VICE (2013) s06e23 Episode Script
Consent
1 NARRATOR 1: Ever feel like you're screaming into the void and no one is listening? NARRATOR 2: Yes! All the time.
NARRATOR 1: Well, this November is your chance to actually be heard.
NARRATOR 2: It's the most important election of our lifetime.
NARRATOR 1: And yes, people say that every year.
NARRATOR 2: But this time, it's actually true.
NARRATOR 1: So Pod Save America is heading out on the road.
NARRATOR 2: Florida, Texas, PennsyIvania, California.
NARRATOR 1: To talk to the candidates and activists and voters.
And offer some light criticism of a few politicians with whom we differ.
It's a political conversation for anyone who's not ready to give up.
NARRATOR 2: Or, go insane.
NARRATOR 1: Sure, sometimes you see the news, and you want to throw your phone out the window.
NARRATOR 2: But you never go through with it.
Coward.
- NARRATOR 1: Because despite all the noise - NARRATOR 2: And the lies, - and the cynicism - NARRATOR 1: Ordinary people are pushing back.
So much is at stake.
If this isn't who we are NARRATOR 2: It's time to prove it.
NARRATOR 1: Now.
NARRATOR 2: Last call for democracy, get it while it's good.
Can you tell us about a sexual encounter where consent was an issue? Yeah, um, I think over the course of my life, as with a lot of my friends, and I'm sure a lot of women, there have been many.
It was my freshman year.
It was around the fall so I had just got settled into my dorm room.
I was very drunk and I asked a friend for a ride home.
I liked this person, this person liked me, and, you know, you begin to make out.
He started kissing me, and I didn't want I was like, okay, that's all right.
And then all of a sudden, it becomes It's an energy shift.
But then he started to undress me and He had his hand on my head, and he kind of, like, pushed it.
And it becomes less about you as a person and more of you as a thing.
He, like, just sort of like put himself inside me without me saying anything, and then when I started saying "no," he sort of was like, "shh.
" In my head I was like "no, no, no, no, no," but You know, "no" was never really a factor in whether or not it was going to happen.
I felt like if I kept trying that something worse would happen so I eventually I just kind of let it happen.
Every single woman I know has stories like that, where she just let her body be used because it's just easier or it felt safer.
I remember when I was about 18 and there was this guy who was a friend of mine who I just thought was the most beautiful person in the world.
And we had gone out one night.
We'd been drinking a lot.
And it wasn't until I kind of turned around and saw him naked and he started taking my clothes off and pushing my head down that, um, I realized that I really not a tiny part of me wanted to do that.
I remember saying to him, I don't really want to have sex.
And I also remember him kind of taking that as a cue to convince me.
It's only really now that this moment of cultural reckoning has come about that I think so many of us are thinking about our own experiences and our own sexual encounters, and it's those kind of conversations, most of which have been taking place behind closed doors between myself, my friends, that I thought, you know, it's a good time to explore what consent really means, which is the reason I wanted to make this documentary.
- Hello.
- Aren't you in the wrong room, Mr.
Bond? Growing up, I learnt about love and romance through movies like "James Bond," where the heroes spend their time in the relentless pursuit of women, which is seen as a sexy ideal.
But off-screen, Hollywood itself has been changing.
Now to the latest on Harvey Weinstein, "The New York Times" reporting allegations by numerous women who say that Nearly a year ago, the Harvey Weinstein scandal unleashed a flood of allegations that became known as the #MeToo movement.
It began with stories of workplace sexual harassment that implicated scores of powerful men and impacted countless institutions around the world Including Vice.
In this moment of extraordinary reckoning, these personal encounters could have enormous political consequences.
Major breaking news about Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation.
A woman says that the president's U.
S.
supreme court nominee assaulted her when she and Kavanaugh were both in high school.
But #MeToo has also created a more nuanced cultural debate.
For me, it was one woman's anonymous account of a confusing sexual encounter with the actor Aziz Ansari, that hit a nerve.
Begging the question, "What constitute sexual consent?" Jessica Bennett, gender editor at the NYT, explained why this story stood out from the rest.
What were your thoughts when the Aziz Ansari exposé came out? I've been in this situation.
And most people I know have too.
You know, journalistically, I thought there were a lot of problems with how the reporting was done, how it was delivered, but that case opened up a really important conversation that needed to happen alongside or within #MeToo at large, which is that there are these sort of murkier grey area situations.
To be honest, I think that a lot of us, myself included, hadn't really thought about it until the Asiz Ansari thing came out.
And then it was like, "Oh, was that situation?" Yeah.
I mean, I think a lot of us, all genders, are looking back on past experiences with a new lens now.
And you can't really put this back to the way it was.
