Talk:René Guyon Society

In the spring of 1971, a college course required an essay on some element of the "counter culture." I purchased (for the only time in my life) a copy of the Berkeley Barb. It contained about a half page article on the Rene Guyon Society. I thought, "What could be more counter culture than that?" So, I sent a letter requesting more info to the address in the article. Today I stumbled upon the response I received, postmarked 5/1/71 from Beverly Hills, with a Second St., Alhambra 91802 return address. This was "a mail-forwarding address." The letter gave me nothing to write a college paper on, but did ask me for money to help the "442 California supporters" in their "massive letter writing campaign to change the child sex laws." It was headed "ATTENTION SUPPORTERS OF THE RENE GUYON SOCIETY WHO DO NOT LIVE IN CALIFORNIA!!" My essay ended up being on Woodstock or some such, and I may have received a pamphlet or 2 from the R.G.S. in the next several months. So, it did exist, was likely located in Beverly Hills, and had one or more members! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.77.224.181 (talk) 17:18, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Hoax?
Did this group even ever exist, or is it just an urban legend? Sure there are a lot of Google hits but that proves nothing. "Los Angeles Police Department expressed the opinion that the entire organization consisted of a single person..." - this seems completely out of sync with the 5,000 supposedly attributed by the Gale Encyclopedia of Associations. Does the Gale really say that? The reference is not to the Gale but to a web page that claims that the Gale says that. How can such a disparity in estimated numbers exist? "according to some sources it was based in Beverly Hills..." - How can an organization have anything like 5,000 members yet its city of location is not known? This whole thing sounds really fishy. Unless some evidence of existence is provided, I will nominate this article for deletion. Herostratus (talk) 04:22, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

All the references I could find to the Gale publication were the same blurb, it looks like someone posted it once & a lot of people repeated it. However, I found a footnoted sample chapter from a book on child sexual abuse here: http://www.pearsonhighered.com/samplechapter/020540183X.pdf that contained references to the René Guyon Society, footnoted with this as a reference: "Freeman-Longo, R. E., and Blanchard, G. (1998). Sexual Abuse in America: Epidemic of the 21st Century. Brandon, VT: Safer Society Press."

There is also a 1995 article here: http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/Moppets1.html from the Los Angeles Times mentioning the society.

This page: http://optymyst.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html also has a statement from one of the NAMBLA defendants in the Curley v. NAMBLA case where he states the "sex before 8 or else it's too late) belonged to the Society going back to the 70's.

This footnoted article: http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/pedophiles/4.html also references the Society, citing this book: Vito, Gennaro F. and Holmes, Ronald M. (1994) Criminology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co. as a source.

This Google Books page: http://books.google.com/books?id=pzbrOVj9kMkC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq="rené+guyon+society"&source=web&ots=6uFrG3JsQa&sig=SPyxnbpXQtewNhS_zTgMg8XJOu4#PPA5,M1 lists the Society as forming in 1962, and cites a 1989 publication as source.

Here is another earlier Google Books cite: http://books.google.com/books?id=JAz4lv4QLZMC&pg=PT268&lpg=PT268&dq="rené+guyon+society"&source=web&ots=qZzcDDFg6z&sig=dWkdp3NxNr0o4NAepCppoqNBXG0

Most tellingly, the IPCE website (referenced elsewhere as being the only large active pro-pedophile organization in the world since the effective dissolution of NAMBLA) discusses the Society on this page: http://www.ipce.info/host/martinson/ch_1_text.htm.

So it looks like the group probably did exist at some point. I can't speak about the Gale claim, but apparently most of this article is taken from a mish-mash version of "facts" about the Society that was posted on one anti-child abuse or anti-gay site and copied by several hundred more.

Based on the cited sources, I'd say deletion isn't called for but the article certainly needs to be re-written by someone willing to track down some of the referenced publications.97.101.76.207 (talk) 10:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Well
Well, the IPCE is not a neutral scholarly source. Here is some more information: Eric W. Hickey's Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime List the Guyon society as of a piece with entities called Free Spirits, the Pedophile Liberation Front, and the Child Sensuality Circle (with NAMBLA and IPCE). Floyd Martinson's The Sexual Life of Children lists the Guyons along with the Sexual Freedom Leauge, Parents Liberation, and again the Child Sensuality Circle. I don't know how scholarly Hickey and Martinson are (more to come), but neither provides footnotes (and in both cases the full mention is just the name, as part of a list), so that is kind of a dead end so far. Oh OK, the IPCE material is a cut and paste copy from Martinson. Who is Martinson, anyone know? His publisher (Bergin & Garvey) appears to be a real company. To be continued... Herostratus (talk) 22:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Floyd Martinson is a relatively well known sex researcher who has focussed on child sexuality. Lambton T/C 21:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

