Is Germaine Greer: A.) an intellectual far ahead of her time. B.) a feminist who nobly breaks outmoded social dictates, or. C.) a dirty old woman who should be sent swiftly on her way?
Such questions are being asked as word gets out about her new book, "The Beautiful Boy," which includes hundreds of photos of naked and semi-naked boys, and a lengthy essay on "why boys have always been the world's pin-ups." It won't be published until November, but it's already dusted-up controversy as people stampede to either attack or defend Greer's efforts.
The 64-year old author intends the book to be an appreciation of "the short-lived beauty of boys," but has recently admitted some will read it and call her a pedophile: "It's going to get me in a lot of trouble."
For Germaine Greer, getting into trouble is just part of the job. Afterall, she was the first woman of the 20th century to make controversy a career choice. She has always been one to shock.
While at college in the '50s, the student newspaper called her "Germaniac Queer" for her unusual appearance and personality. In the '60s she became involved in the British rock scene, and gained notoriety for espousing sexual promiscuity, pornography, and group sex. And since the publication of her first book in 1970, "The Female Eunuch," she has consistently made headlines around the world for her ideas on sex, politics and culture.
For William Feaver, the British art critic and biographer of Lucian Freud, Greer's shock tactics have become predictable.
"Germaine Greer is a big name with a big mouth," he recently said. "First she was the great female liberationist. Next, with "The Change," it was the menopause; then with "The Whole Woman," it was how tough motherhood is. Now it’s her obsession with young boys."
And in a July edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia's most prominent female columnist said Greer provokes controversy as a marketing ploy, using "the cheapest trick" to do so: Breaking taboo.
In her scathing piece about Greer's book, which she hadn't even seen, Miranda Devine wrote, "If there's a taboo left, she'll break it. And since one of the few remaining taboos in Western liberal democracies is pedophilia, that's the arena she's most recently entered," claiming that "the taboo against pedophilia is nothing to her."
"If the ultimate evolution of Western liberal democracy requires the removal of all taboos, the destruction of family life and religion, Greer's sanctioned pedophilia, sexualised children, and padded bras for eight-year-olds, then who wants it? I would rather wear a burqa than have my eight-year-old child become a sex object," she wrote.
To Ms. Devine's thinking, Greer's interest in young men is the sort of thing to bring about the end of Western civilization altogether.
The newspaper followed up on Devine's article with a somewhat lengthy letter from a reader, Georgia Lewis, who said Greer's books is "just the right tragic little marketing ploy." ...
http://www.blacktable.com/matthews030806.htm
