriate. "This is not political. This is not about whether you believe in free speech. No matter what
kind of language Ginsberg used to advocate pedophilia -- and he wasn't exactly subtle -- he encouraged the victimization of children."
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