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That's right, I said love them. Not just warehouse them in schools and whip them into shape in sports programs and the military, but take a real interest, mentor, nurture. Contemporary "control feminist" narratives hold that these adolescent developmental tasks can be taken care of by women. (I'll define the term "control feminist", and rip their narratives a new one, a bit later. See below.) This doesn't happen. Not because there aren't enough interested, caring women up in boys' lives, but because in the early phases of socialization, as boys begin wanting to become men, the boys themselves don't look to women. To them (intuitively, subconsciously, of course) it would be absurd to think they could learn how to be men by modeling the behavior of women. They are right. It would be just as absurd to imagine that girls could learn how to be women in our society by learning from men, and no feminist would put up with that for a minute.
The ongoing, chronic dilemma is usually referred to as "The Boy Problem", or "The Boy Crisis". A Web search using these terms will provide reading material for the forseeable future for anyone interested. Psychologists, sociologists, doctors, lawyers, activists and citizens have written scores, if not hundreds of books, articles, opinon pieces about the nature of the problem, the causes and possible solutions. (I've collected a partial bibliography at the end of this article.) The only agreement among these is that there is a problem. Solutions usually fall short, and often aren't implemented at all. Several generations of boys already have been shortchanged.
Indeed, Esquire has been addressing The Boy Problem for decades. In July 2006, Tom Chiarella discusses "The Problem with Boys", which he characterizes as "a growing record of failure and disengagement" [p.94]. Chiarella follows up in June/July 2014 issue dedicated to 'Fatherhood', with an article titled "Wandering". The 'teaser' on the issue's cover informs, "The boy crisis is only accelerating - page 108". Editor David Granger highlights his comments, "What is it with Esquire and fatherhood?" [p.22] A few months before the June/July 2014 'Fatherhood' issue, Editor Granger highlights the steep rise in ADHD diagnoses, which "are predominantly boys". He makes himself clear: "I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Boys are under attack in America. It's a bad thing and it's getting worse." [Esquire, April 2014, p.28]. For October 2014, the whole issue is devoted to 'Mentoring'. The cover promises the contents will provide information on "How to build a man". The Fatherhood theme is revisited in Summer 2022, with several articles exploring "How we Dad Now".
Paul Goodman, in his Introduction to Growing Up Absurd (New York: Random House, 1960) made it clear that his purpose was "to show how it is desperately hard these days for an average child to grow up to be a man" [p.14]. He also made it clear that he was writing specifically about boys, "because the problems I want to discuss in this book belong primarily, in our society, to the boys: how to be useful and make something of oneself. [p.13] . . . [I]t is impossible for the average boy to grow up and use the remarkable capacities that are in every boy, unless the world is for him and makes sense." [p.16] He might as well be writing this today.
As of this writing, some of the change I am advocating here may already be happening. The governor of California has recognized the problem and issued an executive order (30 July 2025) to "address disconnection among California's young men and boys . . . to improve mental health outcomes, reduce stigma, and expand access to meaningful education, work, and mentorship opportunities." (www.gov.ca.gov/2025/07/30/) He specifically addresses "the lack of male role models in educational settings." Perhaps the perspective I am presenting here can help, and I must say the governor's involvement is most welcome.
Here's what's wrong: there aren't enough men in everyday teaching and helping roles for boys to interact with as they search for 'clues' on how to become men in society. No, boys can't get all they need from women, or even from their fathers. No, they can't even get all they need from comic books, video games or movie heroes, super or otherwise. And they certainly can't wait until late in adolescence when men suddenly appear around them in the workplace or in the service.
The control feminist narrative: Why do they have to wait? Because the pervasive narrative developed in the formative period of women's liberation says that Men are Scum; that men are not suitable to teach or care for growing children and early teens; that men are predisposed to exert power over women and children; that all-male groups (e.g., single-gender schools, boys' choirs and clubs, Scouting and sports programs) perpetuate the 'patriarchy' (Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), are antithetical to women's/girls' liberation and must be integrated. Significantly, all-female groups are usually immune to this same criticism. No-one is proposing that boys be admitted to the ranks of Girl Scouts. No-one is crying to admit young men as undergraduates at historic women's colleges (though some that have not already closed have gone co-ed 'voluntarily', often to boost revenue). The 'Men are Scum' narrative, and all its permutations, must be challenged, beginning now, in order to alleviate The Boy Problem and help boys find a society that is truly equal.
A central casualty of the control feminist narrative is boys-only activities. Girls have them all the time, indeed 'girl power' has been a useful and positive cornerstone of women's liberation. For boys, all-male activities often are viewed as suspect, as if they might be plotting how to consolidate power. In popular films, all-male groups tend to be films about nerds and slackers who have trouble getting girls (Jackass [2002, and sequels]; Superbad [2007]) while all-female groups often center around girl power and intra-female competition (Bring it On [2000]; Mean Girls [2004 and sequels]; The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants [2005]). Of course, this is a broad generalization. Films present a wide variety of gender combinations and story lines. But think of it this way: who can name an all-girl slacker or jackass film where the girls have trouble attracting boys; or a boy-group film where the boys are more interested in how their mates look and dress and rate in the social calendar? To the extent that boys look to films (other than action blockbusters) for life suggestions, this is what they see. The Boy Problem continues.
