CUPID IN THE POOL

Review of The Boy by Germaine Greer

Thames & Hudson, 2007.

"This is a book about male beauty; Students of English as a foreign language are taught that it is incorrect in English to use the word 'beautiful' for a male. Good looking males should be described as 'handsome'. Handsomeness is not an aesthetic quality so much as a moral quality: handsome is as handsome does. This substitution of the word 'handsome' for 'beautiful' when referring to a male is the linguistic sign of an implicit understanding that it is wrong, demeaning even, to appreciate men for their looks."

I recall that I once made the observation that one of my sons (who was two at that time) was beautiful. (I am sure, not an unusual feeling among many adoring parents!) An older colleague of my parents quickly corrected me that "one does not refer to boys as being beautiful but as good looking." With three sons to show for my exercise of Reproductive Rights, I feel that I have had much time and evidence to examine this debate on male beauty first hand. Beauty, many of us are prone to imagine, is very much to do with girls and women; as Greer observes, and I found out, some of us remain a little uncomfortable with using words like 'beautiful' to describe boys or men.

Greer examines the milestones set in different cultures that denote the transition from boyhood to manhood. She says, "Boyhood may be long, beginning as soon as a male baby is weaned and not ending until he is permitted to assume the insignia of manhood, which may be as much as fifteen or even twenty years later." The rites of passage may include shaving of the boy's head, circumcision inflicting deep cuts on the forehead, and sending the boy off from home into schools which may consider canings and birchings to facilitate this process. Looking at my army of male beauties, I am keenly aware that one key factor that influenced my partner and me in the selection of a school for 'our boys', was the fact that the school had banned caning as a means of turning little boys into responsible men. Of course, the school, as do many other schools for boys in this country, do adopt other forms of strictures and 'methods' such as getting students suspected or found 'guilty' of misdemeanors to kneel for hours. The aim, it appears, is to drive home the point that the passage of boys to men means strict discipline through physical 'torture'. Unfortunately, unlike in the examples given by Greer, we don't have any paintings or sculptures to illustrate these rites of passage from our end.

Greer's book has a long and interesting exploration of icons of male beauty in western culture, illustrated through paintings and sculptures from the 6th century BC to the modern age and through some discussion on literary works of writers such as Ben Johnson and Horace. Greer notes that the Greek kouroi, erect male nude youth sculptures, were all likely to be identified with the Greek God Apollo who is associated in western culture with physical perfection. The nude young male Apollo has been adopted and adapted by countless sculptors and painters signifying the epitome of western cultural vision of male youth and beauty. She brings in modern western men such as the young Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the heavily made-up Boy George, who were/are considered icons of beauty. In our household, given that the father of my children is fair skinned, has always had wild long hair and wears earrings, and I am dark skinned, have always had short hair and also wear earrings, as a little boy, one of my sons asked me whether his father was a girl or a boy. When I asked him why he asked me that, the boy very seriously said: "Because Appa has long hair and you have short hair." When I heard this argument, I confess I felt quite pleased that between the two of us parents, we may have actually pushed the boundaries of conventional wisdom in relation to 'what is a girl and what is a boy'. The father's earrings have also been a source of inspiration for the boys as the one or the other has asked me over the years, whether they could also pierce their ears. Given that earrings, bracelets and necklaces were very much part of the beautifying accoutrement of our ancient kings, we have told the boys, "after you leave school," giving them a few more years in which to sharpen their own ideas on what might further enhance their natural beauty!

Greer traces the emergence of images of Cupid as the socially acceptable symbol that channels male sexual desire. This acceptance of the portrayal of a child armed with a bow and arrow as linked to sexual desire turns the modern concept of the 'innocence' of childhood on its head, as exemplified by the numerous illustrations of winged and mostly naked Cupid, blindfolded or otherwise by the Greeks, the Italians, the French and the English that are included in this book. The boy/youth is painted, sculpted or written of accentuating the softness of his face, the fullness of his lips; he is permitted to be seen embracing or embraced by beautiful women, inevitably older than him.

Reading through this description of little boys presented as icons of beauty and mischief, reminded me of an incident when one of my sons, who was about three at the time, in his little swim shorts at a pool, was surrounded by a party of adoring strangers obviously struck by his angelic face, curly hair, soft lips and long eye lashes. I watched as they cooed, "Darling, you are SO sweet, what is our name? How old are you?" My son watched them without a word. "Why," gushed one woman, "aren't you speaking? Have you lost your tongue? Tell me, what's your name, sweetheart?" Suddenly, from out of the pretty soft lips of the little boy came the words, "Leave me alone or I will cut your neck." The adoring party literally flinched, paled and hurried away from the'sweet and lovely' little babe. I believe the incident changed their perception of beautiful little boys as obliging little angels somewhat.

Greer's beautifully illustrated book, brings out clearly the difference in the nature of the portrayal of male and female bodies in mainstream western culture. The photos used in the book convincingly show that over the years, over centuries of western art, male beauty has remained focused on the slim, long limbed, curly haired, fair skinned, nude young men. Taking off from where Greer has left the discussion on beauty, I wonder whether there would be other productions that might take this exploration of male beauty further to include forms or interpretations of the subject of beautiful boys and men.

Having gone through year after year of the annual school concert in the all-boys school my children go to, where different dramas have boys from five years to sixteen years dressed as boys or girls, men or women, I have always been struck by how beautiful boys look dressed as girls, in fact blurring the differences between our perceptions of boys and girls. I wonder whether we should proactively push for a broadening of the narrow demarcations that confine our sexual identities so that cross dressing might be acceptable as fashion or otherwise, so that we can relax when we can say and hear that boys ARE in fact beautiful, clothed or not.
