by Jill Soloway
I knew people had sex, but I didn’t know the wide range of thoughts that went with looking at young girls and wanting to have sex. As far as I knew, sex was something two people did lying down, like an extension of hugging. If the two people get really really close, they might just get super-duper close by neatly placing the penis into the vagina. If you wanted to be incredibly dirty and have oral sex, you did 69, which was the same gentle naked hug, but upside down. Maybe it was the eighties, maybe it was my sheltered childhood, but there I was—the body of a centerfold, the mind of an eight-year-old. I was in no position to be consenting to anything, yet I was two months away from turning the legal consent age of eighteen.
There’s consent, informed consent, and meaningful consent. Okay, I’m going to get academic1 here, so bear with me. First of all, the age of consent is a misnomer. The law, as it is currently interpreted, actually allows all people under eighteen to have all the sex they want— with one another, and all people over eighteen to have sex with one another, but never the twain shall meet.2 But I’m going to argue 3 that there are many, many women of all ages who are not necessarily capable of informed, meaningful consent.
An erection is a very clear and hard thing; it stands up and says YES. It goes in, moving like a missile toward its goal. The erection is necessary for intercourse to occur. Strangely enough, there is no necessary desire-dependent component for women.4 Sure it helps if the woman is lubricated, but it isn’t a deal-breaker, physiologically, it’s the weirdest decision God ever made. It means that women can be raped and men can’t, unless asses are involved, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to leave asses out, at least for now.
It means that a woman can think she’s consenting but not be fully sure. It means that women can go back and forth many times in the course of an evening about what actually feels right or good or appropriate or safe, or wonderful or scary, but none of those things will affect whether or not the intercourse is happening. If a man loses interest, his erection flags and everything stops.
It is old news that in brain experiments, males depend more on the left side of the brain, which is in control of logic and material stuff, while more women have easier access to the right side, which is all, you know, abstract and flowy.5 But what’s fascinating is if you look at the way the brain neurons fire, on the left, alleged male side, they fire vertically, like a penis pole; on the right side, they fire horizontally, like the sea or a miraculous wind.6 My aforementioned bleed-with-the-moon theory gives women the lock on time, while maleness corresponds with space, which involves rocketeering and jettisoning. My metaphors continue into orgasms: women’s orgasms move in marvelous wet watery wide waves, while men’s orgasms are marked by a unidirectional shot, often at the ceiling.
Thus,7 women’s desire lays itself out, wide and spacious, abstract. It waits, then accepts, it is the catcher. To truly, meaningfully, and conclusively consent may, simply, not be synonymous with the nature of the equipment.
This brings me to my theory about the Kobe Bryant case. When it first happened I had an urge to call the news stations and tell them I was an expert, and that I would like to comment on what was going on.
My theory was that neither Kobe nor his unnamed accuser, whom I’ll call Michelle, is lying. I think they were both there, in the same room, and would even testify that the same chain of events took place, yet they experienced it differently.
And when the case finally settled and Kobe made his statement, I felt vindicated.
“I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.”
This does not seem like a cop-out, nor a brushing aside of it all, but rather an opportunity for us to look at what happened and begin to speak about the fact that two people can be in the same room and experience something completely different. I can imagine exactly how it may have happened.
If Kobe is anything like most professional athletes, particularly those in Los Angeles, he must know all sorts of LA hoors8 who are available at any moment. These are women who have not only watched porn but possibly appeared in a few, women who suck and fuck and bend over, then wipe up, squeegee out their holes, then go downstairs and have a sandwich. Whether or not he had ever partaken of these LA chicks, Kobe might have thought young Michelle was just like them, that she wanted a taste of his big ol’ chocolaty cock, here, there, or anywhere he felt like putting it. He may have even thought that the next day, they’d share a wave across the hideous, cranberry-colored fabric flowers in the lobby.
But Michelle might have had more of an Eagle, Colorado, Pop. 600, idea of sex. Michelle might have thought sex started with flirting, then conversation, a little kissing, then rubbing, perhaps rounding the bases of sexual progress, a dance of seduction.
