A big problem with the childlove movement is that it's not really a movement at all. We keeping thinking society needs to change first but it's us that needs to change first. If we were a movement we'd be protesting out on the streets, rioting, making ourselves known in public... and not just one person, but a whole army of us. No one can do it alone. We need our own Stonewall.
I see this claim/accusation made here fairly often, and each time it's made, the person making it fails to take the following into consideration:
Every emancipation movement in history occurs in steps. It does not and cannot happen overnight in one radical political coup d'etat. The reason why we are not presently out protesting in the streets and having our equivalent of Stonewall like the gays did back during the late '60s-early '70s is because the MAA movement is not at the same position in history that the gays were in during the early '70s. Just as it was unthinkable for the gays to attempt a Stonewall-like event in, say, the 1940s, so too is it ridiculous and haphazard of us to consider such an event now, in the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. Our emancipation movement is very young, because the hysteria forging us into a fledgling movement has only been around for hardly more than 30 years at this writing. That is not a long period of time for any visibly identified minority group to be going through such a period of open oppression. Those who are admonishing us for not initiating the MAA equivalent of Stonewall at the present time are not considering our specific position in society right now, and are not asking for too much in general, but too much at the present time. We simply do not yet have the societal clout and sympathy to be anywhere near successful with such a radical move at the present point in time, as was the case with the gays prior to the first Sexual Revolution in the late 1960s. Look what happened to NAMBLA when it ran into the beginnings of the hysteria soon after it was formed. It was a good idea, but the wrong time for it was right around the corner after it was formed, unbeknownst to its founders in the late '70s, who didn't anticipate the conservative takeover of Western society that occurred beginning with the Reagan election in 1980, and the sequence of events following it as a result of Adam Walsh's tragic murder in 1981 and the growth of "trash TV" that exploited the hysteria for sensationalistic purposes (among a confluence of many other factors).
Another thing we need to consider is this. As much as our situation parallels that of the gay movement, there are some differences that have to be noted when discussing such a topic. Unlike the gays, who simply fought for societal acceptance of fellow adults with a certain orientation, those whom we most want to love currently do not have most of their civil rights. As such, they lack the legal right to march along with us, or even to speak out publicly on their behalf and our behalf at the present time. We have to wait for the growing youth liberation movement to make further strides before that can happen. The youth lib movement is also a young movement, which first appeared and got derailed in the same decade, and for the same reasons, respectively, as NAMBLA did, but like the MAA movement, found a renewed voice during the advent of the Internet. Since then it could not be stifled again so easily, but we have to give it time to gain a greater following, a broader degree of mainstream acceptance (which it's slowly but surely gaining), and for 'underage' youths to gain more rights than they currently have. A lot of talking and discussion, along with precisely what the youth lib movement is currently doing, are common in the early stages of an emancipation movement, because we need to have these discussions if we are to figure out ways of progressing forward and gaining new people who are down with the cause.
As long as we hold onto the myths that "being nice" is going to get us anywhere and that things are slowly getting better when in fact they are getting worse, we will be stuck running on the proverbial treadmill. We need to radicalize, organize and become a force. Not talk on the internet all day feeding ourselves with false hope to keep us on the couch.
There are many people in our community, including me, who have never suggested that we be "nice" at all times, but simply that we work within the system and do not resort to any tactics that would hurt us far more than they helped, and which would further aid our many detractors with painting us in a bad light. We need to be tough, no doubt, but we need to be ethical and responsible at the same time.
Our time will come, but virtually all progress for all forward societal movement occurs incrementally, and not in huge leaps and bounds. We have to be organized enough to seize the moment when it comes, but the moment for our version of Stonewall is not now.