Like, Harvey Weinstein began this conversation, but it's not a new conversation.
The #MeToo movement actually began in communities of color, years before Harvey Weinstein's A-list accusers propelled it to international infamy.
Hello, hello.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! How many of you are ready for a great night? Michelle Hope is a sexologist whose mission is to bring the movement right back to where it started.
Some of you might be like, wait a minute, what is a sexologist and bitch, where did you go to school? Dick Sucking University? But in all actuality, I look at how human sexuality plays a part in our daily lives.
So, now I've gotten the nerdy shit out of the way.
Let's talk about pussy.
We joined her during a live taping of the popular sex podcast "Whorible Decisions," where she was the special guest.
So, what we're gonna do is, I'm gonna read some scenarios, right.
And these people are gonna say, "It's a go," "I don't know," "It's a no.
" Because oftentimes, the grey area is a space we don't talk about.
All right, so here we go.
Taquanda and Terrence met on a Tinder date.
She was pleased with the conversation and decided to have sex with him that night.
In the morning, Taquanda woke up before her partner and decided she wanted to give him a blowjob, while he was sleeping.
Is that consensual or not? I'ma be honest, I'm not sure but i'ma wake you up anyway, - I want to suck that dick.
- For sure.
For sure, it's okay.
Y'all can do whatever you want to do, and that's real.
It's okay.
That's a double standard.
So, I said I said this is a bad, and if I already sucked your dick, I'm gone suck it Within 24 hours? Look, I see a man in the audience, like thumbs, not consensual, not consensual.
All right, tell me what you're feeling.
It's not, it's not consensual.
And that's the double standard when it comes to men and women.
- Oh! Speak on.
- The thing is that when you're a man, it's assumed that you're the aggressor and that you take, you take initiative.
But when you're the woman, you're the submissive.
So now what happens is that when women take a dominant position, because they're women and we're men, we're supposed to accept it.
But, if I don't get a yes, it's a no, right? So if you don't get a yes, it's a no.
- I like this guy! - If you want to wake up and suck my dick and you don't get a yes, it's a no! - So, no! - Nah.
The thing is though is that the discussion has to be had between the two people about - what can and can't go down.
- Thank you.
But let me be real, these three plus me, we're nasty.
You seem very middle of the road.
- I'm pretty vanilla.
- Probably vanilla.
Do you have conversations with your partner - prior to actual intercourse? - No.
- Very rarely.
- See, she's cool.
[LAUGHTER.]
Oh, she's cool, she's just gonna let you take advantage of her.
So my question to you is, why do you think we don't do that? Um, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it.
I guess it's yeah, it's realistic.
It's the society that we're in and it's what we're used to and it's kind of normal just to have sex without having a big discussion about it.
I'm not saying that's right.
It's not right! Isobel, I would like to talk to you - about what I've been thinking about.
- Right, we're going to corner you.
- We're gonna find you backstage girl.
- You're gonna smash her.
She looks so conservative, right, like she's like, she got straight A's in school, right? A couple things I've learned, firstly that I have incredibly boring sex.
Secondly, that even with this incredibly progressive audience, that still there does seem to be genuine confusion around the topic of consent, and so it's obviously a massive gray area.
It's hard for people to accept.
It's hard for people to say "Oh, shit, maybe I did that wrong.
" And I think what adds to that is that we live in a sensationalized media world that wants to drag people as soon as they try to apologize or say "Oh, shit, I realize I did it wrong.
" I sometimes become frustrated with how the #MeToo movement has moved so far away from what it started as.
An opportunity for us to call attention to youth of color in disenfranchised communities that have experienced physical assault.
And now it's like, is Aziz Ansari really guilty? And then I'm reminded, are you compromising that survivor's experience? Because trauma is experienced by every single person differently.
Like, what you might identify as trauma, I might be like, "Girl, that's Tuesday.
" So what do you think is the truth in the Aziz Ansari case? I think there's a lot of truths.
But I think the overall truth is that our society has groomed both men and women not to communicate appropriately about sex.
In the 1970s and '80s, the campaign "Take Back The Night" emerged on college campuses, laying out the unambiguous message that "no means no" when it comes to sexual encounters.
But the problem with that is that anything apart from no could by default mean yes, which is why many universities across the country are now instating affirmative consent policies where only a clear verbal yes means yes.
What do you feel about affirmative consent? You know needing to have a yes, a solid yes before you can move ahead with anything.
It'll make your dick get soft.
If your dick can't withstand a simple question, then it should wilt like the shitty flower that it is.
If you're asking at every step during a sexual experience, "Do I have your permission to kiss you?" "Do I have your permission to take off your underwear?" That's definitely gonna kill the vibe.
