People mind your own business, PDA is not a crime
Today I read a post by @Shailendree “PDA needs to stop”, that goes to day PDA is a bad thing and it must be stopped. I’ve read a similar post sometime back and I was wanted to write a post back then but now that there are two posts I’ll write my thoughts today.
PDA is (if you don’t know) public display of affection, and like most I get to see them everyday, at college, while travelling in public transportation and in cinemas and other public places. And once when I was doing AL, I’ve seen some old guy blaming an innocent couple for showing PDA at a bus.
I’m a person who is not against PDA, yes I repeat I’m not against PDA and I don’t find any wrong in PDA or the people who are doing it, and it doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable.
Sri Lankan people just love to know what other people are doing even though they themselves are not doing great. We poke at our neighbours, our friends, and we love to find their gossips and faults and get this awkward joy by sharing them with others and talking publicly about the faults in other people that they found, it happens so much sometimes I feel whether it’s in our genes to do that.
Hand holding. Today we see enough and more couples holding hands in public. This is all okay, but why do some insist on holding hands everywhere they go? If you feel insecure and worry your partner will fly away the second you let go of their hand, you need to ask yourself if the relationship is a good idea. People have complained about couples whose handholding has become a nuisance.
Actually,
“Humans hold hands for a lot of reasons, but the primary one is to communicate affection, availability and trustworthiness,” Jim Coan, associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.
This whole anger and uneasiness of the so called “public” against PDA is the same thing, if you are walking on the road or travelling in public transport mind your own business, don’t look at what the young couple next to you is doing, whether they are holding hands or kissing or doing something else is totally not your or mine business, don’t listen to them. Do something of your own or mind your own business. Really why can’t people mind their own business and move on?
Even kissing too is just a normal human behaviour and there is nothing to feel uncomfortable in seeing something like that. Love is not taboo, you can’t enjoy love behind closed doors, couples have to go out, they have to enjoy.
How many parents in this country after having children go for trips and spend a day or two together just by themselves, or revisit their honeymoon destination leaving their children with grandparents or someone to take care of? People find love to be something taboo, for most sri lankan couples love ends when they start a family and have children, after that they don’t do anything to refresh their relationships. Leading to bad family life and ending up in divorces.
Times have changed people are changing, this is not the time of the generation X anymore, old people have to accept new norms and changes of the society by the young and move forward with it, rather than holding on to old beliefs. I wonder whether this dislike towards PDA too has something to do with the building up of sexuall unrest that made Sri Lanka top of the world in online search for Sex. The idea has been there for sometime in the community that the cultural barriers and old beliefs have something to do with people being sexually uneasy leading people to go online in search of pleasure.
If people think we have and we had a very civilized society it’s all wrong, that society died long back in the X generation itself, one can get a first hand experience of how uncivilized people are in our society if someone comes to a hospital. There are worst things happening behind closed doors in our society regarding love and sex than innocent PDA happening in a public place.
I think all this is mostly because of lack of sexual education children are getting at schools, even most teachers are too shy to talk and teach about love and sex at schools. Creating another generation of children who finds love and sex as something taboo and bad, not to be seen in public and only happening behind closed doors. No it’s not, love is not taboo, it should happen behind closed doors, people must show love and affection whenever they like, even if it’s a public place. I hope these and few other old beliefs will die by the end of this X generation.
People have to remember that their right to swing their arms ends just where the other man’s nose begin. So people please mind your own business.
PS - Don’t forget just few years back there was time in this society where a girl and a boy talking with each other was considered as a crime or something anti social, but luckily now people have moved on with it and things are better than it was I hope it will get better.