Feminism or youth rights? Time to choose.

Any 'youth rights' of any interest to us (and frankly of any interest to boys) must include the right to sexual expression, that is, the right of boys to have consensual sexual relationships. The story linked to in a recent post by Etenne (https://www.boychat.org/messages/1625490.htm) shows that the feminist discourse, with MeToo at its heart, and deploying a discourse of grooming, power imbalances and manipulative male sexuality, now regards expressions of juvenile male sexuality as equivalent to rape. Despite this, Pharmakon wants to combine a feminist discourse with youth rights. This is quite a juggling act, and indeed one can only combine feminism and youth rights by keeping both of them abstract – effectively by inventing one's own form of 'feminism' that has nothing in common whatever with the historical reality of the feminist movement as it has unfolded over the last half century. As soon as the theory confronts reality, feminism and youth rights find themselves at loggerheads, as they did in Etenne's example. And - I feel compelled to point out - Pharmakon's reflexive instinct was to defend the discourse of feminism, even when it was about abjecting a boy for the expression of his sexuality in a consensual framework. Indeed, earlier, after telling us that we should “listen to women” (as though we had a choice) he extended this imperative to a lesbian group (Lesbians Arising) when it spoke on behalf of boys, preferring their protectionist discourse over that of the boys themselves (this latter revealed in such testimonies as those included in The Age Taboo). I don't want to be horribly rude, but, if one didn't know better, one might be led to believe, however mistakenly, that wherever there is persecution, wherever oppression, wherever injustice, Pharmakon can always be relied on to articulate the point of view of our oppressors. And why? Because at all costs (including the well-being of boys and boylovers) feminism must be defended. A woman can never be wrong when she calls out some injustice against her. And in a way, this is inevitable. If the strategy is a rainbow alliance of feminists, gays etc (I shan't say “marginalised” groups, because these groups are no longer marginalised) then the most powerful group within that rainbow is bound to be feminism, because women far outnumber every other group. In a sense, the choice of gays to abandon boylovers was “rational” (if not moral), since as a result they have got everything they wanted, when the alternative alliance with boylovers, and the consequent hostility of feminism, would have meant a long, hard slog with little prospect of ultimate success. The rainbow alliance advocates cannot ignore the fact that in practice one colour in the rainbow is rather more powerful than all the others, and consequently they must constantly suck up to it. The only problem is that this colour wants us destroyed. That is why, no matter how much the rainbow alliance people try, the letter P never gets added to the LGBT alphabet soup. What other explanation could there be for our continued exclusion? Effectively, for those who want to retain their allegiance to feminism, youth rights are put on hold until feminists agree to them (and only on feminist terms). But this, obviously, will never happen. A narrative of male sexuality as manipulative is at the heart of modern feminist discourse. To abandon this principle is to abandon feminism itself. Feminism already objects to boys having consensual sexual relations with 'underage' girls. Can we really imagine that they will come to think it OK for grown men to have sex with underage girls, or with underage boys? To constantly defend feminism is to defend the forces operating against the expression of juvenile male sexuality, and therefore against youth rights - or at least against the rights of boys. It is therefore to raise the white flag before the battle has even begun. It is to work on behalf of our persecutors and in the service of a sick society. The only hope in our societies is a pushback against feminism by the men – and the women – who see the harm it is causing. It must be as a result of an understanding that male sexuality is not intrinsically evil. It must understand that males and females have different sexual needs and that the masculinity of boys must be affirmed along with the femininity of girls. To do this requires educational institutions in which the masculinity of boys is not constantly undermined by a poisonous ideology. And boys must be taught by men. Only measures such as these can, ultimately, repair the division between the sexes and put an end to this unending war. It is because I don't see a prospect of this any time before the second half of this century that our strategy in the nearer term must be a more 'survivalist' one.