They got to flow into the moment, man, you ain't out here just like "Oh, can I touch your titty? Can I touch your" like, ain't nobody got time for that shit.
I think it would be better to be awkward than to be in the wrong.
You got to, you got to read those signs I guess.
And that's, I mean what's hard to me is reading those signs.
We're at Northeastern University in Boston about to go meet Dr.
Lisa Barrett, who's a neuroscientist who can help us understand how the way that our brains work actually create confusion around consent.
This study was designed to figure out, when we influence your physical state in a particular way, how does that change the way you see other people.
- Okay.
- All right.
- Anything feel like it is tugging or pulling? - No, it feels completely normal.
This test attempts to measure the theory that our mood influences what we see: If we feel good, then we tend to judge others more positively.
I was asked to rate neutral faces on likeability, reliability, and trustworthiness.
But unknown to my conscious mind, flashing images of scowling or smiling faces were shown split-seconds before to influence my answers, which were then recorded along with my heart rate and perspiration.
Looking at your skin conductance, there are specific peaks a couple of seconds after you were faced with probably a scowling face would be my guess.
- Really? - Yes, it was a change in your gut feelings.
Basically, when you're in a pleasant state you think someone with a neutral face is more trustworthy and when you're in an unpleasant state you think that the person is less trustworthy.
These are beautiful results from a scientific standpoint.
From my standpoint, not so great.
Well, what I always tell people is, you know, as a scientist, I love results like this.
As a human person, I find them horrifying actually.
Yeah, they're terrifying! How does us guessing or misreading people, how does that play out in a sexual encounter? If your desire is to have sex with someone, you are more likely to interpret, to perceive actions as signaling intent.
Isn't it dangerous to excuse bad behavior because we're saying that this is just the way that our brains work? I want to be really clear.
I'm not talking about sexual harassment or rape.
We're talking about misunderstandings that happen between two adults who are capable of giving their consent.
To say that one person could believe that they had been given consent and another person believes that they really never gave it, and it really is possible for both of those things to be true, even when everybody has the best intentions.
So is the solution to have constant verbal consent? It could be the difference between a really great experience and a really horrible experience.
Communication is key.
But how do we handle the countless situations where miscommunication has caused harm? I am living with my traumas every single day and every single moment.
I cannot imagine for a second that any of the people that have hurt me struggle with that or deal with that or move through the world any differently because of that.
If there was a way for them to apologize to the people, directly to the people that they hurt Would I feel, uh, more calm about it? Would I feel healed by having it done? I don't know, but I think for some people, absolutely.
I would like to sit down with the person who hurt me, um, and have that conversation.
If I had the opportunity to do so, I would take it.
If I think about reaching out to the people that I've personally been in these situations with, it's just incredibly awkward and uncomfortable conversations to have.
So I'm really curious to know how people are able to instigate those conversations, and what they look like in reality.
We met a woman named Alexis and a man we've agreed to call James.
They're embracing a simple yet radical idea: Talking out their sexual encounter face-to-face.
So about 10 years ago, James and Alexis were at college together and they wound up having sex.
That is an event that James put down to being a drunken encounter that both of them were responsible for.
That is what he's believed for the last nine and a half years or so.
And which Alexis puts down to being rape.
As we get into this, I'd like to remind you about what restorative justice is.
Leading their conversation, professor Alissa Ackerman, an advocate for a method called "Restorative justice.
" Alexis reached out to me about 9 months ago asking for somebody to facilitate a restorative justice process for her.
What is restorative justice? So restorative justice focuses on the harm that is caused, not a particular statute violation.
These types of cases involve everyday people who really don't understand the depths of the harm that they've caused.
By going through this restorative justice, allowing perpetrators to have a voice in all this, are we not excusing them? So I actually think that this holds them more accountable than the criminal justice process does.
The fact of the matter is that for every thousand rapes committed in this country, only six people will go to prison.
This offers an opportunity for survivors to get what they actually say that they need, which is a voice, some validation, and the ability to tell their story in a place that they're safe.
Alexis reached out to Alissa for help nearly a year ago.
At James' request, we've agreed to obscure both of their faces.
You were the one that initiated this restorative justice process.
- Mm-hmm.
- Why? And how did you go about doing that? Yeah, I think it was just a last-ditch effort, you know? I had done every kind of therapy and thought every kind of thought, and it still just wasn't doing it.
And um, I don't know, it was just, like, fuck it.
He had like the missing piece of this puzzle, and that was just what I needed, you know, to not have it hurt the same way.
Do you have that email that you first sent to him? I do, yeah.
So I wrote, "I wonder if you're forced to think about it every day, like I am.
