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The Boy
Germaine Greer's brilliantly simple thesis is that boys have always been the world's favourite pin-ups, but that we have repressed this knowledge and blinded ourselves to their charms, not least because of a confusion between art and pornography and between delight and desire.
Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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750 people want to read
About the author
Germaine Greer
84 books673 followersGermaine Greer is an Australian born writer, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century.
Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her ground-breaking The Female Eunuch became an international best-seller in 1970, turning her overnight into a household name and bringing her both adulation and criticism. She is also the author of Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984), The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991), and most recently Shakespeare's Wife (2007).
Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her ground-breaking The Female Eunuch became an international best-seller in 1970, turning her overnight into a household name and bringing her both adulation and criticism. She is also the author of Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984), The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991), and most recently Shakespeare's Wife (2007).
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 24, 2016
The boy on the cover had his photo used without permission, and I'm not sure how a book about women's supposed latent pedophilia is feminist or worth the paper it's written on tbh
January 19, 2009
Germaine Greer is hardly a stranger to controversy, but her 2003 book The Boy is outrageously provocative even by her standards. She describes it as an attempt to reclaim women’s visual pleasure in the contemplation of male beauty, but it’s the youth of the males in question that aroused the ire of the self-appointed guardians of public morality. Greer’s subject is boys. Specifically boys in art, but it’s also a celebration of boys in general. And she is contemptuous of those who like to imagine boys as sexless creatures.
In fact it’s typical Greer - outrageous and thought-provoking, entertaining and confronting. And gorgeously illustrated. You might not agree with all her arguments, but I was surprised at just how often I did find myself agreeing with her. I was particularly interested in her contention that it was only in the 19th century that the female nude replaced the male nude as the ideal of beauty. If you don’t mind being blasted out of your comfort zone occasionally I highly recommend this book.
In fact it’s typical Greer - outrageous and thought-provoking, entertaining and confronting. And gorgeously illustrated. You might not agree with all her arguments, but I was surprised at just how often I did find myself agreeing with her. I was particularly interested in her contention that it was only in the 19th century that the female nude replaced the male nude as the ideal of beauty. If you don’t mind being blasted out of your comfort zone occasionally I highly recommend this book.
July 8, 2020
owning the transgendereds and libfems with pedophilia epic style 😎
October 30, 2022
This was one of those books that I had in my head as being "Germaine Greer is deciding that instead of sexualising girls, we should start sexualising boys." and I thought that what I was saying was outrageous but after reading this I think I was actually just kind of downplaying it if anything. Really a strange book overall, and I think people are like "Oh, Greer is called a pedophile for this, but actually she spends so much time going on about art and the beauty of boys." but like so much of this book is literally just about sexualising teenaged boys. Bjorn Andresen, the subject of the front page cover of this book, took a lot of objection with how he was depicted in this book in particular, but god those early segments of this book were so squeamish to me.
That's kind of what Greer feels like to me, where she makes these "provocative" statements that are actually quite indefensible, and then so much of it is this academic obfuscation that seemingly tries to work its way out of it and justifies it. There's passages in this book which outright argue about lowering the age of consent, for instance, and these quite lurid photos being painted in this even more lurid context. Greer tries to play it off like it's showing "sympathy and vulnerability" and that it's "showing the beauty, the reclamation that us women should have over it." and god, there's actually something about this book where the copywrite feels isomorphic to a sarcastic description deriding the book. Whatever merit this book has is lost with its context and just the early segments of it that some people might see as "provocation" but I think of as being just indefensible, and in effect is literally is just an argument for objectification just in this 'opposite', 'correct' direction. Not "male gaze" but "female gaze" etc.
Speaking of Bjorn Andresen, he was also one of the central inspirations behind the character design of Reinhard in the manga/anime The Rose of Versailles, and I think it also serves as a weird sort of antidote for the way that he's depicted in this book. There it actually seems like the inspiration and tribute to Bjorn is actually nice and not perverse. Like Greer talks about how "I'm reclaiming a visage from gay men for us women." but one of the things that Andresen makes a specific objection to was the objectification from gay men he received at the time while filming Death in Venice. In effect it replicates what he went through, and I can see precisely why he hated this book. I don't know but sometimes people go on about how "sophisticated" the arguments are in this book, but like having an art history lesson about Caravaggio or something doesn't excuse the things presented in this book.
