Expect the Worst, Live For The Best (from NAMBLA News)
Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2026 11:13 am
Part A and B
Part A:
EXPECT THE WORST, LIVE FOR THE BEST
by Tom Reeves (reprinted with permission; tho he is now allegedly deceased)
Includes "Three suggestions for boylovers", from Tom
The following was published in an early issue of the NAMBLA NEWS, now defunct. I think it is one of Tom's most important contributions in written form.
(Editor's Note: I met Tom in the early 1990s and proceeded to have some nice times having sex with him, traveling with him, and even at one point living with him, back when i looked about age 16 but was actually 24 or so! I regret not having gone to his funeral, after hearing about it.)
Men who follow their hearts and awaken their consciousness as boy lovers take a very dangerous path. Any man who follows his natural and wholesome feelings for boys into any erotic activity has gone beyond the bounds of "normal," acceptable social behavior. This is true today throughout the western world, and in most other places which suffer from the imperialism of the west. It is true in conservative, liberal, radical, socialist and communist circles. This situation is unlikely to change quickly or radically. We are going to live with such oppression probably for the rest of our lives.
Anyone who believes that legal and social approval of our radical lifestyle is just around the corner is a utopian fool. So, when you kiss the boy you love, when you fondle him in your sleeping bag beside the fire, even when you lie naked beside a boy you have never dared touch, you have gone beyond the pale. You have placed yourself outside the normal protections of courtesy, civility, humane treatment and legal rights.
I have chosen to take that step. So have most of you who read this. I have done it because I was compelled to do it: morally compelled, spiritually, emotionally, physically. I AM a lover of boys. That love spans the whole range of human emotions, including that wonderful mystery of sex. To deny the expression of these emotions is to deny myself.
Having taken the step of affirming my identity, however, I must not delude myself about the consequences. There are many men who deny themselves such an identity, and who all their lives forego any physical contact with boys or any appearance of true intimacy with boys. They are the mock "Big Brothers" and the jock boys' club leaders. They NEVER step over that line.
By a closeness to boys and by accepting the hypocrisy of society, with its boy scout creeds, they have found a means of maintaining sanity. I do not criticize them for that choice: it is a reasonable, logical, sometimes necessary decision for men who cannot take on the full oppression of being sexual/social pariahs, outlaws considered worse than mass murderers.
It is NOT reasonable, however, to attempt a half-way stance. If you are going to act on your love for boys in physical and emotional ways that validate your identity, you must realize what you have done. There is no turning back. You have stepped over the line, and you must accept what may follow. You can struggle against it, fight, stand proud and demand to be treated as a human being, but do not be surprised when they libel you, slander you, jail you, curse you, steal from you, beat you and even murder you.
I am amazed and angered by NAMBLA members who throw up their hands in dismay at the "scandal" in New York [note: read about it in the book THE FBI V.S. NAMBLA, A Witch Hunt Foiled by David Thorstad, co-founder of NAMBLA, no deceased]. Who feel somehow that something terrible and unexpected has occurred when newspapers label us a "sex ring," [and] link us incorrectly with sex acts or pornography. WE ARE ourselves a scandal. NAMBLA is a scandal. We who love boys are a scandal.
[Editor's note: just like Jews organizing in their defense (during 1930s Germany), or slaves imagining that they were equal to their white overseers before 1865, etc.]
(...)
NAMBLA has taken effective and unified action against the current [1981] media, police & FBI attacks. We can be proud of that. The attack itself and the media lies should not create even a ripple of surprise or worry among us. Our counter-attack and its effectiveness should re-enforce our collective pride and identity.
I am also saddened by the lack of preparation many men make for the inevitable encounter with reality. One must, without being personally paranoid, assume the worst at all times, but live as though the best will happen. By that I mean, one must assume tapped phones, a brutal interrogation of boys & parents, surveillance of homes, etc.
