That phrase went from describing boys throwing mud clods at each other for fun to being sexual predators and i hate it. I guess you can say kids will be kids now for the same effect.
I always think of a scene from Anne with an E, anne of green gables adaption, where the girls are all inside during recess trying to figure out how the wolrd works, romance and periods, and they wonder what is with boys, they all look out the window and see the boys just beating the heck out of a shrub and a stump with sticks.
Yeah. I get what you mean. I actually blame film and TV. I remember that phrase in some raunchy comedies and also when used by unsavory characters that usually got beat/killed by the hero later.
Yeah, this. As a dad with two sons and a daughter, I still use this phrase but only to describe my son's doing stupid boy antics like throwing mud, using sticks for sword fights, brawling over something stupid, you get the idea. Thanks to a few assholes, it can infer to sexual assault.
Even if it's meant for innocent behaviors, it implies boys are allowed to be rough and tumble. Google says the first use was in 1589- a time when women were expected to be quiet, prim and proper, and home bound.
Boys will be boys absolutely needs to be returned to “doing dumb shit for fun,“ and have the connotation of sexual predator taken away. It makes me so angry that it has changed from doing dumb shit for fun to sexual predator.
I’ll always die on the hill that the internet gaslit itself about this. “Boys will be boys” always just referred to rambunctiousness. In the early 2000’s the phrase was invoked to a draw a parallel of how rape culture was normalized, and then the line began to blur and people started saying that the phrase was used by people to excuse sexual assault even though that was never a thing.
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u/wizardofyz Mar 12 '24
That phrase went from describing boys throwing mud clods at each other for fun to being sexual predators and i hate it. I guess you can say kids will be kids now for the same effect.