Perhaps sex that night for Kobe was less of a dance and more of a drive-by. As I try to envision what may have gone on, I imagine that when Michelle got to his room, she probably got nothing like a kiss at all. Maybe from Kobe’s point of view, they shared a dirty-talking quickie: suck it, get over here, I’m gonna cum in you, spank that ass, now go downstairs and get you a sandwich.
From Michelle’s point of view, though, Things Turned Violent. Let’s not forget that she was only nineteen—one to two years older than the age of consent in many states. At her age—probably without a whole lot of experience on which to base her expectations—her point of view may have been different: no foreplay, no making out, no seduction, just forcefulness and a one-minute bang that she wasn’t even sure she’d consented to. Sure, by coming to his room, she had consented to something—but what? Did Kobe rape Michelle, or did Michelle just use bad judgment and end up having a short bad night of short bad sex?
The man who had illegal sex with me at seventeen was named Randall. He didn’t hurt me. He was a Gentle Lover and an Elegant Gentleman, nothing but complimentary and kind, from the very first moment we met. It was a hot Sunday afternoon, and Neille and I were sitting at the Grill, nursing iced teas. A handsome man who looked like a more Jewish George Hamilton sat at the table next to us, his 14K golden Chai dangling on a fabulous flat serpentine chain.
“Hello there,” he said, smiling modelly Pearly Drops teeth, “I’m Randall Golden.” I opened my menu so I wouldn’t have to endure yet another man hitting on Neille. Even though I was cute, when I was with Neille, I was invisible. I wasn’t even Jill. I was just Not Neille. Randall slid his chair next to mine. I yawned and assumed the familiar role of insider buddy.
“Her name’s Neille,” I told him. “But she’s very picky.” I was sure that Randall would make one of the usual comments, à la “Neille, huh? You don’t look like a boy!”
“Actually,” he answered, “your friend is very lovely. But I’m more interested in you.”
Sometimes in memoirs people fictionalize things. Sometimes people can’t remember what was said, so they do their best approximation. But Actually Your Friend Is Very Lovely But I’m More Interested in You is EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID, word for word. I would swear my life on it. I had been plenty of people’s second choices, and was always welcome to take the wingman of the guy who wanted Neille. And every so often, if Neille would walk away, a guy would focus his attention on me, ready to swing back when she returned. But here was a man, who was giving up his chance to woo Neille by saying this out loud, in front of her. I giggled and looked down and accused him of lying, of trying to use me to get to her. But he was dead serious and made it clear by asking me out for that very night. I gave him my address and we arranged a time that I’d be waiting outside my house.
The nausea at the core of the attraction/repulsion conundrum started. Did I want to do this? Did I not want to? Would it be fun or bad? Exciting? Safe? Scary? I concocted a lie to my parents that took literally no energy at all. Either they assumed I was adult enough to handle any situation or they were so embroiled in their own dramas that they didn’t even notice when, at around seven that evening
, I watched out the window for him, then said, casually, “Neille’s outside, I’ll be home in a few hours.”
I ran out the door and into the black leather air-conditioned egg that was his Porsche 944.9 The dashboard glowed with rich, creamery amberness. It smelled so fucking good, like wealthy people’s new car, which is different from plain ol’ new car. Good. It was good and good and air-conditioned and good.