Before suggesting any possible solutions, it should be emphasized that any backtracking on the progress women (and girls) have made with respect to equality in society would not, and should not, be tolerated. Social equality must not be a competition, and any attempt to gain, or regain, control is unacceptable. I try not to view the problem in terms of right or wrong, good or bad, but rather through a simple motivation dichotomy. Stanford professors Lee J. Cronbach and Richard E. Snow (Aptitudes and Instructional Methods: A Handbook for Research on Interactions. New York: Irvington, 1977) proposed a simple, value-neutral evaluation in which people's motivation is seen as defensive or constructive. Neither style is inherently better than the other. For the issues discussed here, I see control feminism as defensive motivation at work, and equality feminism as constructive. A defensive approach has its place when reformers feel it is necessary for achieving their goals. Part of their responsibility, then, is to recognize when they no longer need to be defensive, and can move forward in constructive ways. The Boy Problem must constructively be addressed in ways that empower girls as well as boys, men as well as women. It cannot be stressed too much: Equality is the goal.
I certainly won't claim that most of the issues discussed here are my own original thoughts, and there may already be movement on some of the reforms I'm suggesting here. I've already mentioned the California governor's executive order, issued while I was finishing this piece. There may be a few more functional men in television commercials than in the past; there certainly is more awareness of The Boy Problem as a social issue; homophobia is showing a marked decline in many quarters, with acceptance of gay marriage and transgender people as preliminary evidence. More and more writers and media personalities are acknowledging the problem, though none yet focusing on the core issue I'm raising, namely the durable 'Men are Scum' narrative. (It is worth noting, also, that a large majority of the writers identifying the problem in published and broadcast media in the last two decades are women. This, in itself, is somewhat troubling in my view. It seems as if men are not welcome in today's culture to comment on issues involving boys. Some do so anyway. More men need to raise their hackles.) My strong opinion is that the current pace of this perceived change is much too slow. The 'boys adrift' condition already has seriously compromised at least two generations of boys. In all possible ways, the trajectory of change must be accelerated, while making sure, as I've noted elsewhere, to avoid reactionary power struggles that would compromise the progress of women's liberation and return one or the other gender group to a 'control' position. Again, and always, equality must be the goal.
The urgency of addressing The Boy Problem soon is exacerbated by the concurrent rise of social control by commercial interests via social media, particularly 'smart' phones that have addicted the youth of America. Privacy is, quite simply, dead. I am not qualified to deal with those issues, and will only comment on them in passing here. The Boy Problem and social media servitude may be 'correlation not causation', but leaving boys to deal with both as they struggle to enter society seems - especially to boys themselves - insurmountable. The Boy Problem is the older issue. First things first.
Many who address these issues today seem to view the problem as new in the past few decades. Whether due to scholarly myopia or the scourge of revisionist history, this short-sighted historical view may, in fact, be part of the problem. Scholarly myopia can be cured. Revisionist history is inexcusable, and those who employ it should be exterminated on behalf of American boys past, present and future. I totally reject revisionist history as manipulative, if not evil, and will continue to call it out whenever I see it. If I could, I would imprison those who employ revisionist history for political gain, pending their execution (or perhaps 'ostracizing' or 'exile' would be better words).
Far from being new, the earliest publication (to my knowledge) to use the term "Boy Problem" is a book by that name, written in 1901 (Boston: Pilgrim Press) by William Byron Forbush (1868-1927). Dr Forbush was an educator and minister whose books on youth education were popular in his time, and can be accessed online in full text even today. He edited a periodical which he named, How to Help Boys, which published several volumes around 1903. While Dr Forbush wrote about the socialization of girls as well as boys, the majority of his work was specifically for boys. Like most others who addressed The Boy Problem in that era, his analysis and advice was grounded in religious principles in a way that would include any boy, any family.
The unimaginable casualties of World War I raised the "Boy Problem" to a crisis for society. At the same time, the 'melting pot' of wartime service gave the men who survived a fresh outlook on the value of their fellow men regardless of class or privilege, even as the essential task of rebuilding (male) society required new priorities and strategies. Social reformer William Paine saw that the War had produced a new comradeship which tended to ignore class differences of the past. In his A New Aristocracy of Comradeship (London: Leonard Parsons, 1920) he offered his prescription for building a healthy society going forward:
The dynamic at work here (or not!) is known in sociology and other human behavior disciplines as the 'transmission of culture'. Every society, civilized and pre-state, enables this process in their own way, with particular emphasis and perhaps more formality for boys, though not by any means absent for girls. Terms like 'rite of passage', 'vision quest', or 'coming of age' are commonly encountered in scholarly as well as popular writings. For girls, the Latin-American tradition of quinceaneras, and the Jewish bat-mitzvah mark the (ceremonial) beginning of womanhood. Though somewhat archaic, the formal designation 'debutante' could be added to this list.