re Tsai/Feldman-Summers monograph.
I can't access this online (not without spending 12 dollars), but the abstract is here, and it says:
 * ''"To examine factor contributing to the differential adjustment of women sexually molested as children, 3 groups of 30 women aged 18–65 yrs each were recruited to participate in this study: (a) a clinical group consisting of women seeking therapy for problems associated with childhood molestation, (b) a nonclinical group of women molested as children who had never sought therapy and considered themselves to be well adjusted, and (c) a control group who had not been molested. The clinical group was significantly less well adjusted than either the nonclinical or control group on measures of psychosexual functioning and the MMPI. In addition, clinical Ss differed significantly from nonclinical group Ss in terms of (a) age at which last molestation occurred and (b) frequency and duration of molestation. It is proposed that differences in adult adjustment may be mediated by emotional responses evoked at the time of the incident(s), which in turn can be linked to the frequency and duration of molestation and to developmental factors associated with the age of last molestation."..

It's used to support this statement:
 * ""[T]he René Guyon Society...claims that children need sex with compassionate adults to reduce the sexual repression that causes a host of societal problems, including delinquency, suicide, gang warfare, and assault. Under the slogan "Sex before eight or else it's too late," this group promulgates the abolition of laws restricting incest and sexual molestation. The Guyon Society boasts a membership of more than 2,000 parents and psychiatrists."

I'm seeing a disconnect here between the abstract and the cited material. It's about a clinical study involving 90 women, to determine differential adjustment of women sexually molested as children. How does that have anything to do with the Rene Guyon society? In particular, what does that have to do with a claimed membership of 2000 for said society? Even if Tsai and Feldman-Summers did meander off and start talking about the society in the monograph, what are their qualifications to do so? In particular, what are their qualifications to state that the society has 2000 members? How do they know this? They're mental health researchers, not determining-how-many-members-a-given-organization-has experts. I'm also dubious that society includes any psychiatrists as claimed, since joining would probably not be a good career move.

Given the dubiousness of all this, and the long-term tendency of some editors to inflate the importance and size of groups like this, I don't buy it. I'm removing the material. Herostratus (talk) 16:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

re recent edits, redaction of
Well, this one, changing the country where he was the Chief Justice (equivalent) from Thailand to France is wrong according the article René Guyon. Granted that article is not really sourced and could be wrong. But if it's wrong it should first be fixed there first, I'd say. We can discuss this, obviously a source would be helpful.

Next, this one. It's by User:MizGrandma and is his first and only edit to date; persons experienced with this subject matter will find this an unsurprising editing pattern. He changed "was a possibly mythical..." to "is..."; I think that "is" is pretty strong here, given that "possibly mythical" is quite generous and it should probably be "is a fictional...", so absent some kind of good source I'm not seeing that edit as being helpful. A couple of similar changes, and then something about a college professor being a member, sourced to the existing ref "United States; Congress; House; Committee on the Judiciary; Subcommittee on Crime. "Child Protection Act: hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-ninth Congress, second session on H.R. 1704 and related bills." Page 134. Supt. of Docs., Congressional Sales Office, U.S. G.P.O.". I don't have that handy, but little if anything coming from that hearing is very reliable as to matters of fact; it's OK for "a person said..." or "it was claimed..." or whatever. Not having access to what exactly was written on page 134, I don't trust the veracity of this edit.

In order to quickly undo these edits, I had to also undo a couple of harmless bot edits, but that is life I guess. Herostratus (talk) 18:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Personal Experience
There is some debate over whether or not this group did or did not exist was it one man or 5,000 people? This I can say from personal experience in a bathroom stall in a car repair shop near Apple Valley, CA when I was 10 I found the words written 'sex before eight or else it is too late!". Free Speech?  Their logo certainly got around to meet impressionable eyes.  Words are one of the means by which man gains knowledge and knowledge is one of the means by which man acts.  So no, it wasn't a hoax, it wasn't an urban ledged, it was written quite clearly there on the bathroom stall in 1983.Egadslarads (talk) 03:32, 23 February 2022 (UTC)EgadslaradsEgadslarads (talk) 03:32, 23 February 2022 (UTC)