Writing About Consent in Contemporary Fiction
The other morning, I was having iced coffee under a canopy of trees with my friend Hala. Having recently read my novel Like Happiness, she turned to me and said, “You chose not to write about the victim of sexual assault. Instead, you wrote about a woman who is treated poorly in another way but not physically abused.”
Since my novel was published, reviewers and interviewers alike have been asking me about my #MeToo novel. Time and time again, I’ve had to clarify that when I began drafting the manuscript in 2011, the movement didn’t exist. Only circa 2017 did I see the #MeToo hashtag circulating on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Like many women, I welcomed the shake up and felt strongly that abusive men should be held accountable.
The truth is that in writing my novel, I was eager to explore numerous gray zones. What makes someone good or bad, trustworthy or indecent? Who self-actualizes and who doesn’t? Does society aid or hinder people in their journey? What forces shape a person’s sexuality?
The 2018 version of my novel still had no mention of sexual abuse. In fact, what I was writing about were tricky relationship dynamics. I became obsessed with relationship boundaries, by the speech and behaviors we accept in our friendships.
I nodded to Hala before remarking the choice was deliberate. I explained it like this to her:
“Every man who has committed assault is likely known by another woman in his life as someone decent, or fairly decent, maybe even as someone trustworthy. I wanted to dissect the mindset of the woman who accepts this type of man because to her, he is someone different.”
After a few more sips of our iced coffee, Hala proceeded to tell me about a toxic work dynamic at one of her previous jobs. Her boss publicly undermined and demeaned various women in group meetings. The office knew him as abrasive, but because the vitriol was directly only toward a couple of women of color, others chose to not become involved. The role of the bystander has always fascinated me as well as the term itself. If no one speaks up, isn’t everyone rendered a bystander? Who among us is brave enough to be an actor? I decided my protagonist had to transition from bystander into actor, crossing into a public territory that terrified her.
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Consent is a term that often signifies sexual permission but in Like Happiness, I explore permission in multiple forms. For much of the novel, Tatum does not object to the speech or behavior of M, the acclaimed writer she befriends. She gives tacit consent to how he operates in the world. Permitting negative behavior often has a boomerang effect, though. Tatum’s suffering and emotional confusion are exacerbated by what she never objected to in her relationship with M.
As I worked on my novel, I turned a careful ear to society to hear what messages it sends women. I wanted to know what ideas, loud or even subliminal, women receive about career, love, celebrity, sexuality, other women, and self. In Like Happiness, my protagonist tries her best to untangle all the messages she receives and to make sense of them. She must figure out her own sexuality—what society assigns vs. what feels authentic.
Like Happiness is a coming-of-age novel because Tatum comes into her own. The reality is that all of us, regardless of our ages or genders, are still evolving. Many of us are still learning the intricacies of our personality or sexuality, or even what behaviors cross a red line in our friendships.
Hala felt she had been asleep at the wheel to the harm caused at her work. In my novel, Tatum too reflects back to understand her role in a relationship that was less than ideal. In talking with an investigative reporter, Tatum starts to re-examine what she let slide in the past.
It was not lost on me when Hala pinpointed the worst victims at her work were women of color, particularly a Persian woman with visa issues. Predators know the invisible but real hierarchy that exists, stratifying women from the most protected to the least believed.
“In hindsight, I see that entire work environment so much more clearly now,” Hala shared. “Would I act differently now in that same scenario?” she asked expectantly, as if I might have the answer for her.
Check out Ursula Villarreal-Moura’s Like Happiness here:
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