I wonder if you know how it feels trying to stop crying on the way to work when Weinstein and Ailes and Brock Turner just keep winning.
I wonder if you know about the years of therapy and a decade of panic attacks or when the doctors told me I'd probably be managing the PTSD for the rest of my life.
I wonder if you know what it feels like when your body takes over, when it contorts into panic and you lose control of your breath but your brain can't override the system.
I never get to forget, because even when I do, my body remembers.
I wonder if you know what happened back then.
That I dropped out of school, that I fled from everything I knew, that I had now come to distrust, and that finally I attempted suicide.
But probably the worst part of all of it is that I wonder if you know that it's in your power to put a stop to this for me.
It's always been in your power.
You could still say you're sorry today.
You could fix this at any moment.
We could sit down and figure out how to heal together.
I can never change what happened, but you can start to repair the damage any day you want.
" On the receiving side of that email, James, who at one time considered Alexis one of his best friends.
He asked us to alter his real voice.
Alexis reached out to you a few months ago.
How did you feel when you received that email? It completely stopped me in my tracks.
I was walking down the street and I, I Stood there and read it over and over again.
Her being so honest really brought me to the table and made me realize that I need to deal with this.
This is you know, I owe it to this person.
My friends and family cautioned me against speaking with Alexis or being honest with her or even communicating with her.
But I care a lot about this process and I care a lot about Alexis, so ultimately, that's why I'm here.
Um I think, in terms of basic details, I remember that we had been drinking a lot and someone I can't remember exactly who or how they were brought there but, um, we had pot brownies.
And I remember you went to your room, I went to my room, but I was so passed out at this point, and I just remember these flashes of a face above me but it didn't make sense, and, and then there was like little things like, uh, I remember finding underwear in my room and, uh, I told myself it was a dream and that the things I thought I had seen and imagined just couldn't be real, like, really not not wanting to face the next level of this line of questioning.
There's a lot that I don't remember.
How I got into your room, why I came into your room, uh, when it happened any of those details.
The first memories I have are of me being on top of you in your bed, um, and that experience I was able to normalize it because, I, uh Just want to be careful with the words I use, but you were active in the process in the sense that you weren't unconscious, and so for That image and that memory of that portion of it was what allowed me to call it sex for nine years.
When it had been established, kind of through our friends, that you felt this was rape, and I had felt that this was a drunken sexual experience, and I wasn't ready to have that conversation with myself.
I was a good person, how could I possibly do that to you? To one of my best friends? [SIGHS.]
And that opinion was validated by, you know, friends of mine.
It became the default, it was to believe you.
And I became this source of problem in our community, this source of like an incongruity.
No one, no one could imagine you I didn't want to see you like this.
No one could imagine you like this, and it was easier to dismiss it, and so by default everyone believed you, and you didn't have to do anything or change anything and you got to keep everything the way it was and I had to leave everything and leave everybody.
One of my biggest regrets throughout all of this is, in addition to, you know, hurting you that night and causing that trauma, I had 10 years of opportunities to right that, and I I I discarded you in this process and [SIGHS.]
Thank you for saying that.
This whole interaction is pretty incredible to watch.
I mean, it's so raw and emotional and brutally, brutally honest and human.
I mean, these guys are just sitting, having a very simple conversation, and it's an incredibly difficult conversation to have, and yet there's so much humanity and somehow understanding and forgiveness here.
I realize that we haven't called it what it is.
Maybe we should be calling it what it is.
I wonder if you can do that.
For the longest time, I I didn't see it as how I see it now.
I mean, to answer your question, yeah, it was it was rape.
Uh, that's not easy to say, both because I know what it's done to you and I know there's a you know, flash of fear every time I associate with it.
[SIGHS.]
Um at that point in time, there was just two words for this.
There was just victim and rapist, and I don't think either of us wanted to be either of those things.
I didn't think you were a bad person.
I thought you had done a bad thing.
Now, Alexis, for you, the decision to do this was an easy one, but when you were asked to do it in shadow, that was very very hard for you.
Yeah.
It was really difficult.
If my healing process is one of embodying even the worse things that have happened to me and embodying who I've become since then and what I had become, this was, like, a step in the opposite direction.
But we're not really moving the needle at all until men start doing it, and your words have the potential to reach any other man and show that there's a path to taking responsibility.
This feels better, to appreciate the fact that we all have the capacity to harm, and we all have the capacity to be harmed.
Restorative justice isn't a solution for everyone.
For some, confronting an assailant does not equal justice.
For others, admitting to actions that could have real criminal consequences is out of the question.
But at least for Alexis and James it is providing the beginning of a way forward.
And as disturbing and transformative as the last year of frenzied media coverage has been, what so many of us want is an opportunity to redefine our culture.