The history of society's concern for facilitating the healthy socialization of boys is dominated by the involvement of dedicated men, sometimes referred to as the "boy workers" (not to be confused with victims of child labor). I take the liberty here of calling the present-day (or future) counterparts of these dedicated men 'queer men'. Some are homosexual, others are not. Women have been involved, sometimes as organizers and advocates, while remaining in the background as men performed the in-person work of interacting with boys. Common knowledge, if not scholarship, has always realized that it is men who must step up if boys are to be helped. In his speech at the 100th anniversary of the Disciples of Christ [12 October 1909], Rev. T.W. Grafton (1857-1940), echoing Theodore Roosevelt, declared, "We shall never solve the men's problem until we have solved the problem of the boy. . . . The boy is a hero-worshiper. The boy is an imitator. He is sure to imitate his hero, and his hero is always a man." (In W.R. Warren, Ed., Centennial Convention Report, Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Company, 1910, pp.91-93) H.W. Gibson (Boyology, New York: Association Press [YMCA], 1916/1918) asserts that the boy "must be saved from the sin of selfishness through service to others, and the parent or friend who can guide them into the path of right doing will ever be remembered. Memory never forgets the friends of boyhood. 'I had a friend' is the secret of the manly, virile character of many men." [p.183] The man who becomes a "boy worker" almost universally is someone who has not forgotten the 'sense of wonder' (a term associated with Rachel Carson's 1956 book [New York: Harper & Row] about childhood) he experienced in his own adolescence, and has accepted a responsibility to see that the next generation not only encounters that 'wonder', but maintains its potency into adulthood. At an invitation-only conference in 1987, I floated the idea that some men actually experience the desire to help boys as a 'need', a notion that I maintain to this day. As for the 'sense of wonder', in my own writing I have referred to this as the 'spark of adolescence'; others, in a somewhat limited popular understanding of the phenomenon, often call it 'hormones'.
Discussion of the need to counteract the confusion boys were feeling in their search for their identity as men appeared as early as the turn of the XXth century in books that actually gave the early boy-help movement some of its 'nicknames': Boyology, or Boy Analysis (H.W. Gibson, New York: Association Press [YMCA], 1916); Boyville: A History of Fifteen Years' Work Among Newsboys (John E. Gunckel, Toledo, Ohio: Toledo Newsboys' Association [1905]); The Boy Problem: A Study in Social Pedagogy (William Byron Forbush, Boston: Pilgrim Press [1901]). Gibson (1867-1941) was a professional camp director; Gunckel (1846-1915) was a railway passenger agent; Forbush (1868-1927) was a Quaker pastor and theologian. The YMCA was particularly active in this movement, not least in its efforts to publish books and articles through their publishing house, Association Press (New York). One bibliography of "Boy Life and Organized Work with Boys", compiled by Ronald Tuttle Veal in 1919, listed 1,500 titles, some 450 of which were from a bibliography of J.T. Bowne published in 1906 by the YMCA International Committee.
In former times, particularly before the First World War, men's roles were different from today in quite profound ways. Brotherhood was an important, nearly spiritual virtue; affection between men was common; and public homophobia was relatively rare. Religion was an integral part of social life, and those who spent some or all of their time working with youth were highly regarded in the community for their dedication to their vocation. Men of the era (XIXth-early XXth century) often regarded boys as a valuable national asset, society's future, spiritual and beautiful. Thomas F. Bayard (1828-1898), president Grover Cleveland's Secretary of State and Ambassador to England, is quoted by Arthur Trewby in his Healthy Boyhood (London: privately printed, c.1907) as saying the puer ingenuus [freeborn boy] is "one of the most lovely things in nature" [p.ii]. Charles Dickens (1812-1870), in Bleak House (1852, Chapter XIX) rhapsodized, "O running stream of sparkling joy / To be a soaring human boy!" Dr W.A. Keyes, a New York City educator and summer camp director, described his ideal counselor in the widely-circulated Spalding Athletic Series manual Camps and Camping (1921, pp.120-125), "Some wish [to become counselors] . . . for the pleasure of mingling with boys. . . . I have found that camp counsellors are usually at their best while they have the spirit of the boy still dominant in their beings. . . . My counsellor must have a genuine love for boys. If he be a real boy-lover he will have some boy friends. . . . The big brother instinct is so strong in the young man who really loves boys, that some boys will find him out and cling to him." Language such as that is rare today, to say the least, though the term 'boy-lover' resurfaced in the 1970s, as noted below.
The beauty of boys, like that of girls and adults, is immortalized in public sculpture worldwide, including the monuments for the deceased on XIX-century cemetery graves, especially in Western Europe and the South American countries influenced by European artists. As for depictions of children and adolescents in public and museum sculpture, boys significantly outnumber girls. Art historians rarely associate an artist's choice of a subject for sculpture with that artist's explicit sexual life, rightly choosing instead to emphasize the artist's vision of beauty. These depictions often make people nervous today, particularly women. It would help boys to connect again with the culture if these depictions could be celebrated again, as they were when they were created.
The beauty of boyhood found its way into the new art of photography in the work of Thomas Eakins, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Wilhelm von Plüschow, Vincenzo Galdi, F. Holland Day and others; at mid-century, there were the photography collections edited by Georges St Martin (pseudonym of a man later convicted of sexual misconduct with minors) and his colleagues. These books, advertised in national publications (e.g., New York Daily News, 18 March 1966, p.7) and sold in mainstream bookstores, celebrated the pure beauty of boys in everyday life. Later publications on these themes included the work of Bruce Weber, Will McBride, and feminist Germaine Greer's The Beautiful Boy (New York: Rizzoli, 2003). Cecile Beurdeley's L'Amour Bleu (New York: Rizzoli, 1978), which focuses on painting and drawing, is in this same category.