In that sense, while being as "out" as I have been on TV and elsewhere, I have been "discreet," careful, whatever you want to call it. SOME man/boy lovers stress "conservative" lifestyles, 3-piece suits, "respectable" research and scientific inquiries about boy-love (as though that would protect them from the holocaust), yet these same men can make incredibly bad judgments
(...)
That is something I can understand, but I cannot for the life of me see how thoughtful men who love boys could do it. Men have not prepared their boy lovers for the cruelty of police raids and questioning. Some men have not even admitted their gayness to the boys. Some have not discussed the radical nature of their sexual relationships or society's likely reaction to it. This is absolutely inexcusable.
The man is taking risks when he enters such a relationship. But so is the boy. The boy is risking exposure to friends and family who may reject him. He is risking incredibly traumatic interruptions to his life in the middle of the night by police with guns. He is risking severe scars caused by the reaction of society. He needs to know that, and to be prepared to deal with it.
Any man who fails to prepare the boys he loves for all the possible consequences is doing both himself and the boys a grave harm.
Finally, there are those who flee NAMBLA at this hint of "scandal," as though they had thought NAMBLA was some sort of proper sewing circle. The raids and arrests have not been caused by NAMBLA. Such raids and arrests will continue. NAMBLA has been damaged by some of its thoughtless members, not the members damaged by NAMBLA. Those members are entitled to our support. They have done nothing wrong. But it is they who need to acknowledge the solidarity of NAMBLA, not NAMBLA's being threatened by their cases.
[editor's note: While I have articulated my dissent from the largely Middle Class Values of NAMBLA leadership, I recognize that without them --this all before the advent of the Internet--I would have been totally lost, and probably would have taken my life long ago.]
Taking a subscription to NAMBLA [publications] is not the brave step--it is a necessary and protective action. Standing together now, we can break the chain of heavy police and media attack. But some men will go to prison; both NAMBLA members and non-NAMBLA people. Miracles cannot be worked. Millions of dollars are not flowing our way. What we do and who we are-- these are illegal, scandalous and taboo. Like Jews in Nazi Germany, we cannot change that unless we deny who we are.
For many of us the emotional and moral costs of doing that are too great. We choose to be ourselves regardless of the heavy physical and economic liabilities. But we should make the choice carefully and fully cognizant of the consequences.I suggest a few practical and essential steps for all boy lovers.
PART B:
EXPECT THE WORST LIVE FOR THE BEST: Three suggestions by Tom Reeves, leading NAMBLA activist and co-founder
(Appeared in 1981 issue of NAMBLA NEWS--now defunct)
1) Do not hide the reality from the boys. Talk with them about being gay, about society's possible reactions, about your own pride in who you are. The less certain you are about yourself, the more conflicted you are, the more you hide from yourself and the boys your consciousness and the radical nature of your relationship. The more likely it is you and/or the boy will crumble under attack.
2) Prepare the boys for questioning by the police. Explain to them that police will lie to them about you, that police will threaten the boys with arrest and other troubles, that the boys need not ever say anything at all about their sexual lives, that they need not go with police or answer any questions. All of this sounds very simple--and most boys will respond initially that, of course, they would not talk about sex to a policeman. But authority has been drilled into them at school and at home, and most people buckle quickly under the lies and harassment of police. Considerable discussion --maybe even role playing-- is necessary to prepare boys for this situation. Obviously, if you have a good relationship with the boys, there is no need to tell boys that they can’t see you if “anybody finds out,” or otherwise to indicate that the boys will get into trouble if discovered. That can seem too much like “threats” rather than loving advice. I suggest preparing the boys for the brutal experience of police abuse, and then making sure they are fully and emotionally prepared for their relationship with me.