Even if we can't change the past, maybe then we won't have to repeat it.
NARRATOR 1: Well, this November is your chance to actually be heard.
NARRATOR 2: It's the most important election of our lifetime.
NARRATOR 1: And yes, people say that every year.
NARRATOR 2: But this time, it's actually true.
NARRATOR 1: So Pod Save America is heading out on the road.
NARRATOR 2: Florida, Texas, PennsyIvania, California.
NARRATOR 1: To talk to the candidates and activists and voters.
And offer some light criticism of a few politicians with whom we differ.
It's a political conversation for anyone who's not ready to give up.
NARRATOR 2: Or, go insane.
NARRATOR 1: Sure, sometimes you see the news, and you want to throw your phone out the window.
NARRATOR 2: But you never go through with it.
Coward.
- NARRATOR 1: Because despite all the noise - NARRATOR 2: And the lies, - and the cynicism - NARRATOR 1: Ordinary people are pushing back.
So much is at stake.
If this isn't who we are NARRATOR 2: It's time to prove it.
NARRATOR 1: Now.
NARRATOR 2: Last call for democracy, get it while it's good.
Can you tell us about a sexual encounter where consent was an issue? Yeah, um, I think over the course of my life, as with a lot of my friends, and I'm sure a lot of women, there have been many.
It was my freshman year.
It was around the fall so I had just got settled into my dorm room.
I was very drunk and I asked a friend for a ride home.
I liked this person, this person liked me, and, you know, you begin to make out.
He started kissing me, and I didn't want I was like, okay, that's all right.
And then all of a sudden, it becomes It's an energy shift.
But then he started to undress me and He had his hand on my head, and he kind of, like, pushed it.
And it becomes less about you as a person and more of you as a thing.
He, like, just sort of like put himself inside me without me saying anything, and then when I started saying "no," he sort of was like, "shh.
" In my head I was like "no, no, no, no, no," but You know, "no" was never really a factor in whether or not it was going to happen.
I felt like if I kept trying that something worse would happen so I eventually I just kind of let it happen.
Every single woman I know has stories like that, where she just let her body be used because it's just easier or it felt safer.
I remember when I was about 18 and there was this guy who was a friend of mine who I just thought was the most beautiful person in the world.
And we had gone out one night.
We'd been drinking a lot.
And it wasn't until I kind of turned around and saw him naked and he started taking my clothes off and pushing my head down that, um, I realized that I really not a tiny part of me wanted to do that.
I remember saying to him, I don't really want to have sex.
And I also remember him kind of taking that as a cue to convince me.
It's only really now that this moment of cultural reckoning has come about that I think so many of us are thinking about our own experiences and our own sexual encounters, and it's those kind of conversations, most of which have been taking place behind closed doors between myself, my friends, that I thought, you know, it's a good time to explore what consent really means, which is the reason I wanted to make this documentary.
- Hello.
- Aren't you in the wrong room, Mr.
Bond? Growing up, I learnt about love and romance through movies like "James Bond," where the heroes spend their time in the relentless pursuit of women, which is seen as a sexy ideal.
But off-screen, Hollywood itself has been changing.
Now to the latest on Harvey Weinstein, "The New York Times" reporting allegations by numerous women who say that Nearly a year ago, the Harvey Weinstein scandal unleashed a flood of allegations that became known as the #MeToo movement.
It began with stories of workplace sexual harassment that implicated scores of powerful men and impacted countless institutions around the world Including Vice.
In this moment of extraordinary reckoning, these personal encounters could have enormous political consequences.
Major breaking news about Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation.
A woman says that the president's U.
S.
supreme court nominee assaulted her when she and Kavanaugh were both in high school.
But #MeToo has also created a more nuanced cultural debate.
For me, it was one woman's anonymous account of a confusing sexual encounter with the actor Aziz Ansari, that hit a nerve.
Begging the question, "What constitute sexual consent?" Jessica Bennett, gender editor at the NYT, explained why this story stood out from the rest.
What were your thoughts when the Aziz Ansari exposé came out? I've been in this situation.
And most people I know have too.
You know, journalistically, I thought there were a lot of problems with how the reporting was done, how it was delivered, but that case opened up a really important conversation that needed to happen alongside or within #MeToo at large, which is that there are these sort of murkier grey area situations.
To be honest, I think that a lot of us, myself included, hadn't really thought about it until the Asiz Ansari thing came out.
And then it was like, "Oh, was that situation?" Yeah.
I mean, I think a lot of us, all genders, are looking back on past experiences with a new lens now.
And you can't really put this back to the way it was.
Like, Harvey Weinstein began this conversation, but it's not a new conversation.