Before long, attention to society's Boy Problem began to be regarded as a science, or at least a pseudo-science. While traditional academics developed what we call today Developmental Psychology, the popular literature was entertaining notions such as H.W. Gibson's Boyology, or Boy Analysis (New York: Association Press [YMCA], 1916/1918). More recently, this idea was central to Kenneth B. Kidd's Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004).
While academics (and ministers) addressed The Boy Problem in writing, others took a more practical approach and developed programs, even living arrangements, to help boys find, or stay on, the 'right track'. The need for such programs was much more immediate and relevant for boys, who were thrust into the larger society to find their way, than for girls, whose socialization was centered more at home, first their mothers', then their own. (I should mention, before going too much further, that this superficial description of these very complex issues and processes consists of generalizations. If I were writing a scholarly paper, I would detail the many exceptions and variations underlying the points I make. I would also include many more references to research and other scholarly writing to bog down the text. For my purposes here, that kind of detail might alienate my intended audience. I can only hope I haven't done that already.)
Some early-XXth century programs to help boys wisely included boys themselves in their planning meetings, conventions and governing bodies. Even very young adolescents in those days were considered to be close enough to adulthood that their ideas and contributions, not to mention energy, were valued by the organizers. Father Flanagan's Boys Town was organized around self-governance, as were many of the other residential programs that came to replace the orphanages of the XIXth century. The YMCA was particularly strong at integrating boys in their leadership through their development of counselors from their own ranks. Chapter Five of H.W. Gibson's Twenty-Five Years of Organized Boys Work in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 1891-1915 (Boston: State Executive Committee, YMCAs, 1915) documents the Y's early-XXth century Boys' State Conferences, in which boys and young men participated as virtual equals with the adult organizers. Similar, albeit informal, groups of boys and men are described in some informal literature - newsletters and privately printed books and pamphlets - that circulated during the early gay liberation movement in the 'boylove' subculture. Some of these groups, beginning with the Wandervogel in Germany during the first half of the XXth century, would probably qualify as communes. The existence of these fringe groups and the pamphlets and newsletters that describe and document them have been subjected to revisionist history under the terms of the Control Feminist Narrative which demonizes men interested in working with boys as pedophiles. Some were, in fact, pedophiles. Most were not. The Narrative continues to suppress these aspects of gay liberation history, including the resistance on the part of gay archives such as ONE Institute in Los Angeles to accepting donations and possibly removing materials already in their collection from their public catalogs. My view is that in-depth study of the early gay liberation 'boylove' movement can be helpful in addressing the present-day Boy Problem. Encouraging queer men - some of whom are homosexual - to participate again in the institutions of society that provide healthy socialization for boys will not, and should not, mean a return to a society that turns a blind eye to inappropriate sexual activity.
The history of various attempts to address The Boy Problem, and certainly the control feminist narrative, is a story that cannot be considered separate from the question of homosexuality and, later, the gay liberation movement. Actually, the proper descriptor is 'homosociality'. The programs, movements, mentorships and friendships that worked to encourage boys to stay healthy and become productive members of society were, by definition, homosocial. By all accounts, few were homosexual. The Rev. Horatio Alger (1832-1899) was asked to leave his congregation in Brewster, Massachussetts, for "unnatural familiarity with boys" (Gary Scharnhorst & Jack Bates, The Lost Life of Horatio Alger Jr, Indiana University Press, 1985, p.67) then went on to make amends for what he regarded as his mistake by writing scores of inspirational 'rags to riches', 'hard work brings success' novels for boys and young men. And then there was Oscar Wilde's infamous trial, though his attraction for young men may not qualify so much as mentorship, more as social climbing and self-indulgence. Nonetheless, such indiscretions were relatively rare. Maybe people were just more reluctant to talk about, or admit, such conduct; or maybe some indiscretions have simply been lost to history. What is not lost to history nor the collective memory is the high regard in which dedicated "boy workers" were held. Robert Baden-Powell (1857-1941) was nearly sainted by generations of Boy Scouts, their parents and his other admirers. Books have been written. Hollywood films have been made, and Spencer Tracy even won the Best Actor Oscar® for his portrayal of Father Edward J. Flanagan (1886-1948) of Boys Town. Robert Mitchell (1912-2009) transformed his local church choir into the Mitchell Singing Boys in the 1930s, and spent the rest of his life nurturing his singers and performers, appearing in dozens of Hollywood films. Categorizing these associations as homosocial is both appropriate and inevitable. Worrying about whether they were homosexual, in the absence of accusations and evidence, is pointless, a modern aberration, a political obsession born of the control feminist narrative.
A change in society concurrent with the rise of The Boy Problem was the shift to what journalist Martha Weinman Lear (The Child Worshipers, New York: Crown, 1963) calls the 'child-centered society'. (Decades earlier, psychologist John B. Watson used the term 'over-coddled' in Psyschological Care of Infant and Child, New York: W.W. Norton, 1928, Chapter Three, which he titles, "The Dangers of Too Much Mother Love".) At the same time, childhood (and adolescence) were getting much longer, and the tendency to protect children from society more than prepare them for it was becoming the norm. Boys who used to enter the working world (where they would associate with, and learn from, in-person men) not long after puberty were more and more being kept in schools where fewer and fewer men were accessible.
