WhereYouLeftIt · 20/07/2023 19:00
@PlanetJanette is talking about an art history book Greer wrote twenty years ago*.
To give the full quote, which @PlanetJanette has so carefully clipped, I've copied this from Wikipedia:
"In the book's opening pages, Greer writes: "Most people have accepted without question that women are treated as sex objects, viewed principally as body, with a primary duty to attract male attention. Though this is clearly true, it is also true that women are at the same time programmed for failure in their duty of attraction, because boys do it better. This is not good news for men, because a boy is a boy for only a very brief space. He has to be old enough to be capable of sexual response but not yet old enough to shave. This window of opportunity is not only narrow, it is mostly illegal. The male human is beautiful when his cheeks are still smooth, his body hairless, his head full-maned, his eyes clear, his manner shy and his belly flat."
Anyone who knows anything about Classical Greek and Roman art knows that it's full of boys and young men.
I think these Amazon reviews sum the book up quite well:
"study of the changing depiction of boys and young men throughout the history of art, including cupids, archangels and frightened little boys in armour."
and
"Germain Greer courts controversy knowingly. If you get offended by what she writes you are missing the point. The allegations against her in writing this as an advocation of paedophilia are totally stupid. That is, unless you get turned on by the old masters. There is no titillation here unless you enjoy the raunchier side of Greek myth. For me this book was interesting while she was setting up her argument but rapidly became repetitive as Greer rolled out example upon example of how boys are portrayed in art throughout history. Apart from all the pictures Greer's argument stales in later chapters and she resorts to endless retellings of how boys are 'used' in myth/legend and folklore which becomes a bit tiring. However the pictures and the fact the Germaine is a goddess carries this book into the 'good' category."
Not the first book she wrote on art, I think that would be "The Obstacle Race". It's often forgotten that Greer was a Professor of English, she taught at the University of Warwick, for heavens sake! I think I might even have one of her books on Shakespeare on my shelves.
@WhereYouLeftIt Thank you very much for taking the time to give the context to that quote, thereby allowing an entirely different understanding of it: that Germaine Greer is not a pederast after all.