[Editor’s note: try talking with them about the part of society that seeks to justly challenge unfairness and oppression; you may get additional, yet hard-to-find information from this link. Let them see that your “deviance” from the “norm” is similar to others whom are oppressed, with many of the same consequences from police, the media, and a fooled public. Show them videos like “Kahnesetake”(documentary about Mohawk Indian uprising in 1990s Quebec) or “Coverup”(1990s documentary on Iran/Contra scandal)--which can be gotten through inter-library loan at colleges.]
The best advice is to tell the boys to follow their hearts and their brains when questioned --not to advise them to lie. Trust is the central issue on both sides.
3) Finally, all men who love boys must take steps in advance to deal with sudden police raids. Have an attorney ready to meet you in the middle of the night. Find an attorney who has a progressive record on civil liberties issues. Don’t trust attorneys who emphasize money up front or who suggest extremely oppressive strategies of claiming insanity or exchanging information for freedom, etc. [i.e. plea bargaining]. Better a civil liberties attorney than a “big gun” or “old-boy” type who claims connections with the D.A.’s office. Those connections never mean anything more than humiliation to the boylover and his friends.
[Editor's note: After much discussion on this issue on the boylove board "Boychat", we think it is also important to scrutinize a lawyer's proof of action, with newspaper clippings, etc. Do not be taken in by the hype--they want your money and they'll say anything to get it. Another thing to find out, before you speak with the lawyer, is exactly what kind of 'lawyer-client priviledge' you have; that is, if your "defender" can lawfully share info with anyone else.]
Also, make preparations for your house, your car and other possessions. Where possible, have straight friends and family members be ready to help you with regard to your employer, etc. These suggestions are so mundane as to seem unnecessary. For some reason, men who love boys often fail to be realistic about the likely consequences of their lives. Better to make these practical preparations than to bewail scandals or to give the pretense of being a “big brother.” It is my conclusion --after talking to hundreds of men in prison or about to face prison-- that those of us who take the most radical, head-on approach, have the most luck in dealing with these matters. It is the closeted, terribly fearful, but careless boy-lover who usually finds his world crumbling around him. The world has already crumbled once you step over that line. You have made your choice. Face the awful facts around you, and go on living and loving, bravely, but wisely.
Part A:
EXPECT THE WORST, LIVE FOR THE BEST
by Tom Reeves (reprinted with permission; tho he is now allegedly deceased)
Includes "Three suggestions for boylovers", from Tom
The following was published in an early issue of the NAMBLA NEWS, now defunct. I think it is one of Tom's most important contributions in written form.
(Editor's Note: I met Tom in the early 1990s and proceeded to have some nice times having sex with him, traveling with him, and even at one point living with him, back when i looked about age 16 but was actually 24 or so! I regret not having gone to his funeral, after hearing about it.)
Men who follow their hearts and awaken their consciousness as boy lovers take a very dangerous path. Any man who follows his natural and wholesome feelings for boys into any erotic activity has gone beyond the bounds of "normal," acceptable social behavior. This is true today throughout the western world, and in most other places which suffer from the imperialism of the west. It is true in conservative, liberal, radical, socialist and communist circles. This situation is unlikely to change quickly or radically. We are going to live with such oppression probably for the rest of our lives.
Anyone who believes that legal and social approval of our radical lifestyle is just around the corner is a utopian fool. So, when you kiss the boy you love, when you fondle him in your sleeping bag beside the fire, even when you lie naked beside a boy you have never dared touch, you have gone beyond the pale. You have placed yourself outside the normal protections of courtesy, civility, humane treatment and legal rights.
I have chosen to take that step. So have most of you who read this. I have done it because I was compelled to do it: morally compelled, spiritually, emotionally, physically. I AM a lover of boys. That love spans the whole range of human emotions, including that wonderful mystery of sex. To deny the expression of these emotions is to deny myself.
Having taken the step of affirming my identity, however, I must not delude myself about the consequences. There are many men who deny themselves such an identity, and who all their lives forego any physical contact with boys or any appearance of true intimacy with boys. They are the mock "Big Brothers" and the jock boys' club leaders. They NEVER step over that line.
