Boys Like to Get Dirty

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Why do boys like to get dirty? It's a mystery to so many people! Sisters and mothers and neighborhood girls scoff at the immaturity and Neanderthal nature of the activity in which boys partake in immersing themselves in filth. Growing up there is some kind of fascination with grime and dust and sweat and most of all mud. Almost every boy grew up with a sand box where he could at least get somewhat dirty.

In our youth, we boys would spend hours digging holes in the backyard, building forts in the woods, riding dirt bikes, building dams in the rain, only to return home to the frowns upon our mom's faces at the state of our clothes and bodies. But of course we loved every minute of it, and dreaded the time when we had to take a bath, for it took away from continuing our activities which brought us to the point of requiring cleansing. We saw no point in washing away that which would return to our skin within the next twenty-four hours.

Almost every form of our favorite entertainment involved dirt or mud or rain, and that was half the fun! One of my few memories from early childhood comes from around the time my family was building the house we now live in. Before the house was finished, large hills and areas of mud provided me with full time entertainment. I can recall how fascinated I was walking around in the mud flat, which is now our front yard, and picking up large globs of dripping dirt and literally painting myself with the wet, red clay. My friend from Florida joined me in the merrymaking, and this was the way we enjoyed eachother's company. We also turned a five foot pile of sand into an amusement park one afternoon of the same year. As the grit slipped into every nook and cranny of our clothes and bodies, we slid,...

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...nally, you will meet, or most likely be able to spot, a particular guy who obviously could care less about the way he looked or smelled. Its obvious by his odor, his disarrayed hair and clothing, and the occasional dried mud spot from two days ago, that this guy would rather be free from hygiene's rules, than submit to what women would have him appear as. To this man, its all about power and control that he will not give up.

It's in the hearts of these boys trapped in men's bodies, that the love for dirt and mud is carried and passed to the boys of the next generations. Without these men, who never seem to grow up, and never quite seem to grasp everything, boys might stop building tree houses and going camping. They would forget what bliss it is to play and slide through mud not caring how dirty and nasty it is. We would forget much of what being a boy is like.

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