privilege

In chapter 4 of the novel Comfort for Engineers the handsome main character is about eighteen years old. Because he has stopped practising his curiosity on material things and because of puberty, his young body is slender and frail. Of course he bullies his friends and classmates, but never fysically, only with words. The young man has gotten the strange idea that his education so far does not make him suiteble for society. For the first time in his life the young man is bored and looking for a real challange. A big mental and fysical challange. He desides to serve in the army.

In his family there is a certain ambivalence about this choise of the handsome young man. His parents do not see an army carreer as a serious or good way to spend a precious life. Still, in times of peace, the army looks like a harmless place to stay, at least for a year, the duration of his contract. And still, one could think of worse ways to spoil a year for a middleclass boy. Because the handsome young man wants the army experience to be a contradicting challange to his boring life, he chooses to reject the offer of becoming an officer. The idea of making a carreer is exactly what bores him.

So the handsome young man is a soldier, for one year. He meets all kinds of people: poor people, desperate people, funny people, clumsy people; his co-workers: the soldiers. The are really different, apart from one aspect. These people are all men. Welcome homophobia! Handsomeness is no longer a privilege.