A Boy by Any Other Name is Always a Warrior Toy

In contrast to the woman who is protected and rescued, held within the arms of those whom she trusts and loves-- whom she is compelled to love-- this boy, newly born is forced to fight.

This little boy designated already as a soldier, already commodified for product by his youthful, psychologically alluring neoteny of his face. The virtue and wonder inherent in the innocent want to protect. It is the soldier boys who protect out of love, compared to their compatriotic men, defending their right-- faded and slowly peeling at its yellowed edges-- to live and to survive, fighting to see blood, to see blood validating their lives to continue. Insisting, begging that their lives be deemed worthy to continue by the pierce of their bullet or the blood upon curved Army knives.

A boy must fight to live, must fight to love, must fight and fight and fight.

In contrast to the women, trapped within the lovelessness of gilded glass as the rosy promise of a fairytale. Which play upon slowly withering apple cheeks. But amidst the knights and the dragons with their hateful flame, among evil men and other domineering ugly women, who protects the man, who takes their chisled jaw and strong chest to feel the heart beating underneath? Who tells these soldier boys fed the idea of red strings and fawning young maidens that the danger has past? That they are safe. And when are they safe?

To a female past the archetype, to a female breaking from their mold, their opposite is the enemy. The man who so demands their love and their bodies.

However it is the elders in their silvery misted bogs and their wizened hands on cool glass crystal balls who so dictate those rules. Old authors, old male authors of a besotted, plague riddled time who placed these expectations on paper. Of the little girls to be wives, and of the little boys to be soldiers and to constantly battle and beat off the competition.

Separate yet somehow never equal, not within their spheres, or upon each other. When they are.

Borrowing from a more Asian belief, a shuddering notion to be sure, yin and yang. Representing the light and the dark, the good and the evil, as well as feminine and masculine. What we have denominated to equate as boy and girl.

From the youth and exuberance of a boy to the beauty and therefore vitality of a woman do we come to see life be made, new life a blessing in whatever binary form it takes. For a child is sacred in all spheres.

So says the matronly nature of a woman's archetype. But the question must be posed, where is the paternal? The Father is often off fighting war and in stories is often a non-entity or otherwise, a constant obstacle near exclusively to their daughters. In more recent years to the "daughters when asked for sons," of the boys who prefer the artistic, nurturing pursuits deemed gentler and woman-like. When if anything, the brutal punch of an emotional blow damages an individual in a way unreachable for the rite healing much similar to simple and shallow conceptions of human beings.

And better yet when both are in twilight, nearing the end of their lives here and to rise toward guiding lights in the night sky, we focus upon the wisdom gained from a lifetime of war and bloodshed. We call him the sage. While we call her the crone. What of the wisdom from watching a life grow and prosper? What of the wisdom within the peaceful, artisanal little village?

The wisdom of what made a child smile and where vice came to be born within every child making for the dysfunctional. Those all too-- almost too human-- to be included in the category so loftily described.