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I do and I don't. To call a boy a "child" is not wrong, and though these days the word "child" generally misses the point when it comes to boy love, there is always a beauty inherent in any child's unawareness of his or her own beauty, and all BL's I know see that in a boy. Innocence, to wit. Yet even boys who have guessed at or know their own beauty are often unaware, innocent, of its power. What they yet lack is the encounter. "I want him to see it [his own beauty] in my eyes." Now that is an encounter, an event: the event, for the boy, of being seen. It's a signaling of power -- "You have power over me for being beautiful; I have power over you by recognizing it" -- but neither boy nor man has upper hand. Power fails, and beauty wins -- maybe. How this plays out between man and boy is so entirely underdetermined by all this that one can't generalize in any way. But it's pretty clear that such encounters are all too rare for boys. So don't hold back on what is in the end acknowledgment of a deep and immediate reality. Let him know, however obliquely. Whatever you can get away with, get away with it. |