Threaded index     Date index     FAQ


Re: Pathologizing youth agency

Posted by diogenes on 2024-April-16 14:42:55, Tuesday
In reply to Pathologizing youth agency posted by Pharmakon on 2024-April-16 13:20:16, Tuesday

"Are kids subject to malign influence from peers, parents, and the medical establishment? Of course they are. Does that mean we should support government when it seeks to overrule the choices young people are making about their own bodies? I don't think so."

Really? Do you really believe that a 9 year old has the right to get extreme body modifications, or take heroin, and that we should not take into account malign influences or social pressures or psychological states at all? No parent is going to believe this. Parents are less concerned with metaphysical rights and more concerned for the well being of their child. If we want to argue for the rights of youth, we must actually argue that agency does them good, but then we need to go into the different areas of agency and perhaps distinguish between them. There is no other way.

In the end, I feel the only way of expanding the agency of youth in the field of sex is if society comes to recognise the vital good of sex and love in the lives of the young. I don't know how this is to be accomplished, but maybe a precondition might be to accept the testimony of women whose sons have been harmed by the demonisation of normal sexual expression and curiosity. And we need to listen to the testimonies of happily libidinous loved boys in the 70s and early 80s, before their voices were silenced. In any case, I think you're going to have grave difficulty getting the generality of mankind to accept the proposition that their kids have an absolute right to go to hell in a handbag provided it's something they've "chosen", and never mind the environmental influences.

I was struck by Nina Power's comment "In a culture without customs to recognize and celebrate the natural shift between youth and adulthood, without religious narratives to make sense of them, humanity recreates ritual with a dark vengeance." I believe that we ought to mark and celebrate spermache in the male in some important form, rather than treat it as something embarrassing and hidden. Our whole attitude to the body in western societies is distorted and abnormal, surrounding the body and its natural functioning with anxiety, embarrassment and trauma. Maybe if, instead of giving in to Big Pharma, we were to celebrate the changes in boys' and girls' bodies, as they advance through puberty and adolescence and on to adulthood, boys and girls would feel less inclined to see their bodies as their enemy.

diogenes

Follow ups:

Post a response:

Nickname:

Password:

Email (optional):
Subject:


Message:


Link URL (optional):

Link Title (optional):


Add your sigpic?

Here are Seven Rules for posting on this forum.

1. Do not post erotica or overly-detailed sexual discussions.
2. Do not request, offer, or post links to illegal material, including pictures.
3. Don't annoy the cogs.
4. Do not reveal identifying details about yourself or other posters.
5. Do not advocate or counsel sex with minors.
6. Do not post admissions of, or accuse others of, potentially illegal activities.
7. Do not request meetings with posters who are under age 18.

Posts made to BoyChat are subject to inclusion in the monthly BoyChat Digest. If you do not want your posts archived in the BC Digest, or want specific posts of yours removed after inclusion, please email The BC Digest.