I heard a story on NPR yesterday about college campuses trying to unambiguously define what constitutes consent for sex.  All I can say is BRAVO!  Some of the definitions of consent they're coming up with include 'mutual participation', and some require explicit verbal consent.  So the question arises, wouldn't verbal consent, or the request for it, "ruin the moment"?  To which I say nothing ruins the moment like the absence of consent, implied, verbal or otherwise.

Two stories.

First, since I've recently started reading again I got a book for my kindle called Awakenings (by Brenda K. Davies, since there are more books with the same name) basically because it was free.  It was described as "Twilight with hot sex".  I almost stopped reading it after chapter two because it starts out as terribly written misogyny.   But I kept going out of curiosity - ok, for the hot sex part.  Well, what others call hot sex came across more like porn, but the book works on that level.  Surprisingly, the misogyny was replaced by it's polar opposite.  The sex was blatantly consensual as well as shockingly sensual.  While there was an unmistakable verbal implication of consent, the participatory kind of consent was clearly evident, and there were still several non-verbal inquiries.  Didn't ruin a thing.

So what's the need for verbal consent?  For one thing, communication is NOT a turn-off!  It can be at least as intimate as touch.  But the need for verbal consent is a very real one for some people who cannot, or will not, read body language.  My second story is not from a book.  I had a few dates with a guy I liked, a lot.  After one such date he took me back to his apartment.  I stood by the door with my coat on - body language for I don't intend to stay.  Was that unclear?  I couldn't just leave, I needed a ride to the train.  When he took my coat from me, I stayed by the door.  Still not clear enough apparently.  He kissed me, took my clothes off, and had sex with me.  My body language didn't change through all of this, my consent was neither verbal nor participatory.  But I was young, and honestly, afraid.  I didn't speak the word "no" because if he wasn't reading my body language he might not listen to my verbal language either.  And if I said it and he still didn't stop, then it would be rape.  I suspect this kind of thing happens way too often.  So I applaud the college campuses to holding young adults to a standard of respect and communication.

I find myself lately reliving my teens vicariously trough my teenage daughters.  Which is a good thing, because I didn't do a good job the first time.  I desperately hope my daughters will have a safer and easier teenage journey than I did.  In any case, the revisit brought on a flood of unexpected memories and emotions this morning.

I read voraciously as a kid, but for reasons I never understood I stopped reading for pleasure after college. I would have majored in comparative literature if I could have fulfilled the  bi-lingual requirements, and yet I stopped reading.  Decades later I've started reading again, and it seems to be the books my daughters are reading that have recaptured my literary attention.  I guess my taste in books just never grew up.

So here it is, on an anonymous and unread blog - I'll deny it anywhere else - I'm a closet Divergent fan.  I enjoyed the movie, and loved the book.  It's not a great book, there are too many inconsistencies and plot holes.  But I adore the emotional intimacy between Tris and Tobias.  That aspect of their relationship is sorely stunted in the movie imo.  But the movie has Theo James (almost making up for the absence of Uriah's much needed eye candy), who I overlooked when I first saw him on Downton Abbey.  Looks like Theo James has been typecast into boy-toy roles.  I suppose if you have to be typecast that's the way to go, but it would be nice to see him outside of that.  Like in his band, for example, which I'm also impressed with.

So I'm imagining myself in this story and find an almost perfect match in the role of Evelyn in Insurgent.  If I had a thespian bone in my body, I would audition for that part.  I'm about the right age and appearance, and I can imagine myself in her character in all ways…except one.  I can't imagine a mother leaving her child in an unsafe home.  As I try to understand it I'm flooded instead with all the reasons I can't.   I was adopted, which is not the same as abandoned.  I don't remember not knowing I was adopted, and I don't remember ever feeling unloved or unwanted.  Or unsafe.  I always knew I was loved, and I just understood that whatever the reason was that I was put up for adoption, it was a careful and thoughtful one.

I also always understood that it was a decision I never wanted to make.  I knew that an unplanned pregnancy was not experience I needed, or wanted, to have.  I never had unprotected sex, I always used birth control.  Where I failed was trusting that all methods of birth control are equally effective.  I found out years later that the birth control I had used was not recommended by doctors because it was known to fail, and it had failed me.  About a year after I met my birthparents I was pregnant, and I had to make the choice I never wanted.  Without a college degree I had no means of reliable income, and a life on welfare is not what I wanted for myself or my family.  So I considered adoption.  I visited with an adoption agency (possibly the same one I was adopted through) and tried to imagine how this choice would play out.  I couldn't do it.  I would spend the rest of my life looking for my child in every stroller, on every playground, in every headline and every obituary.  I spent my entire youth looking for my biological parents in every rock star and on every subway train, I couldn't spend the rest of my life looking for my child.  I was not as strong as my birthmother.

I had a friend take me to an evaluation appointment at the abortion clinic and scheduled another appointment for the procedure.  The day of the procedure came, and I cried so hard they refused to do it.  They sent me home to think it over, and I came to the same conclusion as before.  I rescheduled, and a second time I cried and they sent me home.  Finally I reached the end of the time it could be done safely, so I scheduled a third appointment - this time I bit my lip and swallowed my tears.  It was done.

I named her Natalia.  I spent the next decade or more looking at every child in every stroller and every playground and wondering if that's what she would have been like.  Ironic, that was what I hoped to avoid.  I completed my education with a vengeance, it was what I had given up a piece of myself for so it had to be 'worth it'.  Although I think the real drive was the intellectual escape from an emotional prison.  I graduated cum laude and have built a solid career built on that education, a career that supports my family well.  I have the best husband in the world and daughters who are growing into delightful young women, and obsessed Divergent fangirls.  It's been a while since I visited that painful part of my life.

Maybe Evelyn's character will be developed more when the Four book comes out this summer.  I would like to understand her better.  And I'm curious who they cast to play her in the movie.