Enter the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which was overlapped and intertwined with Women's Liberation, Gay Liberation and various ethnic-centered movements. It would probably be more accurate to refer to this era as the Diversity Revolution, or the rise of the "counter culture" (Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969). Hollywood began documenting youthful rejection of social norms in the 1950s in films such as The Wild One (1953), Blackboard Jungle (1955), and anything starring James Dean. Broadway musicals morphed from Oklahoma! (1941) and Carousel (1945) to West Side Story (1957) and Hair (1968). Youth programs born many decades before were still vital and widely supported, albeit less effective when they tried to stick to traditional, establishment goals. Diversity became an important value in Scouting and YMCA programs, and the dedicated "boy workers" in those organizations worked hard to keep boys engaged in the rapidly changing society. Organized mentorship, mostly in the form of the Big Brothers program, was popular, though its days were numbered, in part because of rising homophobia in America, and because of the effects of the control-feminist 'Men are Scum' narrative. Mentorship, and in particular apprenticeship in trades, was on the decline.
A relatively unknown Canadian film, Montreal Main, appeared in festivals in 1974, and documented an intense and not sexual man/boy friendship which explores both the genius and the serious pitfalls of mentoring without the 'benefit' of organizational structure. The friendship between Johnny and Frank was not set up by Big Brothers, nor 'housed' at Scout or YMCA camp. It just happened, until it was flattened like roadkill. Four decades later, the film has enjoyed a minor comeback relevant once again as The Boy Problem gets worse. Film historian Thomas Waugh, and Jason Garrison have written a book-length critique of the film (Montreal Main: A Queer Film Classic, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010), the social context in which it appeared, and the sociological/psychological dynamics of one-on-one mentorship.
The type of homosocial relationship at the center of Montreal Main was not uncommon before the 1980s. Associating with boys and young men who were not related to them was simply the lifestyle choice, and sometimes the career choice, of men throughout society, including, but in no way limited to, the social reformers I've mentioned elsewhere. Many of those men have been gay, many have not. The Rev. E.E. Bradford (1860-1944) wrote a dozen published books that were successful and well-received in his time. In a listing for a recent collection of his work on amazon.com/ (My Love is Like All Lovely Things: Selected Poems of E.E. Bradford, London: Arcadian Dreams, 2023), a reviewer notes that Bradford "was one of the Uranians, that group of late-Victorian and early-20th-century poets and prose writers who . . . sang the praises of the love between boys and men and advocated its rehabilitation in society." The reviewer adds that the biography of Bradford by C. Caunter, included in the book, addresses "questions such as how his boy-love poetry could have been received to favourably in early-20th-century Britain." Both the amazon.com/ Product Details and the listing on books.google.com/ categorize this book and author as being gay-themed, though such a category would not have occurred to people of Bradford's time. Other writers of the time still known today who celebrated male camaraderie and intergenerational interaction include John Addington Symonds (1840-1893, author of A Problem in Greek Ethics, 1901); Edward Carpenter (1844-1929); Walt Whitman (1819-1892) . . . the list goes on and on. Many of these writers were at least acquainted with each other. The "Uranians" noted in the Bradford book review were not an organized movement, rather writers who shared themes and philosophies. Some were vegetarians. Others were not.
Giving the writers of the Uranian period a common descriptor has been a problem, especially after the 'realignment' of the gay community enacted by control feminists. 'Boy Lover' was a term used often, including by educator and summer camp director W.A. Keyes, quoted above (1921). The early years of modern gay liberation, even before Stonewall, as it grew out of the Beat movement of the 1950s, included a loose coalition of men who enjoyed working and socializing with boys. Some had sexual contact with the boys. Many did not. (Remember that the definition of "boy" in the last century-plus has undergone major changes, and cannot be regarded as an agreed-on stage of life. When I discuss 'boys and young men' and The Boy Problem, I'm referring to males who themselves have begun the process of 'inspecting' the society outside their homes, and evaluating the role models they see there. This is [very] roughly age 8 and up, with the majority being at least in first puberty.) These men often called themselves 'boy-lovers'; sometimes 'pederasts' (G. Parker Rossman, "Literature on pederasty", Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 9 No. 4, 1973); in street slang (and in police jargon) they were known as 'chicken hawks'. The complete and thorough demonization of all of these terms has left us with no value-neutral descriptor.
For a decade or more, the 'official' gay community debated the relevance in its ranks of a semi-organized subculture focused on being involved in the socialization of boys. Those who encouraged the ouster of boylovers and denial that boylove was even a gay community issue generally took that view to avoid the common (and incorrect, even absurd) stereotype that homosexuals were de facto child molesters who needed fresh recruits to insure their future. Some leaders of the gay movement resisted these exclusions. At a public meeting in 1984 (Sentinel U.S.A., 11 October 1984; Bay Area Reporter, 11 October 1984, p.8; Edge (Los Angeles), 1-14 November 1984, p.20), movement pioneer Harry Hay (1912-2002) expressed his gratitude for the men who befriended him as a child and helped him find a path into the gay world; and Morris Kight (1919-2003), a pioneer and leader in the Los Angeles gay community suggested that the furor over child molestation was being used to divert attention away from heterosexual child neglect.
