The Journalist in Me

As a society our values and our acceptable standards of public behavior are continually deteriorating. We’ve progressed from wearing your Sunday best if you were simply going to the grocery store, to the type of people where we’re lucky if we’ve brushed our hair before leaving the house that morning. Not only has our standard of self-cleanliness dropped significantly, but also acceptable public behavior is constantly in turmoil. No one thinks twice to see a couple walking hand in hand down a crowded street unless that couple is comprised of two parties of the same gender. A lot of this spectacle is mostly for show and the shock value it produces and is generally a put on, in no way reflecting the person’s true sense of self or personality. Most people, while disturbed by such displays, generally shake it off and move on, which is acceptable so that they can keep their perfect cookie-cutter lives in order. One fact that even the most sheltered human being cannot deny however, is that although not all of the younger generations are displaying overtly homosexual tendencies, barriers between acceptable exhibitable behavior for young men and those for young women are being crossed. Even in some of the most supposedly “safe” areas such as BYU campus males are displaying more signs of femininity. As I waited in the hallway for the previous class to get out I observed a small group of young men, sitting and talking together. One man had his shoulder resting on the others shoulder, a bit odd I thought, but maybe they were just that close, if girls can do it with no judgments why not boys? As I continued to observe however I was taken out of my complacent, “why not” attitude to a slightly disturbed and bordering on disgusted viewpoint. As the boys continued to laugh one put his arm around the others waist and left it to sit comfortably on his opposite hip. I’m not going to hazard a guess as to these men’s sexual orientation, but simply say, let boys be boys.