to Greer, "among the attributes that are on the verge of extinction is youthful narcissism". She also wrote that, "Boy sex is irresponsible, spontaneous and principally self-pleasuring". She argues that young male beauty conveys "male vulnerability" and can be "sexualised with impunity", via the "female gaze". She also says that boys are "debarred from phallic power", and that they are compelled by patriarchy to "annihilate the boy in him and confine himself to the narrower scope available to him in patriarchal society". She proposes that "[Campaigners] against 21st-century sex tourism see the traffic as one-way. Their activities are inspired by horror and compassion for children who are forced by economic necessity to have sex that they are not ready for with older people they could not possibly desire. (This assumption itself should cast some doubt on the campaigners' own motives.) When she was studying the 'bad' sexualised mother, the great Melanie Klein asked herself in a note: 'Who is seducing whom?'" According to Greer, pederastic lust was not what art that depicted young males historically expressed, and that these images were attractive due to being based in life rather than lust. In her conclusion she says that, "The boy Eros would bring the sexes to a reconciliation, if we would only acknowledge him." Reception Book reviews Reviewing The Beautiful Boy in The Guardian, feminist writer Natasha Walter said that "Because Greer relies on such close criticism of the art, this is a book that is best savoured slowly... Greer has chosen to examine her subject thematically rather than chronologically, which means that you are constantly doubling back on yourself, bumping into Cupid again just after you have put away Boy George, which makes it tough trying to hold on to any sense of development across the centuries." According to art critic Sue Hubbard of The Independent, it was "Thoroughly researched and beautifully illustrated... [but it] does not seem really significant in terms of art history and amounts to a footnote within critical theory. Others of a more voyeuristic bent might feel cheated that the book is rather dryer and less erotic than the title promises." In The Irish Times, Robert O'Byrne said that the book was, "...a dreary and muddled text. Indeed, The Boy could be summarised as mad, bad and not worth knowing. Constantly meandering in its approach, the book fails to deliver clearly what Greer has declared at