Trust

I've started these last two school years with training for discussions on consent culture. I find the actual discussions awkward and a little forced, because the first-years are never fully engaged and the material is so important, and also because as a society we're still not prepared to talk about intimacy and respect. Of course, you try to change this, but you have just one hour.

But the trainings for the workshops, to me, are among the most inspiring and visionary experiences I've had the fortune of being part of. I've just finished my second day of this year. I've reached a lot of conclusions before today or yesterday, I think. That socialization imprisons one's body, mind and soul. That we deter our own happiness when we don't treat others with humble, giving love. That battles aren't won by villianizing the people who aren't fighting with you.

The training this year is twice as large, at almost 160 people. There are only five people (two undergraduates) conducting all of it, and it is a testament to their skill, brilliance and power that they succeed as they do. Still, a little control is lost when a guy who just wanted free housing for a week with his girlfriend contends that women find reasons to accuse their lovers of assault even after consent has been achieved. Triggered members of the movement shout him down, and his damaged ego defends a falsehood he is still unsure of.

I spoke up. We like to believe that truly loving relationships are built on top of the most basic rocks of human ideals: trust, respect, the like. Trust your partner at least of fair dealings, and the rest need not be discussed. Trust...

Quickly my plea for honest dealings was dismantled by some more wary people. Love's logic doesn't, has never conformed to neat foundations. Assault, as it happens most with acquaintances, overwhelmingly depends on a trust that may not even be false. And you cannot blame these feelings over those who exploit these feelings. I should've known that before I even spoke.

Trust is loving. But trust is also violence.

I sat nervous and pensive. I felt terrible, it sucked, and I was not okay. Not because I was corrected (I really love learning), but because I realized we as humans can be abused even when we surrender to love and lovers with an open heart. There is no safety in trust, most nurturing of emotions. God, it can't be.

I struggle a lot with love. There's too much out there, everywhere and I just don't know what to do with all of it. I'm going to post later about an article I read in the consent reader about jealousy. Guess what my post will be called.

Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the praires and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Edit: Wild geese... they fly south.