The #MeToo movement actually began in communities of color, years before Harvey Weinstein's A-list accusers propelled it to international infamy.
Hello, hello.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! How many of you are ready for a great night? Michelle Hope is a sexologist whose mission is to bring the movement right back to where it started.
Some of you might be like, wait a minute, what is a sexologist and bitch, where did you go to school? Dick Sucking University? But in all actuality, I look at how human sexuality plays a part in our daily lives.
So, now I've gotten the nerdy shit out of the way.
Let's talk about pussy.
We joined her during a live taping of the popular sex podcast "Whorible Decisions," where she was the special guest.
So, what we're gonna do is, I'm gonna read some scenarios, right.
And these people are gonna say, "It's a go," "I don't know," "It's a no.
" Because oftentimes, the grey area is a space we don't talk about.
All right, so here we go.
Taquanda and Terrence met on a Tinder date.
She was pleased with the conversation and decided to have sex with him that night.
In the morning, Taquanda woke up before her partner and decided she wanted to give him a blowjob, while he was sleeping.
Is that consensual or not? I'ma be honest, I'm not sure but i'ma wake you up anyway, - I want to suck that dick.
- For sure.
For sure, it's okay.
Y'all can do whatever you want to do, and that's real.
It's okay.
That's a double standard.
So, I said I said this is a bad, and if I already sucked your dick, I'm gone suck it Within 24 hours? Look, I see a man in the audience, like thumbs, not consensual, not consensual.
All right, tell me what you're feeling.
It's not, it's not consensual.
And that's the double standard when it comes to men and women.
- Oh! Speak on.
- The thing is that when you're a man, it's assumed that you're the aggressor and that you take, you take initiative.
But when you're the woman, you're the submissive.
So now what happens is that when women take a dominant position, because they're women and we're men, we're supposed to accept it.
But, if I don't get a yes, it's a no, right? So if you don't get a yes, it's a no.
- I like this guy! - If you want to wake up and suck my dick and you don't get a yes, it's a no! - So, no! - Nah.
The thing is though is that the discussion has to be had between the two people about - what can and can't go down.
- Thank you.
But let me be real, these three plus me, we're nasty.
You seem very middle of the road.
- I'm pretty vanilla.
- Probably vanilla.
Do you have conversations with your partner - prior to actual intercourse? - No.
- Very rarely.
- See, she's cool.
[LAUGHTER.]
Oh, she's cool, she's just gonna let you take advantage of her.
So my question to you is, why do you think we don't do that? Um, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it.
I guess it's yeah, it's realistic.
It's the society that we're in and it's what we're used to and it's kind of normal just to have sex without having a big discussion about it.
I'm not saying that's right.
It's not right! Isobel, I would like to talk to you - about what I've been thinking about.
- Right, we're going to corner you.
- We're gonna find you backstage girl.
- You're gonna smash her.
She looks so conservative, right, like she's like, she got straight A's in school, right? A couple things I've learned, firstly that I have incredibly boring sex.
Secondly, that even with this incredibly progressive audience, that still there does seem to be genuine confusion around the topic of consent, and so it's obviously a massive gray area.
It's hard for people to accept.
It's hard for people to say "Oh, shit, maybe I did that wrong.
" And I think what adds to that is that we live in a sensationalized media world that wants to drag people as soon as they try to apologize or say "Oh, shit, I realize I did it wrong.
" I sometimes become frustrated with how the #MeToo movement has moved so far away from what it started as.
An opportunity for us to call attention to youth of color in disenfranchised communities that have experienced physical assault.
And now it's like, is Aziz Ansari really guilty? And then I'm reminded, are you compromising that survivor's experience? Because trauma is experienced by every single person differently.
Like, what you might identify as trauma, I might be like, "Girl, that's Tuesday.
" So what do you think is the truth in the Aziz Ansari case? I think there's a lot of truths.
But I think the overall truth is that our society has groomed both men and women not to communicate appropriately about sex.
In the 1970s and '80s, the campaign "Take Back The Night" emerged on college campuses, laying out the unambiguous message that "no means no" when it comes to sexual encounters.
But the problem with that is that anything apart from no could by default mean yes, which is why many universities across the country are now instating affirmative consent policies where only a clear verbal yes means yes.
What do you feel about affirmative consent? You know needing to have a yes, a solid yes before you can move ahead with anything.
It'll make your dick get soft.
If your dick can't withstand a simple question, then it should wilt like the shitty flower that it is.
If you're asking at every step during a sexual experience, "Do I have your permission to kiss you?" "Do I have your permission to take off your underwear?" That's definitely gonna kill the vibe.
They got to flow into the moment, man, you ain't out here just like "Oh, can I touch your titty? Can I touch your" like, ain't nobody got time for that shit.
