Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention

by Donna Freitas

Why did I try so hard to protect him? Why did I work so hard to justify his behavior? Wasn’t I only prolonging my own suffering? Doesn’t my story, this effort at excusing his behavior, undermine my claims that something was wrong? Doesn’t it mark me as a liar? I know that, at least for a while, I made everyone outside of my own situation believe that all was well between me and my professor, that his behavior was entirely welcome. I colluded with my stalker’s behavior, as a way of preserving my own sanity. I did this because the potential cost of telling the truth was everything: my professional future, my reputation, their credibility, my general well-being. Lying to shield him was a form of self-preservation for me. There is a liminal space created between the powerful person and the person who is the target of unwanted attention, a liminal space between outright yes and outright no. That space is not a compromise—not a maybe-yes or maybe-no—but more of a hovering, a being caught and not knowing where else to go or how to move without making things much worse. So you stay put. You hold the person off as best you can without causing them to retaliate too terribly, and because you know they can retaliate if they want to, that they have the power to do this, that they could decide to ruin you for displeasing them or rejecting them too forcefully. On the outside you continue to exist as though nothing is wrong, you perpetuate everything as though it is normal. You maintain t...