As we drove down LaSalle Street and toward downtown, he pulled out a little black book. In it was a handwritten list of fabulous restaurants that would help him recall potential date destinations at the spur of the moment. Bad. This was really bad and bad and really bad, as queer as queer could be. My sister and Neille were suddenly crammed into the Porsche with me at that moment, pointing and laughing at his sad little list in his man-with-a-fountain-pen hand. I should have asked him to pull over right then, tell him I’d changed my mind, that it wasn’t going to work. But I didn’t know how to say that.10
I kept silent on his list. After all, maybe all 36-year-olds had lists, maybe that was just maturity. He chose a restaurant called Acorn on Oak. If you’re from Chicago, you’re laughing right now that this restaurant made it to his list. It was a dark little place with hamburgers and a piano. Randall sat back to the wall. I faced him. I could see the top half of my face in a mirror that ran the length of the wall behind him. The lights were low and my long bangs and overdone eyeliner were working for me. Over his beer and my 7-Up, I came clean and told him that I was seventeen, and not eighteen like I’d said earlier that day. He acted surprised, but assured me it was okay with him. He seemed enchanted by my personality. He was a trial lawyer and he thought I was smart. He said I had it all, I was beautiful and intelligent. He called me Supergirl. I knew what he wanted. I knew I was wanted. But I didn’t know what I wanted.
Sometimes there are those horrible rapes that get national coverage, like the mentally disabled girl in Glen Ridge or the girl in Los Angeles recently, both of whom were gang-raped. When these kinds of stories are in the news, the pain of the actuality of them comes at me like a snowball. I’ll be driving down Wilshire Boulevard drinking a Frappuccino on my way to some fabulous movie meeting about some fabulous project when a chipper chick announces, “NEWS ON THE ONES AND WHEN IT BREAKS! IN THE ORANGE COUNTY GANG RAPE TRIAL, PROSECUTORS HAVE FOUND EVIDENCE OF A SECOND VIDEO TAPE INVOLVING FOOTAGE OF A MINI–BASEBALL BAT, MORE AT THE ONES. HEY! IT’S DOUBLE COUPON DAY AT VONS!!!!!!!!”11
At the center of all rape cases is the question of consent. But at the center of those particular cases is the idea of informed or meaningful consent. The prosecution has to prove that the rapists should have known that the alleged victim’s consent wasn’t meaningful, seeing as how, in these cases, the girl was mentally disabled or passed out cold drunk. Sometimes the prosecutors will argue that a woman who is mentally disabled or passed out drunk and the star of a home video consented, evidenced by the fact that people knew she was a slut, and besides, she went to a place where she knew what was expected of her.
This is what was argued about Kobe’s Michelle. The prevailing idea was that (a) she went to his room and (b) she had sex with others, possibly the day before or after. This meant that she obviously liked sex, and simply, got some of what she liked. Sex.
From the non-informed consent of the video-taped gang-raped girl, to the not-meaningful consent of the mentally disabled Glenridge girl, to the hundreds of thousands of college girls who aren’t sure whether or not they’ve been date raped—what none of these cases takes into consideration is the biological difference in the nature of consent. Because an erection is necessary for intercourse, male consent is implied. But the legal system often tries to prove that for a woman, once any door is opened—for example, once a woman goes to a man’s room with the idea that sex is possible—consent is officially granted. Her rights are lost at the moment the door shuts.
For argument’s sake, let’s say a man opens the door to someone who said he was a door-to-door kitchen knife salesman. The salesman follows the man into the living room, but rather than display how to use the knives to slice tomatoes, he slices the man’s throat. The victim would surely have a case and would gain much sympathy from a jury, even though he opened the door. The opening of the door would become moot, not a point of blame, as it became clear that the man who came in through the door misrepresented his intentions.
If Michelle went to Kobe’s room and opened the door to the possibility of sex, what was she consenting to? Sex, or rough sex? Or any kind of sex that Kobe wanted? The court, by admitting into evidence the woman’s sexual behavior of the past year, week, or day in leading up to the attack, showed its hand—that our legal system has an intrinsic bias against woman-owned sexuality. The defense’s agenda became proving that Michelle liked sex or had sex with someone else the previous night. That was also the media’s and our community’s collective response to the situation. But if a man liked cooking and enjoyed great knives, his love of knives would not come into play when defending the murderer who disguised himself as a salesman. So why is it up for discussion here?