I think it would be better to be awkward than to be in the wrong.
You got to, you got to read those signs I guess.
And that's, I mean what's hard to me is reading those signs.
We're at Northeastern University in Boston about to go meet Dr.
Lisa Barrett, who's a neuroscientist who can help us understand how the way that our brains work actually create confusion around consent.
This study was designed to figure out, when we influence your physical state in a particular way, how does that change the way you see other people.
- Okay.
- All right.
- Anything feel like it is tugging or pulling? - No, it feels completely normal.
This test attempts to measure the theory that our mood influences what we see: If we feel good, then we tend to judge others more positively.
I was asked to rate neutral faces on likeability, reliability, and trustworthiness.
But unknown to my conscious mind, flashing images of scowling or smiling faces were shown split-seconds before to influence my answers, which were then recorded along with my heart rate and perspiration.
Looking at your skin conductance, there are specific peaks a couple of seconds after you were faced with probably a scowling face would be my guess.
- Really? - Yes, it was a change in your gut feelings.
Basically, when you're in a pleasant state you think someone with a neutral face is more trustworthy and when you're in an unpleasant state you think that the person is less trustworthy.
These are beautiful results from a scientific standpoint.
From my standpoint, not so great.
Well, what I always tell people is, you know, as a scientist, I love results like this.
As a human person, I find them horrifying actually.
Yeah, they're terrifying! How does us guessing or misreading people, how does that play out in a sexual encounter? If your desire is to have sex with someone, you are more likely to interpret, to perceive actions as signaling intent.
Isn't it dangerous to excuse bad behavior because we're saying that this is just the way that our brains work? I want to be really clear.
I'm not talking about sexual harassment or rape.
We're talking about misunderstandings that happen between two adults who are capable of giving their consent.
To say that one person could believe that they had been given consent and another person believes that they really never gave it, and it really is possible for both of those things to be true, even when everybody has the best intentions.
So is the solution to have constant verbal consent? It could be the difference between a really great experience and a really horrible experience.
Communication is key.
But how do we handle the countless situations where miscommunication has caused harm? I am living with my traumas every single day and every single moment.
I cannot imagine for a second that any of the people that have hurt me struggle with that or deal with that or move through the world any differently because of that.
If there was a way for them to apologize to the people, directly to the people that they hurt Would I feel, uh, more calm about it? Would I feel healed by having it done? I don't know, but I think for some people, absolutely.
I would like to sit down with the person who hurt me, um, and have that conversation.
If I had the opportunity to do so, I would take it.
If I think about reaching out to the people that I've personally been in these situations with, it's just incredibly awkward and uncomfortable conversations to have.
So I'm really curious to know how people are able to instigate those conversations, and what they look like in reality.
We met a woman named Alexis and a man we've agreed to call James.
They're embracing a simple yet radical idea: Talking out their sexual encounter face-to-face.
So about 10 years ago, James and Alexis were at college together and they wound up having sex.
That is an event that James put down to being a drunken encounter that both of them were responsible for.
That is what he's believed for the last nine and a half years or so.
And which Alexis puts down to being rape.
As we get into this, I'd like to remind you about what restorative justice is.
Leading their conversation, professor Alissa Ackerman, an advocate for a method called "Restorative justice.
" Alexis reached out to me about 9 months ago asking for somebody to facilitate a restorative justice process for her.
What is restorative justice? So restorative justice focuses on the harm that is caused, not a particular statute violation.
These types of cases involve everyday people who really don't understand the depths of the harm that they've caused.
By going through this restorative justice, allowing perpetrators to have a voice in all this, are we not excusing them? So I actually think that this holds them more accountable than the criminal justice process does.
The fact of the matter is that for every thousand rapes committed in this country, only six people will go to prison.
This offers an opportunity for survivors to get what they actually say that they need, which is a voice, some validation, and the ability to tell their story in a place that they're safe.
Alexis reached out to Alissa for help nearly a year ago.
At James' request, we've agreed to obscure both of their faces.
You were the one that initiated this restorative justice process.
- Mm-hmm.
- Why? And how did you go about doing that? Yeah, I think it was just a last-ditch effort, you know? I had done every kind of therapy and thought every kind of thought, and it still just wasn't doing it.
And um, I don't know, it was just, like, fuck it.
He had like the missing piece of this puzzle, and that was just what I needed, you know, to not have it hurt the same way.
Do you have that email that you first sent to him? I do, yeah.
So I wrote, "I wonder if you're forced to think about it every day, like I am.
I wonder if you know how it feels trying to stop crying on the way to work when Weinstein and Ailes and Brock Turner just keep winning.