By a closeness to boys and by accepting the hypocrisy of society, with its boy scout creeds, they have found a means of maintaining sanity. I do not criticize them for that choice: it is a reasonable, logical, sometimes necessary decision for men who cannot take on the full oppression of being sexual/social pariahs, outlaws considered worse than mass murderers.
It is NOT reasonable, however, to attempt a half-way stance. If you are going to act on your love for boys in physical and emotional ways that validate your identity, you must realize what you have done. There is no turning back. You have stepped over the line, and you must accept what may follow. You can struggle against it, fight, stand proud and demand to be treated as a human being, but do not be surprised when they libel you, slander you, jail you, curse you, steal from you, beat you and even murder you.
I am amazed and angered by NAMBLA members who throw up their hands in dismay at the "scandal" in New York [note: read about it in the book THE FBI V.S. NAMBLA, A Witch Hunt Foiled by David Thorstad, co-founder of NAMBLA, no deceased]. Who feel somehow that something terrible and unexpected has occurred when newspapers label us a "sex ring," [and] link us incorrectly with sex acts or pornography. WE ARE ourselves a scandal. NAMBLA is a scandal. We who love boys are a scandal.
[Editor's note: just like Jews organizing in their defense (during 1930s Germany), or slaves imagining that they were equal to their white overseers before 1865, etc.]
(...)
NAMBLA has taken effective and unified action against the current [1981] media, police & FBI attacks. We can be proud of that. The attack itself and the media lies should not create even a ripple of surprise or worry among us. Our counter-attack and its effectiveness should re-enforce our collective pride and identity.
I am also saddened by the lack of preparation many men make for the inevitable encounter with reality. One must, without being personally paranoid, assume the worst at all times, but live as though the best will happen. By that I mean, one must assume tapped phones, a brutal interrogation of boys & parents, surveillance of homes, etc.
In that sense, while being as "out" as I have been on TV and elsewhere, I have been "discreet," careful, whatever you want to call it. SOME man/boy lovers stress "conservative" lifestyles, 3-piece suits, "respectable" research and scientific inquiries about boy-love (as though that would protect them from the holocaust), yet these same men can make incredibly bad judgments
(...)
That is something I can understand, but I cannot for the life of me see how thoughtful men who love boys could do it. Men have not prepared their boy lovers for the cruelty of police raids and questioning. Some men have not even admitted their gayness to the boys. Some have not discussed the radical nature of their sexual relationships or society's likely reaction to it. This is absolutely inexcusable.
The man is taking risks when he enters such a relationship. But so is the boy. The boy is risking exposure to friends and family who may reject him. He is risking incredibly traumatic interruptions to his life in the middle of the night by police with guns. He is risking severe scars caused by the reaction of society. He needs to know that, and to be prepared to deal with it.
Any man who fails to prepare the boys he loves for all the possible consequences is doing both himself and the boys a grave harm.
Finally, there are those who flee NAMBLA at this hint of "scandal," as though they had thought NAMBLA was some sort of proper sewing circle. The raids and arrests have not been caused by NAMBLA. Such raids and arrests will continue. NAMBLA has been damaged by some of its thoughtless members, not the members damaged by NAMBLA. Those members are entitled to our support. They have done nothing wrong. But it is they who need to acknowledge the solidarity of NAMBLA, not NAMBLA's being threatened by their cases.
[editor's note: While I have articulated my dissent from the largely Middle Class Values of NAMBLA leadership, I recognize that without them --this all before the advent of the Internet--I would have been totally lost, and probably would have taken my life long ago.]
Taking a subscription to NAMBLA [publications] is not the brave step--it is a necessary and protective action. Standing together now, we can break the chain of heavy police and media attack. But some men will go to prison; both NAMBLA members and non-NAMBLA people. Miracles cannot be worked. Millions of dollars are not flowing our way. What we do and who we are-- these are illegal, scandalous and taboo. Like Jews in Nazi Germany, we cannot change that unless we deny who we are.
