Walking around the halls, couples can be seen left and right. Students are seen holding hands, hugging and kissing throughout the school day.
Strictly speaking, they are “acts of intimacy in the view of the public eye,” otherwise known as PDA.
Students who see PDA negatively tend to approach the idea as ‘too intimate,’ thinking that it only applies to explicit acts. What those students do not realize is that PDA can range from intimate acts to simple gestures. If you have held onto someone’s arm or hand, dapped up your friend or given someone a hug goodbye, you too have been a participant in PDA.
Most students have seen grotesque acts of affection in the halls that have skewed their view of PDA, causing a negative connotation to surround those words. “There are some people who take it overboard,” said junior Antionio Barrios-Tellez, “but the people who are [reasonable] about it, I feel like it is fine.”
Students in relationships are responsible for how their actions affect the rest of the student body. Keeping this in mind, some student couples decide to keep PDA to a minimum. Most couples respect that they are in a school setting and they have other people surrounding them. “The most I do is hold hands and give my girlfriend a little kiss. That’s how far I go, max,” Barrios-Tellez said.
When student couples are not on school grounds the situation changes. There is no one to protest the PDA that they exhibit in public. But, as soon as student couples set foot in school they are being watched by students and staff. “School is mostly an enclosed area with younger people around, it’s better to do it outside of school versus inside of school,” junior Quinton Alexander said.
In a survey given to Perry students, most students said yes to PDA being allowed in school, but when it came to what extent, students felt that there should be restrictions placed. On the opposite side of these mixed emotions, there are students who disagree. In response to one of the questions in the survey, a student said “People have a right to express their love, but it shouldn’t be explicit [in school].”
Members of the school understand that they can not control student decisions. This makes it difficult for student couples to be viewed with positive eyes. “[students] do what they want to do, it’s gonna be everywhere,” Barrios Tellez said.
Students do not like to see PDA in the school for many reasons. Like, for example, it makes them feel uncomfortable to watch, in a certain aspect it is preparing individuals for the real world. “There is a lot of outside relationships in the outside world, it is a part of life,” said Alexander.
However, PDA shown in appropriate ways is healthy and is something that should not be hated, but celebrated, especially if you plan on hugging or dapping up a friend anytime soon.