Teen Times: Picture the scene: it's a cold Friday night in what is supposed to be summer. The wind is howling outside, the rain is coming down hard, but it doesn't matter to you. You're warm and cosy inside, the fire is blazing and you're curled up on the couch with...
. . . your brother?
If this scene sounds normal to you, then stop reading now and repent. In the past few years I have been bewildered by the amount of inappropriate sibling behaviour I have witnessed, even among my close friends. Never mind the couch, some people watch DVDs on a Sunday morning in their brother's bed. Others dance inappropriately with their brothers in nightclubs, and some young men I am acquainted with will happily sit in their sister's room and chat away while their sisters are dressing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only time a brother should see his sister even remotely naked is if he's helping his mother give her her first bath.
It is beyond me where this new trend has come from, I can only speculate as to why brother-sister relationships have become so odd, and borderline incestuous, in recent years. I have asked around, and one person said perhaps it's an after-effect of the feminist movement. As men and women now see themselves as equals, they can form platonic friendships. However, the behaviour I am referring to seems anything but platonic, and I have yet to see a heterosexual boy act like that with one of his male friends.
My next stab in the dark is at the parents. I know it seems like a cliche, and that parents are blamed for everything these days, but it can be backed up by another one: socialisation begins at home. Parents, I am pleading with you, when you see little Timmy chasing his sister around the table with his toy gun, just leave them to it - somebody needs to tackle this problem, and it should start when they're young.
Bring back the good old days when brothers tormented their sisters, pulling their pigtails, kicking their dolls around and practising martial arts moves on them. My favourite game to play with my brother when I was younger was rugby on the upstairs landing. He once held me over the banister by my ankle because I wouldn't give him the ball back. Brothers are supposed to give you cuts and scars, to tell you they've killed your doll, to toughen you up for the real world. They are not supposed to let you lie on their lap while you watch How to Lose A Guy in Ten Days.
If you don't believe the stories from my personal experience, just look to the examples we have in the spotlight. For months, no one was sure if Jack and Meg White of The White Stripes were brother and sister or boyfriend and girlfriend, and lest we forget it, the outrageously odd scandal of Angelina Jolie French-kissing her bleach-head brother on the red carpet.
Maybe psychologists would say it's healthier to have a loving relationship with your siblings, but if this is what they mean by loving, I think I'll keep the dead arms and the annual "thanks for the present" hug at Christmas from my brother, if it's all the same.
Sorcha Mullis (19), from Co Waterford, is a student at DCU
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