Yeah, it's just weird. Sometimes you think you're being "unfair" to someone and then you do your research into it and you find out you were precisely right about them.
That's kind of what Greer feels like to me, where she makes these "provocative" statements that are actually quite indefensible, and then so much of it is this academic obfuscation that seemingly tries to work its way out of it and justifies it. There's passages in this book which outright argue about lowering the age of consent, for instance, and these quite lurid photos being painted in this even more lurid context. Greer tries to play it off like it's showing "sympathy and vulnerability" and that it's "showing the beauty, the reclamation that us women should have over it." and god, there's actually something about this book where the copywrite feels isomorphic to a sarcastic description deriding the book. Whatever merit this book has is lost with its context and just the early segments of it that some people might see as "provocation" but I think of as being just indefensible, and in effect is literally is just an argument for objectification just in this 'opposite', 'correct' direction. Not "male gaze" but "female gaze" etc.
Speaking of Bjorn Andresen, he was also one of the central inspirations behind the character design of Reinhard in the manga/anime The Rose of Versailles, and I think it also serves as a weird sort of antidote for the way that he's depicted in this book. There it actually seems like the inspiration and tribute to Bjorn is actually nice and not perverse. Like Greer talks about how "I'm reclaiming a visage from gay men for us women." but one of the things that Andresen makes a specific objection to was the objectification from gay men he received at the time while filming Death in Venice. In effect it replicates what he went through, and I can see precisely why he hated this book. I don't know but sometimes people go on about how "sophisticated" the arguments are in this book, but like having an art history lesson about Caravaggio or something doesn't excuse the things presented in this book.
Yeah, it's just weird. Sometimes you think you're being "unfair" to someone and then you do your research into it and you find out you were precisely right about them.
June 4, 2016
Before I read this I had only known Germaine Greer from her journalistic pieces. I was expecting a certain pungency and an in-your-face, slightly confrontational style, leavened with some humour, and she did not disappoint. It's also a great deal more erudite than reading her journalism had led me to expect. Greer seems to me to be one of those Australians - like Clive James and Barry Humphries - who combines being a heavyweight intellectual with an entertaining lightness of touch. Other reviewers here have spoken of this book as being controversial. It is and it isn't. The main thesis is expressed with such verve and command of the facts as to be incontrovertible. I don't see what is so controversial about Truth - unless people want to stop their eyes against it. But that, I suppose, is also Germaine's point. I foresee a time in the not too distant future when many of the masterpieces of western art - yes, even depictions of young adult males like Michelangelo's David - will be classified as "child abuse images." The West is doomed. I turn the pages of this beautiful book as I sip my glass of claret, and close my ears against the clamour of the barbarians who are inside the gates, and who turn away with ignorant stupidity from the civilisation which brought them to birth.
March 7, 2010
One of the books I referred to most often while studying art. Wink! A book that is mostly about women (and occastionally men) admiring beautiful boys... with pictures! Not a perspective often studied (or even considered) in art.
August 3, 2021
I was hesitant to pick up this book because of what I had read about it, but it turned out to be nothing like its critics described. The first lesson of this book is therefore “don’t judge a book by its reputation”.
Greer gives us a broad and interesting account of the boy in art, with beautiful images to illustrate. The boy, free from patriarchal dominance and fatherly duties, free to enjoy aesthetics and his own beauty, was once beloved by the world. He has now been lost to us, in a long, drawn out moral panic about nudity, childhood, pedophilia and sexuality. Can one not enjoy the beauty of a boy without also wanting to exploit and ruin him? If the boy’s beauty is partially dependent upon his innocence, is there not also innocence in enjoying it? Especially when the definition of boyhood is broad, stretching almost from infancy to a man’s mid-twenties.
Aside from the iconographic study of the boy, Greer also describes the history of the art world, how it developed, and which social movements and cultural changes it was influenced by.
All in all, a very interesting book that anyone with a sense for aesthetic beauty would appreciate.
