Speaking of essays,

this one of yours above is also very good and well worth reading and pondering. This paragraph of yours: QUOTE Our recasting of the beauty and eros of boys in terms of sexual orientation -- homosexuality, pedophilia -- has been a complete disaster. The whole "mega-phenomenon" of older males being erotically attuned to younger males has been reduced to a concept of "sexual orientation" and "sexual identity." The functionality of this erotic attunement, that worked until just decades ago and was largely pedagogical in nature, has been weakened by two things: 1. the usurpation of education by the State, and 2. the usurpation of male physical and mental power by technology. Boys used to need men just to become anything useful or meaningful at all. That need is no longer so strongly felt or recognized. UNQUOTE gets to the heart of the matter, although as I wrote below, human nature at its core doesn't change. The need of which you write is still there, even if not "so strongly felt or recognized." Threads like this demonstrate that BC still has life in it; that we still need it. Where else is one going to read such penetrating accounts of the human condition and our place in it? SR