Moreover, why is the nature of the sex not admissible? As women who consent to sex, do we consent to any kind of sex, including violent and scary, every time we have sex? If this is the case, young women should know this. In all the talk about which one of these two was lying, or whether a girl who’d go to Kobe’s room knew “what she was doing there,” no one ever introduced the possibility that the nature of the sex might have changed from something Michelle desired into something she didn’t. If Michelle was open to sex with a big black married man, then, as the courts and nearly everyone else saw it, Michelle was fair game for absolutely anything.
What if Michelle followed a traveling kitchen knife salesman to his room to see his wares, but thirty seconds later, he bilked her out of her money by charging her for a full set but never actually delivering them? Would she have a case? She would, in small claims court. What if he stabbed her with a knife, instead of a holy penis, or a super-holy penis belonging to a super-holy sports god? Would she have a case? Indeed she would. What if Michelle followed a man to his room for satisfying lovemaking, but thirty seconds later, he held her down, smacked her, pulled her hair, fucked her in an uncomfortable way, way too hard, continued even when she said stop; would she have a case? It appears not. I wonder exactly what it is the law, as currently interpreted, would offer instead? To just feel yucky afterwards?
What if a girl met a man named Randall at a country club, and she had low self-esteem, because she was beautiful but not as beautiful as Neille, but he told her she was more beautiful, and so she went to his tacky fancy apartment, and he had sex with her, but she wasn’t eighteen? Would she have a case? Or should she just feel yucky afterwards? Should Randall go to jail? Should he see Kobe there? Most important, if they ended up sharing a cell, would Kobe find succor in Randall’s arms? Or would Kobe rock Randall into the shadowy night, both of them weeping?
After I had dinner at Acorn on Oak with Randall and we went back to his apartment, it wasn’t with my consent. He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. We were in his car.
Don’t get scared. Nothing bad happened. Unless you consider boring sex bad. We went into his bedroom with the wall of mirrored closets, we made out, we had sex, he came, I pretended to. He bought my acting job with very little concern. I’m sure it was horrible, as I’d had nothing to base it on. I knew there was supposed to be some sort of build-up and release, but at seventeen, a really vigorous one—even faked—would have been way too embarrassing, so I’m sure I kept it quite petite and demure like a sigh, only sexier. The only remarkable things were that (a) he was somewhat not-well-endowed and used a variety of pillows to get us in workable positions, and (b) when it was all over, he got two towels very hot and wet in the bathroom and came back and placed them on my back in a relaxing fashion. That part with the hot towels was nice and something I’d recommend to everyone.
He didn’t do anything mean or
against my will. It was just strange and unfamiliar, the way a lot of sex is.12 I continued to go out with him for the next few weeks, horribly faking a few more lame orgasms. I figured if the sex wasn’t good, it was surely because I wasn’t doing it right. And when I finally was ready to let it end, it had more to do with things that happened outside of his bedroom.
The first was that, when I asked him why he didn’t go out with women his own age, he said, “Skeletons in their closets. Too many skeletons in their closets.” It was the first time I had heard that phrase. But it scared me, because I knew one day I would be old and have skeletons. Of course, now that I am mature, I understand that he meant “Big-Dicked Skeletons.”
The other thing that made me stop seeing him happened when we were on the rooftop pool deck lying on our chaises, dangling our fingertips together so he could get the Jewish moms gossiping and irate. Again, I knew I would be them one day, and I didn’t know why he got a thrill out of watching them be jealous. I dropped his hand and changed positions, turning over. I put my arms behind my head.
“You’re almost perfect,” he said. Almost perfect? What the fuck? A few days before I had been perfect. I was Supergirl. He pointed to the stubble on my underarm. “You need to shave,” he said. I looked at my underarms, horrified—it was maybe two or three days’ growth. I dashed downstairs to the locker room and grabbed a blue plastic Bic from the Barbicide and ran it under my armpits. I ran back up to the pool and got in my chaise. My armpits were clean and fresh. But Randall and I were stale.
The next time I saw him at the club on the metal stairs between the racquetball courts and the arcade room, I made up a lie about having a new boyfriend. He took it like a man and wished me well, calling me Supergirl—and kissed me on the cheek like a father.
