He objected to being treated like a boy is grammatically correct and not He objected to be treated like a boy.

Question

Why is the sentence "He objected to being treated like a boy is grammatically correct and not the sentence He objected to be treated like a boy."

Answer 1

in the first sent, "being treated" is the verb. "objected to" is a prepositional phrase. the second sent doesn't work b/c "be treated" is the verb, meaning "to be treated" is the complete verb in infinitive form. you need to conjugate "be treated" to match the subject.

Answer 2

The second sentence implies that he objected IN ORDER to be treated like a boy, which makes no sense, unless he is expressing a mild sado-masocistic desire to be dominated?.