It's not that SQL queries are difficult to compose, it's that ORMs enable different abstractions to emerge, at least when used appropriately; I'll admit though

It's not that SQL queries are difficult to compose, it's that ORMs enable different abstractions to emerge, at least when used appropriately; I'll admit though that junior developers are drawn most to ORMs because they limit exposure to SQL. I'd recommend you check out a legitimate ORM that implements the Data Mapper family of design patterns such as SQLAlchemy or Hibernate. (Incidentally, DataMapper in Ruby doesn't in fact implement the Data Mapper pattern, which I find irritating.)