I would love to read something similar about the boy in a non-European/Western context.
Greer gives us a broad and interesting account of the boy in art, with beautiful images to illustrate. The boy, free from patriarchal dominance and fatherly duties, free to enjoy aesthetics and his own beauty, was once beloved by the world. He has now been lost to us, in a long, drawn out moral panic about nudity, childhood, pedophilia and sexuality. Can one not enjoy the beauty of a boy without also wanting to exploit and ruin him? If the boy’s beauty is partially dependent upon his innocence, is there not also innocence in enjoying it? Especially when the definition of boyhood is broad, stretching almost from infancy to a man’s mid-twenties.
Aside from the iconographic study of the boy, Greer also describes the history of the art world, how it developed, and which social movements and cultural changes it was influenced by.
All in all, a very interesting book that anyone with a sense for aesthetic beauty would appreciate.
I would love to read something similar about the boy in a non-European/Western context.
July 10, 2021
Meandering treatise on art history and mythology (christian and classical). Doesn't tackle the relevant issue: why is there a conspiracy to make male youth invisible. And who are the perpetrators. Other flaws being she waffles on about works of art that are not actually illustrated in the book and selects images of men when those of boys are available by the same artist e.g. Will McBride.
December 30, 2009
Interesting change to the endless deceptions and objectifying of women in art.
Fabulous variety of images from all eras in the book.
Fabulous variety of images from all eras in the book.
July 23, 2020
This sucks :(
August 24, 2018
This is a very well done book, exhaustively researched and lavishly illustrated. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that the cover might be a bit misleading. By putting a photograph on the cover, it could lead people to think the book is primarily made up of photos. There are actually very few photos in the book but many, many paintings. The paintings are as beautiful as the beautiful boys who are their subjects and it is clear that Greer knows much about the history of painting.
I think it's possible that some people might ignore this book because they oppose the author's extreme "women's lib" politics for which she made her name with her first book, "The Female Eunuch" -- a book I think of as often sloppily reasoned and terribly biased. If so, they will make a mistake. "The Beautiful Boy" is a truly good book and both text and illustrations richly reward the reader/viewer.
I think it's possible that some people might ignore this book because they oppose the author's extreme "women's lib" politics for which she made her name with her first book, "The Female Eunuch" -- a book I think of as often sloppily reasoned and terribly biased. If so, they will make a mistake. "The Beautiful Boy" is a truly good book and both text and illustrations richly reward the reader/viewer.
January 10, 2011
I admire the approach that Germaine has taken for reminding women to look for beauties in men. It s like the author wants to remind that society, on purpose, wants to ignore these things.
May 1, 2023
I enjoyed this book. It's a very easy read, both because the text is quite short and because Greer's prose is clear and well-structured. The illustrations are almost all beautiful pieces of art in their own right, and so worthy of taking the time to look at.
I found the ideas most compelling when they related specifically to art history and cultural studies. When Greer veered into anthropology or history, I had much less confidence in the points she was making. I don't know much about the content, but even I picked up a couple of errors and a couple of tendentious interpretations of artworks that made me wonder what other misrepresentations or mistakes I was missing. As a result, this is a book that stimulated thought for me but certainly wouldn't change my mind, except in the broadest terms.
The main point, in my view, is that boys are beautiful and that as a society we lose something by failing to enjoy that fact. This raises interesting questions about the the lines between beauty and attractiveness, and about the relationships between different kinds of attractiveness. A puppy can be attractive, in the sense of "pleasing or appealing to the senses", but there is no thought of sexual desire. A person can also be attractive without arousing sexual desire (for instance a gay man might find a woman attractive but not wish to have sex with her), but then they may also arouse sexual desire. Where does that leave us with boys, who at their youngest are not sexually attractive but at their oldest may be reasonably be sexually attractive to some? For instance, in an interview after the book was published, the fifteen year old boy pictured on the cover of this book expressed his discomfort at being ogled by adult men when the photo was taken (in the 70s, while he was acting in the film of Death in Venice), but if the attention had come from fourteen year old girls he may have felt differently.
