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I think I skimmed over it, partly because I don't claim to know the answer. I'm not sure that anyone can. One process that is totally coincidental can look causal from the right point of view. I'm inclined to say that it's elements of both. On the essentialist side I'd say that modern culture's conception of the nuclear family in inherently infantilizing. Especially in the US college students are being referred to more and more as "kids". Parents are micromanaging their children more than ever before, not just in terms of "protection" but in trying to engineer some kind of outcome for them. I'd argue that having less kids is probably one of the driving factors- less kids means trying to invest in each one more. This definitely feeds into overprotective parenting. "Accidental" things would be more along the lines of the child murder cases in the 80s that got reported in the TV media as "pedophilia". I think those cases and how they got framed weren't somehow predestined. So in that sense I'd say they led to incidental hostility (I don't really like the word accidental here). In the absence of legal sanctions I think we'd be stuck with helicopter parents. It may not be easy to make a YF. But I'd be fine with that. The biggest problem is that even when someone does manage to make a young friend they get along well with, the legal system can destroy that by punishing it with decades long sentences in prison. I hope that was a bit more of an answer to THE question (one that I think would take a lot of arrogance to confidently say "I have THE answer to"). I do not promise boys for every BL, even if laws change. Even with sodomy legal there are lonely, miserable gays after all. |