I wonder if you know about the years of therapy and a decade of panic attacks or when the doctors told me I'd probably be managing the PTSD for the rest of my life.
I wonder if you know what it feels like when your body takes over, when it contorts into panic and you lose control of your breath but your brain can't override the system.
I never get to forget, because even when I do, my body remembers.
I wonder if you know what happened back then.
That I dropped out of school, that I fled from everything I knew, that I had now come to distrust, and that finally I attempted suicide.
But probably the worst part of all of it is that I wonder if you know that it's in your power to put a stop to this for me.
It's always been in your power.
You could still say you're sorry today.
You could fix this at any moment.
We could sit down and figure out how to heal together.
I can never change what happened, but you can start to repair the damage any day you want.
" On the receiving side of that email, James, who at one time considered Alexis one of his best friends.
He asked us to alter his real voice.
Alexis reached out to you a few months ago.
How did you feel when you received that email? It completely stopped me in my tracks.
I was walking down the street and I, I Stood there and read it over and over again.
Her being so honest really brought me to the table and made me realize that I need to deal with this.
This is you know, I owe it to this person.
My friends and family cautioned me against speaking with Alexis or being honest with her or even communicating with her.
But I care a lot about this process and I care a lot about Alexis, so ultimately, that's why I'm here.
Um I think, in terms of basic details, I remember that we had been drinking a lot and someone I can't remember exactly who or how they were brought there but, um, we had pot brownies.
And I remember you went to your room, I went to my room, but I was so passed out at this point, and I just remember these flashes of a face above me but it didn't make sense, and, and then there was like little things like, uh, I remember finding underwear in my room and, uh, I told myself it was a dream and that the things I thought I had seen and imagined just couldn't be real, like, really not not wanting to face the next level of this line of questioning.
There's a lot that I don't remember.
How I got into your room, why I came into your room, uh, when it happened any of those details.
The first memories I have are of me being on top of you in your bed, um, and that experience I was able to normalize it because, I, uh Just want to be careful with the words I use, but you were active in the process in the sense that you weren't unconscious, and so for That image and that memory of that portion of it was what allowed me to call it sex for nine years.
When it had been established, kind of through our friends, that you felt this was rape, and I had felt that this was a drunken sexual experience, and I wasn't ready to have that conversation with myself.
I was a good person, how could I possibly do that to you? To one of my best friends? [SIGHS.]
And that opinion was validated by, you know, friends of mine.
It became the default, it was to believe you.
And I became this source of problem in our community, this source of like an incongruity.
No one, no one could imagine you I didn't want to see you like this.
No one could imagine you like this, and it was easier to dismiss it, and so by default everyone believed you, and you didn't have to do anything or change anything and you got to keep everything the way it was and I had to leave everything and leave everybody.
One of my biggest regrets throughout all of this is, in addition to, you know, hurting you that night and causing that trauma, I had 10 years of opportunities to right that, and I I I discarded you in this process and [SIGHS.]
Thank you for saying that.
This whole interaction is pretty incredible to watch.
I mean, it's so raw and emotional and brutally, brutally honest and human.
I mean, these guys are just sitting, having a very simple conversation, and it's an incredibly difficult conversation to have, and yet there's so much humanity and somehow understanding and forgiveness here.
I realize that we haven't called it what it is.
Maybe we should be calling it what it is.
I wonder if you can do that.
For the longest time, I I didn't see it as how I see it now.
I mean, to answer your question, yeah, it was it was rape.
Uh, that's not easy to say, both because I know what it's done to you and I know there's a you know, flash of fear every time I associate with it.
[SIGHS.]
Um at that point in time, there was just two words for this.
There was just victim and rapist, and I don't think either of us wanted to be either of those things.
I didn't think you were a bad person.
I thought you had done a bad thing.
Now, Alexis, for you, the decision to do this was an easy one, but when you were asked to do it in shadow, that was very very hard for you.
Yeah.
It was really difficult.
If my healing process is one of embodying even the worse things that have happened to me and embodying who I've become since then and what I had become, this was, like, a step in the opposite direction.
But we're not really moving the needle at all until men start doing it, and your words have the potential to reach any other man and show that there's a path to taking responsibility.
This feels better, to appreciate the fact that we all have the capacity to harm, and we all have the capacity to be harmed.
Restorative justice isn't a solution for everyone.
For some, confronting an assailant does not equal justice.
For others, admitting to actions that could have real criminal consequences is out of the question.
But at least for Alexis and James it is providing the beginning of a way forward.
And as disturbing and transformative as the last year of frenzied media coverage has been, what so many of us want is an opportunity to redefine our culture.
Even if we can't change the past, maybe then we won't have to repeat it.