Of course the gender of the gaze matters, and rather than getting bogged down in the complexities of men and power, Greer's default position is that of the female gaze. This makes the discussion clearer, cleaner and lighter but it also means that Greer skirts the ethical issues of attractiveness rather than delving into them. As a consequence, this book is an entertaining, though-provoking piece of popular cultural studies, rather than a serious inquiry into aesthetics or representation in art.
I found the ideas most compelling when they related specifically to art history and cultural studies. When Greer veered into anthropology or history, I had much less confidence in the points she was making. I don't know much about the content, but even I picked up a couple of errors and a couple of tendentious interpretations of artworks that made me wonder what other misrepresentations or mistakes I was missing. As a result, this is a book that stimulated thought for me but certainly wouldn't change my mind, except in the broadest terms.
The main point, in my view, is that boys are beautiful and that as a society we lose something by failing to enjoy that fact. This raises interesting questions about the the lines between beauty and attractiveness, and about the relationships between different kinds of attractiveness. A puppy can be attractive, in the sense of "pleasing or appealing to the senses", but there is no thought of sexual desire. A person can also be attractive without arousing sexual desire (for instance a gay man might find a woman attractive but not wish to have sex with her), but then they may also arouse sexual desire. Where does that leave us with boys, who at their youngest are not sexually attractive but at their oldest may be reasonably be sexually attractive to some? For instance, in an interview after the book was published, the fifteen year old boy pictured on the cover of this book expressed his discomfort at being ogled by adult men when the photo was taken (in the 70s, while he was acting in the film of Death in Venice), but if the attention had come from fourteen year old girls he may have felt differently.
Of course the gender of the gaze matters, and rather than getting bogged down in the complexities of men and power, Greer's default position is that of the female gaze. This makes the discussion clearer, cleaner and lighter but it also means that Greer skirts the ethical issues of attractiveness rather than delving into them. As a consequence, this book is an entertaining, though-provoking piece of popular cultural studies, rather than a serious inquiry into aesthetics or representation in art.
October 2, 2007
Great survey and summary of images depicting youthful males.
Want to read
August 12, 20111st edition, signed by author
August 25, 2015
A scholarly journey through the depiction of the young male in art, from antiquity to today (although heavy on the antiquity and Renaissance and light on modern images).
December 10, 2017
Germaine celebrates the beauty of boys offering a nice counter point to the much of the fashionable invective directed at masculinity.
December 29, 2021
Kaft is misleidend omdat een fotoboek gesuggereerd wordt hoewel het hoofdzakelijk over schilderkunst en beeldhouwkunst gaat, en occasioneel over literatuur. Germaine Greer behandelt achtereenvolgens de jongen die mooi is, de liefde die een jongen is, de ontmanning van Cupido, de jongen als passief liefdesobject, de jongen die speelt en dient en vecht, de iconen van mannelijke kwetsbaarheid en de vrouwelijke blik. Uit de proloog: “De meeste mensen hebben zonder meer geaccepteerd dat vrouwen worden behandeld als object, als een lijf met maar één doel: mannelijke belangstelling wekken. Hoe waar dit ook is, het is ook waar dat vrouwen tegelijkertijd zijn voorbestemd in dat opzicht te falen, en wel omdat jongens daar nog beter in zijn.”
June 24, 2025
This is way worse than you think it is. Greer literally says in the book that the ideally attractive male must be "old enough to be capable of sexual response but not yet old enough to shave. This window of opportunity is not only narrow, it is mostly illegal. The male human is beautiful when his cheeks are still smooth, his body hairless, his head full-maned, his eyes clear, his manner shy and his belly flat." All of you on here giving this book 5 stars need to be put on a watch list.
June 9, 2022
Fun fact: you can critique women's objectification in media without being pedophilic!
March 19, 2024
A quite exhaustive look at the history of youth male in arts, how it has been predominant in the past and how it almost disappeared now, as we are living through very prudish times.
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March 23, 2024I read this book maybe in 2010 and bought a copy in 2021 - I remember it as brilliant but full of elisions and problems of consistency - I need to read it again so I can properly review and rate.
November 6, 2025
A feminist promoting pedophilia as a form of art, how depressing.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews