Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Origins of Wednesday lxxxviii: Consent or custom?






The intriguing defense of Virginia's
Lt Gov (the office doesn't really use 
the orthographic space it occupies),
to a couple of pressing complaints of
sexual assault, is that the encounters
were "consensual." To have any experi-
ence with life is to possess enough ex-
perience with assault to blow that re-
tort out of the water with one simple
question: how the heck would you know?





I give you the circumstance, of submit-
ting to the custom of the towel snap
on the fanny in the locker room, the
mussing of one's hair before class,
even (hypothetically) the tummy grab
from behind, as yielding to horseplay
as good-naturedly as the setting seems
to demand. But setting and submitting
aren't consenting, and the Lt Gov is
not any likelier to forge that equation
in his pending testimony, than a jury
is to lack experience of assault. Dis-
tinguishing volition from consequence
is akin to counting a ballot without
gerrymandering its frame. He'll learn.
















Stella Tennant x Cathleen Naundor
2013

John Koch
1909 - 1978
After the Sitting






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