As feminists decided to support (subsume?) gay liberation, they leveraged homophobia to accomplish one of their essential goals, to remove men from the socialization of children. In spite of some pretty vocal internal opposition, including some voices of lesbian feminists, the gay community 'caved' in order to save the movement (Jim Downs, Stand By Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation, New York: Basic Books, 2016). This was made easier, more effective and more supportive to the 'Men are Scum' narrative, since a small minority of those who identified as 'boylovers' were, in fact, crossing into forbidden sexual territory, providing ammunition to those who then easily demonized all gay men who professed an interest in boys. Society quickly constructed the lucrative and career-making apparatus of the Child Abuse Industry (Lee Coleman, "False Allegations of Child Abuse", lecture at a VOCAL [Victims of Child Abuse Legislation] meeting, Altadena, California, 1985), a moral-panic fueled hysteria that quickly led to theories of satanic cult abuse and the McMartin Preschool débâcle of the mid-1980s, not to mention decades of over-kill legislation virtually all of which contributes to the 'Men are Scum' narrative. The epithet 'pedophile' has gone far beyond its original meaning as a medical (psychiatric) term.
I promised above to explain my term 'control feminist'. My own participation in feminism began in the last few years of graduate study, 1983-1986, when I worked as a teaching assistant and later Instructor in my university's pioneering Gender Studies program. Then, as now, my commitment has been to the solid and pervasive equality of women and men, boys and girls in society. I regard myself as an 'equality feminist'. The women's movement has embraced many types of involvement, from radical activists to 'silent partners', women, men, transgender people, old and young, virtually all religions, black, blond, and bald. One of the driving forces were (are) those feminists who believe women should replace men in control of society. These I call 'control feminists', and I reject that objective as being incompatible with equality. I reject it also because it keeps society on the never-ending, competitive pendulum - facetiously called the 'battle of the sexes' in past times. I cannot support any return to male control of society, nor can I see female control as being socially healthy either. In fact, I reject the control by any defined demographic group, whether religious, ideological, ethnic, or corporate. Which brings us back to the control feminist narrative that, in my studied opinion, is a stubborn pillar of The Boy Problem.
A social attitude that paints men as untrustworthy in domestic situations and inappropriate as guardians or mentors to boys and younger men, especially when that attitude attains the 'status' of political correctness, keeps men out of the view of children and away from any involvement in their socialization. 'Men are Scum' is a powerful and destructive generalization that deforms the natural socialization of both girls and boys. It disrupts what I call the 'social ecology', in which society, given all its complexity and nuance and given complete freedom to develop without political special interests, will determine at every point in the past, present and future what it needs to provide to those sprouts that will become its citizens and progenitors. In the past, and I trust in the near future, social ecology will (re)populate itself with an army of non-traditional, even non-conformist men to whom boys and adolescent men can look for clues about how they might 'man up', as well as warnings of what they want to avoid in their manhood. Those who would continue to exclude men from involvement with children, because the control feminist narrative leads them to believe the worst, should be assured that society currently has plenty of safeguards to guard against sexual impropriety.
Men who care enough to devote some or all of their lives to enhancing the healthy development of boys and young men are 'queer' men, in the broadest, modern sense of the word. They are 'other' to stereotyped heterosexuals, and some are homosexuals. Not all.
The idea of 'queer men' is not new with me, only the name has been added (to attract attention, I admit). In his article "The Problem with Boys" (Esquire, July 2006) , mentioned above, Tom Chiarella makes it clear that he believes it is up to men to 'fix' the Boy Problem, just as women addressed girls' inequality as part of their own liberation: "Women forced the issue with girls. Men have to do the same with boys." He expresses doubts about "character training championed by conservatives", as well as "sensitivity training" from the other side. "We don't need a new orthodoxy. We need a deeper sense of involvement. Men have to be willing to care about the way boys are being treated, taught, and cared for in this country and advocate for them. . . . If the classrooms don't work, men must be in the schools. . . . Young men, men without children, must take a stake and volunteer to coach, to counsel, to read to kids. . . . Men whose children are grown must mentor a new generation of children. . . . Go talk to boys. You don't have to use baby talk with them or buy them things. You just have to listen to them. Ask them who they are. . . . You will surely realize that boys themselves are not the problem. And it sure as hell isn't women or girls. The problem is men." [pp.137-138] In a more recent article, Claire Cain Miller seems to agree with one of my emphasized points, that the men in boys lives are more effective when they're in-person: "[R]esearch suggests that it's the adults whom children personally know - and who share their gender or race - who have the biggest effect. They influence children by representing what's possible, modeling behavior and empathizing from shared experience. And their presence has been found to improve educational performance, career decisions, motivation and relationships." [New York Times, 17 July 2025, Section A page 20] I may be the only one (so far) calling them 'queer' men, but these and other writers clearly are describing men who are not traditional, corporate-world men. These are men who, unlike even the majority of good fathers in our society, decide that part or all of their daily lives will be dedicated consciously to improving the socialization of those who will become men and take their places. To me, that's very queer - in the best contemporary sense of the word.
