PDA. No, I’m not talking about a personal digital assistant. Or about the Pakistan Domestic Airlines, which flies direct from Karachi to 24 locations. Or even about potato dextrose agar, which Wikipedia tells me is quite good for growing yeast. No, I’m not talking about any of those things. I’m talking about the PDA that makes people whisper, giggle, and roll their eyes. I’m talking about a “public display of affection.” It’s a hug, a hand squeeze, or even, heaven forbid, a kiss. It occurs in a public place. And in this country, it’s considered by many to be irritating or even offensive.

Teenagers who criticize friends or couples for PDA fail to see their own hypocrisy. Take a look at one of our high school dances. Enter, and you’ll see across the room a writhing mass of sweaty bodies. Venture a little closer, and you can see boys and girls grinding up against each other in the most public way possible — in a room crowded with over a thousand other kids.

Don’t get me wrong, I love our dances and have nothing against people who participate in them. But if that sort of dancing isn’t considered PDA, I don’t know what is. The same people who simulate the ultimate display of affection on a crowded dance floor condemn their peers for something as trivial as kissing or holding hands with someone for whom they actually feel true affection. I’m pretty sure that people aren’t affectionate for everyone they grind with at a dance.

Public intolerance of PDA doesn’t just create awkwardness with couples in the hallway or the park. It contributes to the country’s social paradox of sexual behavior. By showing discomfort people perpetuate the system in which sex is both heavily condoned by the media and considered taboo by society.

Last weekend, I was going through my typical routine of doing my math homework while watching TV. I forget what show I was watching and what math I was supposed to be doing, but I do remember the commercials I saw. First they aired some public-service announcement about a teenager who finds out she’s pregnant and, sitting alone on her bed, tearfully regrets her “bad decisions” to elicit sympathy from viewers. Within minutes, a commercial for some brand of men’s deodorant came on. As is the norm with these commercials, a teenage guy sprays a bottle on himself and within seconds is surrounded by oodles of hot girls with eager come-ons.

Doesn’t this bother anyone else? A public kiss is considered bad and sex before marriage worse, but almost every ad we read or TV show we watch is sexualized in some way.

In Europe, public displays of affection are much more common than they are here. Everywhere you look, in public parks, streets, or beaches, you can see couples involved in some kind of display of affection. PDA isn’t so taboo. In the US, however, a heavily sexual billboard above a busy street is more acceptable than a couple displaying mutual affection.

It’s no wonder, then, that the United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the western world. It’s not that teenagers here are having more sex than the rest of the world. Sweden, Canada, and Great Britain have one-upped the good old USA on that one. Yet the taboo of PDA, and subsequently of sex, creates an atmosphere of censorship. We don’t discuss it. We scorn PDA when we see it.

If you’re still beefin’, hey, John Legend even wrote a song about PDA. “Oh I don’t care about propriety,” he croons. “Let’s break the rules, ignore society.” He goes on to sing “We just don’t care” about a thousand times.

The simple truth is that people need to take PDA into perspective. After all, it is something of a misnomer. For most people, PDA is not meant to be any sort of display at all. Couples don’t engage in it to bother anyone else. They don’t do it to steal the spotlight or to cause gossip and attract attention. True, such publicity sometimes happens as a result, but this is not the goal.

We need to get over our insecurity with displays of affection. Intolerance of PDA may seem trivial, but it leads to deeper social issues that can’t be ignored. So the next time you witness a PDA, walk right on by, and join with John Legend in singing, “We just don’t care.”

Spread the love, anyone?

Click here to read “He Said: PDA”