Looking Around Dismayed, Trying to Look Inward

The local moho community has woven a seriously tangled web of secretive and not-so-secretive dating and NCMO. It's pretty hard to find someone who's not a part of the web, and I cringe a little when I see new guys moving in who will likely become part of it, themselves.

There's an attitude of entitlement and nonchalance. Straight people make out all over the place, so why should we feel like we can't? Not everyone ascribes such "meaning" to a little fun kissing, groping, and penis-petting--it just feels nice and is fun and isn't sex, so what's the big deal?

I'm a little embarrassed to have been a part of that web in any way, or even a part of that social circle in any integral way. I want no part of the thoughtless adolescence. It's cheap and slutty. It's inconsiderate. It's selfish. It's... It's...

I guess it's just a real struggle for me to see past those behaviors right now, try as I might. Maybe it's to be expected of any limited or tight-knit community in which options are few and hormones are bursting. Maybe I am simply going through a process of learning to forgive indiscretion in others as well as in myself. Or maybe I simply am yet to come to terms with a truth that this is perfectly normal (perhaps even acceptable) human behavior among most communities, and I'm naive to think maturity demands different behavior. Perhaps ONLY Mormons or ONLY Utahns are so prudish about sexual matters and most people in the world are so sexual that they don't consider it a big deal to fool around here and there as long as they're "safe" about it, and there's no need to attach emotional connection with sexual intimacy (including BYU's ever-prevalent NCMO, which you simply can't persuade me to see as something other than sexual, even though it's not sex).

If that's true, I can only think I live in a world of sluts, or I am the one with the skewed perspective. It's taking a lot of energy for me to confront the prevalence of blatantly self-serving sexuality rampant all around me, like a pathetic throwback to the mindless, animalistic "free love" of the sixties. I simply am not grasping this. I am either really missing something and have a lot of understanding and "sexual enlightenment" left to gain, or there are a whole lot of disgustingly slutty people in our society. Obviously, I'm not sexually experienced, so I have to admit that my philosophy is not based on the experience of intercourse itself, but I think I know a thing or two about relationships and affection and the relationship between physicality and emotional connection.

Maybe I'm making it personal. Maybe I'm taking my own hurtful experiences and projecting them all over the place. Maybe I'm jealous of what's going on and wish I felt free to participate. Maybe I'm loathing the sluttiness within myself and projecting the blame onto everyone else for exhibiting openly what I have felt inside but kept reined in for the most part.

I have certainly known what it's like to feel the desire for abandon in physical expression of affection AKA wanting some hot make-out. I've wanted to just let it all go. I've thought, in moments, "what's the big deal? This could be fun, and it would certainly feel good, and it would be an expression of affection and attraction, and it's not some random guy I met tonight but someone I've known for a while." Looking back, I remember fairly clearly how I was thinking in those moments. How I wondered what the big deal was anyway? What makes one kind of touch so drastically worse than another? What makes one part of the body so off limits? But now, maybe I'm back to a different perspective.

Maybe looking back and realizing I had my phases and such questions, I should try to be more understanding. And maybe I'll go through more phases, and I'll need people not to judge me as a hopeless whore but to see past my lapses in judgement. But I also hope people, even in their forgiveness, would not view it as perfectly acceptable behavior. When looking back at times when I've acted childishly or selfishly, I have trouble respecting those people who affirmed the very choices I now consider foolish.

Which brings up the topic of the difference between being fully forgiving and exhibiting a lack of principle, and the potentially delicate balance between the two...but that's another post for another night.