Boyhood Studies

This essay examines surviving traces of the Zeus and Ganymede myth and identifies two interwoven discourses on male love in antiquity: one, a tradition integral to a Cretan initiatory rite and its didactic nature evidenced by an analogous and opposite Boeotian cautionary myth; the other, a nucleus of polemic and shifting male love constructions from Minoan times through Late Antiquity. The mythic tradition is discussed as an archetypal key to identifying the ancient pedagogical and erotic functions of male love and the ancients’ evolving attitudes toward such relationships. As the myth and its offshoots, which are presented here in the form of a pastiche evocative of the atmosphere of the tradition, reflect their Classical and modern echoes through Western and Oriental interpretations, a recurring male love ethic and aesthetic is seen to take shape.

This article explores attitudes toward boyhood shaped by the traumatic experiences of the First World War. It focuses particularly on the work of the little-known French author, Paul Cazin, and his attempts to commemorate the entirety of “the lost generation” by transcending divisions of religion and secularism that characterized boyhood activities in France before the war. The figure of the “Manneken-Pis” enables him to do this and is particularly suited to the expression of conflicting attitudes toward militarism in boyhood. Cazin’s intellectual program leads to a reading of the famous Manneken-Pis fountain depicting a urinating boy as a religious artifact. A variety of interwar responses to the statue demonstrate the strength of emotion provoked by the figure of the young boy. The fact that these responses have been enshrined in modern cultural and artistic practices suggests the extent to which the experience of the First World War still conditions attitudes toward boyhood.

Although there is a realization in Western society today that childhood is changing, the topic remains clouded in confusion and contradictory viewpoints. The central question, if and how the nature of childhood itself has changed, has led the author to conduct a metabletic inquiry. Metabletics or the science of change is a human science research approach that incorporates phenomenological methods and seeks to understand a phenomenon by taking its historical development, its social cultural context and relevant synchronistic developments into account. In exploring the changing nature of childhood, historical, metabletic, and phenomenological studies were consulted as well as some selected sources from literature, art, and entertainment that portray the lives of children and, in particular, of boys in the past and in the present. First, a brief historical perspective on the changing nature of childhood from traditional to modern times is presented. This is followed by the concept of modern childhood and its transition to a postmodern childhood. The author aims to describe the essential characteristics of childhood with a focus on boyhood as lived in different historical time periods in order to contribute to a clearer understanding of its changing nature. The present study is exploratory and opens a vast domain that awaits further detailed investigations.

The gender gap in college enrollment and completion has become a concern in many nations. The phenomenon is extreme in Alaska, particularly among indigenous people. Semi-structured interviews with 162 urban and indigenous students graduating from high school, and in addition, two single-gender focus groups, suggest that many young men do not see a college education as necessary to financial success and do not expect to assume the gender role of sole family provider. Young women tend to see a college degree as essential to changed gender roles where women are expected to attend college, pursue a career, and not be dependent on a man for financial support. Many young men withdraw from the demands of a verbally-saturated high school curriculum, which they find unenjoyable. Both young men and young women tend to label male withdrawal from school as “male laziness,” an essentialist interpretation rather than an interpretation based on the school environment and changing gender roles.

This study investigated the Gender Role Conflict Scale-Adolescent Version (GRCS-A) and its relationship with the Gender Role Conflict Scale (GRCS), the measure from which it was adapted. Significant correlations between the adult and adolescent versions provided support for the concurrent validity of the GRCS-A. Further analyses revealed that two other measures of male masculinity, the Adolescent Masculinity Ideology in Relationships Scale (AMIRS) and Male Role Attitudes Scale (MRAS), are also significantly related to the GRCS-A. Implications for future research and clinical use are discussed.

A penis-care information gap exists in North America where most physicians and parents do not know how to care for an intact boy’s penis, especially his foreskin. They lack basic knowledge and personal experience, which would allow them to advise or provide proper care for boys. Unless this gap is filled with reliable information, many boys are at risk for penile problems and perhaps even circumcision—something that the parents and the boy would like to avoid. The causes and problems resulting from this clear case of remediable medical ignorance are discussed, and solutions offered.

It is becoming widely recognized that far fewer young males than females are entering university. Blame is directed, for example, to the school system, feminism and parenting, but the fundamental reason is not something for which anyone should be blamed; rather, it is a mathematically inevitable result of the relentless expansion of the university system. Other factors might be important, and some are very important, but they accentuate, rather than cause, the imbalance. The true root cause has to be recognized and tackled if we are to make progress concerning what is becoming a massive social problem.

Lovers’ Legends by Andrew Calimach. New Rochelle: Haiduk Press, 2002, and Lovers’ Legends Unbound translated by Andrew Calimach and Agnes Lev. New Rochelle, NY: Haiduk Press, 2004.