It probably has...

at least for a while, a principal reason why we're in such a mess -- why so many boys are miserable (and not just boys -- do most girls and women think they're living in some kind of paradise? I won't even mention men.) Marx presciently pointed out that capitalism would ultimately dissolve all forms of human connection except the purely transactional. (Marx wrote of the cash nexus but as TPKA Arota suggests below, "transactional" is probably a better term.) So yeah, paternalistic pederasty has been largely destroyed (Is there another type of pederasty? the paternal seems embedded in the very concept. Of course there are -- or were -- other forms of boyfuckery but they all seem to be, well transactional -- the old $20 for a blowjob and a tongue bath common in the world you and I grew up in. One would hardly call that pederasty) But if pederasty (i.e., "paternalistic" pederasty) has been destroyed, the family, romance, and friendship are not far behind. Is male lust a problem? Of course it is. Eros is a dangerous and mischievous god. One must give Him His due while seeking to contain and channel His mischief. Institutions such as marriage and family -- and, yes, the socially recognized pederastic bond of Attic Greece and the Japan of the samurai -- were ways of doing that. You've written a well thought out defense of the extension of individual agency that forms classical liberalism's principal justification to boys (and girls). But I would invite you to consider that the entire construct of agency is tottering because of fundamental flaws in its understanding of the human condition. Happy New Year! I look forward to more such probing discussions in the year to come. SR