For many of us the emotional and moral costs of doing that are too great. We choose to be ourselves regardless of the heavy physical and economic liabilities. But we should make the choice carefully and fully cognizant of the consequences.I suggest a few practical and essential steps for all boy lovers.
PART B:
EXPECT THE WORST LIVE FOR THE BEST: Three suggestions by Tom Reeves, leading NAMBLA activist and co-founder
(Appeared in 1981 issue of NAMBLA NEWS--now defunct)
1) Do not hide the reality from the boys. Talk with them about being gay, about society's possible reactions, about your own pride in who you are. The less certain you are about yourself, the more conflicted you are, the more you hide from yourself and the boys your consciousness and the radical nature of your relationship. The more likely it is you and/or the boy will crumble under attack.
2) Prepare the boys for questioning by the police. Explain to them that police will lie to them about you, that police will threaten the boys with arrest and other troubles, that the boys need not ever say anything at all about their sexual lives, that they need not go with police or answer any questions. All of this sounds very simple--and most boys will respond initially that, of course, they would not talk about sex to a policeman. But authority has been drilled into them at school and at home, and most people buckle quickly under the lies and harassment of police. Considerable discussion --maybe even role playing-- is necessary to prepare boys for this situation. Obviously, if you have a good relationship with the boys, there is no need to tell boys that they can’t see you if “anybody finds out,” or otherwise to indicate that the boys will get into trouble if discovered. That can seem too much like “threats” rather than loving advice. I suggest preparing the boys for the brutal experience of police abuse, and then making sure they are fully and emotionally prepared for their relationship with me.
[Editor’s note: try talking with them about the part of society that seeks to justly challenge unfairness and oppression; you may get additional, yet hard-to-find information from this link. Let them see that your “deviance” from the “norm” is similar to others whom are oppressed, with many of the same consequences from police, the media, and a fooled public. Show them videos like “Kahnesetake”(documentary about Mohawk Indian uprising in 1990s Quebec) or “Coverup”(1990s documentary on Iran/Contra scandal)--which can be gotten through inter-library loan at colleges.]
The best advice is to tell the boys to follow their hearts and their brains when questioned --not to advise them to lie. Trust is the central issue on both sides.
3) Finally, all men who love boys must take steps in advance to deal with sudden police raids. Have an attorney ready to meet you in the middle of the night. Find an attorney who has a progressive record on civil liberties issues. Don’t trust attorneys who emphasize money up front or who suggest extremely oppressive strategies of claiming insanity or exchanging information for freedom, etc. [i.e. plea bargaining]. Better a civil liberties attorney than a “big gun” or “old-boy” type who claims connections with the D.A.’s office. Those connections never mean anything more than humiliation to the boylover and his friends.
[Editor's note: After much discussion on this issue on the boylove board "Boychat", we think it is also important to scrutinize a lawyer's proof of action, with newspaper clippings, etc. Do not be taken in by the hype--they want your money and they'll say anything to get it. Another thing to find out, before you speak with the lawyer, is exactly what kind of 'lawyer-client priviledge' you have; that is, if your "defender" can lawfully share info with anyone else.]
Also, make preparations for your house, your car and other possessions. Where possible, have straight friends and family members be ready to help you with regard to your employer, etc. These suggestions are so mundane as to seem unnecessary. For some reason, men who love boys often fail to be realistic about the likely consequences of their lives. Better to make these practical preparations than to bewail scandals or to give the pretense of being a “big brother.” It is my conclusion --after talking to hundreds of men in prison or about to face prison-- that those of us who take the most radical, head-on approach, have the most luck in dealing with these matters. It is the closeted, terribly fearful, but careless boy-lover who usually finds his world crumbling around him. The world has already crumbled once you step over that line. You have made your choice. Face the awful facts around you, and go on living and loving, bravely, but wisely.