In many discussions of The Boy Problem, both in identifying issues and proposing solutions, I've noticed some misunderstandings of basic developmental psychology that compromise their relevance: Timing: the critical period for boy-to-man socialization is no later than the beginning of puberty and extends only to mid-adolescence (about ages 8-15). The focus on late adolescence for interventions and programs is just too little, too late. Direction: Many solutions are proposed by well-meaning adults who seem to believe that social or educational programs, such as structured role-modeling opportunities or study sessions, are the answer - an outside-in approach. While these can be useful, they are usually not enough, because the process actually begins in an inside-out direction. A boy seeks his identity; it cannot be thrust upon him. (Works the same for girls, of course.) Also, a boy's identity as a (future) man is not acquired in a package, a weekend outing, nor any single relationship. It seeps in gradually - very gradually - over long stretches of his childhood, as he experiences real men in real life and, without any awareness or plan, evaluates what he sees and chooses those bits of men that make sense to him and rejects those bits that don't. During this process, he must come to see his future place in the social fabric. This view, when clear to the boy, becomes his motivation. All society can do, assuming it is left to its own ecology and not politicized, is provide relatively equal numbers of women and men in all facets of the child's world and 'let it happen', with much less emphasis on 'make it happen'.
So, let's assume that up until now, solutions haven't worked. What should we do different? I assert that equalizing the 'membership' of women and men in society will be the major step necessary. Once this is happening, boys (and girls) will choose, from the adult behaviors and attitudes they encounter, those they wish to emulate - and those they wish to avoid. Of course, as explained elsewhere in this article, in order to (re)populate men into the society that 'handles' children, the 'Men are scum' narrative must be neutralized. How? I say, let women figure that out. They started it. We will know it's on the right track when one-on-one mentoring is no longer discouraged nor under suspicion when boys seek it out and men respond, when such friendships are celebrated and valued, especially by single mothers, as they were in my youth (1950s-1960s).
This is more than just a father-absent v. father-involved issue. Most writers on the subject of The Boy Problem point to the need for fathers in the home, and they are right to highlight the importance of a father's (or father-substitute's) influence. The boy's socialization in the larger society outside the home, however, goes beyond the father's (and mother's) influence. (Same for girls.) Since the industrial revolution, young people who used to stay in small communities ("down on the farm") typically leave their family home and must become women or men of the larger society. By that time, ideally they would have begun this transition by years of observing others of their gender outside their own homes whom they sense are successful and functional as adults. Sometimes consciously, more often not, they look to such adults as models, as mentors. Girls have many adults populating their lives, teachers in school, day care and medical care workers, most of whom are women. The female-centered advertising that saturates their lives serves to underscore the potential source of role-models for girls. (Not that their development is without problems; but that's another discussion.)
Pop culture is female-heavy. Most pop music stars are women, and virtually all fans of pop music icons, whether male or female, are girls, a trend that music promoters began cashing in on with Frank Sinatra's 'bobby soxers'. In films, females are featured much more often in leading roles (a positive trend), and many character types that once were associated with stereotypical male aggression and toughness are being written into women's roles (a questionable practice, in my opinion, especially when it replaces, rather than adds to, the images of men in those roles). In 1993 (July 26, Los Angeles Times), Jack Matthews informed us, "In Hollywood Movies, It's the Year of the Boy", noting that after several years of low numbers, there were more than two dozen films being released that year featuring a boy in a central role. In retrospect, he might have titled his article "End of an Era". This shift toward females is a good indication that women's position in society is improving. There is a possible downside, if not attenuated, in that boys will continue to lose their connection with the society - The Boy Problem.
Let's take a closer look at advertising, since it permeates society, and in profound ways, establishes standards and models for behavior in the way that art or the Church did in the past. If we include social media, which is basically little more than advertising designed to make money for someone, advertising is an important source of imagery available to children and adolescents for their gradual entry into society. What do they see? Advertising is aimed at women, likely because advertisers believe that it is mostly women who spend society's money; moreover, the people and situations depicted in advertising are mostly women. When men are present, they are more likely to be in subservient or secondary roles, almost 'token males', with women making most of the decisions. All-male advertisements are rare, while all-female advertisements are commonplace. When families are depicted, women interact with the children much more than men. Indeed, men are often absent completely. In the relatively few instances when men are interacting with children, the children are virtually always girls. Men interacting with boys is very rare, likely because of the narrative of the past couple of generations that tends to suspect men who spend time with boys must have shady motives. I don't believe the skew towards women is intentional nor conscious. Any one ad featuring women or excluding men is not objectionable. The problem is the sum total, which is what the uncritical mind of the growing boy perceives. If the whole world of advertising appears to the boy as being 'women's products' being sold by women, if he sees mostly subservient or comical men and few boys like himself, he can get the impression that the world outside his home may have no place for him. If he sees few images of boys interacting with men, he can come to assume he will have no support as he moves into physical adulthood. The spectre of pedophilia and 'stranger danger' used by some feminists to exclude men in the 1970s from child-care activities has been difficult to counteract.
If you think this notion is an over-reach, consider these examples from the years of our moral panic of recent decades: "Men who tend children: Abuse cases may drive them from child-care field" (Marilyn Gardner, The Christian Science Monitor, 24 June 1986); "Adults hold back affectionate touching: Child abuse fears chill relationships" (Bob Baker, Los Angeles Times, 19 May 1985); accusations by Internet trolls (anonymous, of course) that Perez Hilton was a pedophile because he expressed erotic interest in nude photos of former Disney child-star Dylan Sprouse - who was 21 at the time he (Sprouse) sexted the photos to his girlfriend (reported by Joe Morgan in gaystarnews.com, 16 December 2013). Scholars, also, have addressed this issue. James Hunter ("The political use and abuse of the 'Pedophile'", Journal of Homosexuality, Vol.55 No.3, 2008, pp.350-387) documents how the pedophile in society is used as a scapegoat and a tool of the religious right in furthering a sexual-repression agenda [p.371]. While the construct of 'pedophile' is seen as unreal, one which "floats in the thin air of fantasy" [p.367], the effect of society's vitriolic disapproval on both adults who are so characterised and their supposed victims is catastrophic. This notion has been echoed more recently by history professor Rachel Hope Cleves ("How to write the history of pederasty in the age of groomers", notchesblog.com/2022/05/10/how-to-write-the-history-of-pederasty-in-the-age-of-groomers/, posted 10 May 2022), who writes that she can't stand to read the incessant news about pedophiles, "because the vast majority of all the shouting about pedophiles and groomers is bullshit, vicious fantasies vomited up by reactionaries to attack queer and trans people, without the least concern for the damage their speech poses to actual children." In her earlier short biography of British literary figure Norman Douglas (1868-1952) ("The case of Norman Douglas", aeon.co/essays/pederasts-as-monsters-and-the-problem-of-active-not-knowing, posted 9 April 2021) she notes (correctly) that "todays extreme antipathy to paedophilia dates only to the 1980s, when contests over masculinity and homosexuality inspired an outburst of panic about child abuse." The Boy Problem has had a difficult time overcoming this hysteria. Defusing the Narrative will help.
Of course, child sexual abuse does exist, and is an appropriate target for society's actions to control and punish. This can, and must, be done without a widespread suspicion that limits the child-adult interactions of all men. Make no mistake: in the general public's use of the term, the 'pedophile' is always a man. So, what needs to be different, starting now? Long term: the population of men in school, health-care and child-care activities needs to approach equality (in numbers) with women. When this happens in schools, for example, boys' needs - educational and otherwise - will be better served, merely by the fact that men will be involved in the process. When boys begin investigating the world outside their homes as a potential space they can themselves inhabit, they must come in contact with real, live men there. Society must begin now to remove the barriers such men currently encounter as they choose their occupations in life. Short term: The false narrative that 'Men are Scum' (and all its correlates) must be challenged in every television talk show, sitcom, news program, every discussion that boys might hear. It would be a mistake to challenge the narrative on the basis of 'political correctness'. The challenge must be genuine, organic and based in a fundamental understanding that viewing all men as Scum is unrealistic, wrong and destructive. Another way to say this is that politics must be removed from gender relations. The "war between the sexes" competition so deliciously enjoyed in the past (probably started by men, it must be said) must morph into equal respect, separate but equal where appropriate. Advertisers need to make decisions on how to populate their commercials with an eye to the 'big picture', and social responsibility. Special recognition of women in business and in the public eye - Women's History Month, for example - needs to ratchet down, in recognition of the fact that women's status in society is improving significantly. To continue special recognition gives boys, and everyone, the impression that women are still short of full equality (which they are) and that achieving that equality is more important than fostering overall female-male equality (which it isn't).
Finally, a word on methodology. While the conclusions and suggestions in this paper are grounded in available research, it is also theoretical and based on my understanding of behaviour that has worked (for millennia), and lately is not working (The Boy Problem). I trust that those with institutional affiliations and resources can mount the further research that needs to be done in order to support everyone's efforts to bring boys back into equal participation in their society. Again, and always: equality is the goal.
Postscript: I made most of the points discussed above in several papers I published and presented at conferences between 1987 and 1990, in which I proposed that men should be intricately involved in boys' lives and women's equality by the one-to-one transition of "anti-sexist values" (see Bibliography below). It is gratifying (or should I say annoying?) to see significant portions of the community coming around to similar positions now, only four decades later!
Note: The title of this essay is borrowed from the popular music standard, "You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You", written in 1944 by Russ Morgan, Larry Stock, and James Cavanaugh, popularized by Dean Martin in 1960, and Dinah Washington in 1962, among many others: "You're nobody 'til somebody loves you / You're nobody 'til somebody cares." I trust the relevance of this sentiment to The Boy Problem, albeit unintended by the song's authors and performers, is apparent.
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William Byron Forbush. The Boy Problem: A Study in Social Pedagogy. Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1901
Julia Grant. The Boy Problem: Educating Boys in Urban America, 1870-1970. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014
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Christina Hoff Sommers. The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000 [for her revision, published by Simon & Schuster in 2013, she changed the subtitle to . . . How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men]
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Rachel Hope Cleves. How to write the history of pederasty in the age of groomers, notchesblog.com/2022/05/10/how-to-write-the-history-of-pederasty-in-the-age-of-groomers/, posted 10 May 2022
Rachel Hope Cleves. The case of Norman Douglas, aeon.co/essays/pederasts-as-monsters-and-the-problem-of-active-not-knowing, posted 9 April 2021
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Gerald P. Jones. Intergenerational Intimacy Involving Children or Adolescents: Developmental Research and Theory. invited paper presented at the Jemez Springs Symposium, Adult Human Sexual Behavior with Children and Adolescents, Jemez Springs, New Mexico, 29 June-3 July 1987[b]
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Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States of America. Address to the Central Juvenile Reformatory Committee, at the White House, 15 December 1905. Presidential Addresses and State Papers, Volume IV. New York: The Review of Reviews Company, 1910
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Thomas Waugh & Jason Garrison. Montreal Main: A Queer Film Classic. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010
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© Gerald P. Jones, 2026 March 6, may be quoted with attribution