Chapter 31: Out Of The Blue

March 4, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Steve

On Sunday morning, after Kara and I walked Jessica to work and Birgit got her cuddles, we made breakfast for the family. After everyone ate, we all went to the sunroom to spend some time together. Just after 9:30am, the doorbell rang and as usual, Birgit scurried to answer. She was back a moment later.

“Aunt Bethany is here to see you,” Birgit said. “She’s in the ‘Indian’ room.”

“Thanks, Pumpkin,” I replied.

I went to the ‘Indian’ room to find Bethany sitting in one of the basket chairs. I closed the door and sat down in one next to her.

“Can we talk this out?” she asked.

“You know I’m always here for you, Sweetheart.”

She frowned and shook her head, “No, I broke us. Again.”

“Do you remember the very first time you raised this concern with me?” I asked.

“I’d have to guess it was five years ago.”

I smiled and shook my head, “No, more like sixteen.”

“Sixteen? Before my accident?”

“No, just after.”

“To say my memory about January of 1985 is hazy is an understatement.”

“It was after Jennifer’s revelation about her relationship with Mr. Dixon.”

Bethany nodded, “She was fourteen and he was a teacher. There was no way she could have consented even to kisses because of the power disparity.”

“Yes. And you implied, strongly, that Jennie McGrath had abused me because of the power disparity. And asserted that my relationship with Penny was a problem, too.”

“I don’t remember, but I don’t doubt you. Why bring this up?”

“Because I had convinced myself that your opinion had changed. It hadn’t; you simply were asserting it more often and much more forcefully. Part of that I think is because you were still an undergrad back then, and hadn’t seen any patients. It only really became a serious concern for me when you tried to apply it to what I felt were perfectly healthy relationships.”

“If you assert that you and Penny had a ‘perfectly healthy relationship’, YOU are going to need a neurosurgeon!”

“There was a time when I refused to see that as a possibility, but later I blamed myself for things that happened in her life. Now, I’ve found what I think is a balanced view - it was not sex with me that created ANY of Penny’s problems, nor was it our close working relationship. It was that both of those things exposed her to my crazy lifestyle. The thing is, even without the sex, she’d had been exposed to that. She was around us for the best part of a year before she and I consummated our relationship. You know I don’t play ‘What if?’ with the past, but it was the exposure to the counter-culture experience that created problems for Penny; problems which she has now worked through. I’ll also point out that Miss Penelope Margaret O’Neil was bound and determined to lose her virginity with me, something which I believe at fifteen, she was qualified to decide.

“Going back to Jennie, she didn’t abuse me or take advantage of me, except perhaps in the way any girl or woman who offers sex takes advantage of a horny male, that is to say, they don’t. Whatever you think about Jennie, she was emotionally still a teenager. Having married right out of High School and then, having Jim killed in Vietnam, she had to grow up quickly and her emotions couldn’t keep up with the practical things she had to do to get through what was, without a doubt, a nightmare situation, one with which you and I are intimately familiar. She actually did a very good thing for me, and I don’t mean teaching me about sex - I mean breaking it off before I fell completely in love with her. She’s the one who told me that sex changes people, and it DID change me, for the better. It was at that point that I took my first real step into manhood and sought a way to break with my mom. You could call it my declaration of independence, though only in hindsight.

“If you want to look for ‘power disparity’, I’d say you either have to look to Melanie or Stephanie, though I don’t think either of those really was abusive, though you know how I feel about what happened with Stephanie. Melanie did pull me into a world of sexual experimentation for which I wasn’t ready, but to be honest, she wasn’t doing it to be abusive, nor do I think it was abusive, as I said. In a sense, you could compare Melanie and me to me and Penny - both exposures to a world for which we were unprepared. Which leads me back, as it seems like every evaluation of my teenage years does, to Becky. Of all the girls, she was the one I abused more than others, and that’s saying something. From plotting with Jennifer to carrying a torch for Birgit, I helped make a complete mess of her life.

“I guess what I’m trying to say, Sweetheart, is that ‘power disparity’ is NOT the issue; it’s a question of behaving abusively. I think our disagreement can be summed up fairly easily - your default thinking is that ‘power disparity’ is abusive in a sufficient percentage of cases such that it’s your default view on any relationship where you see some kind of disparity. I, on the other hand, make no assumptions and observe the behavior and interactions. I take the complete person into account, and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes, yes, I believe perception has to control the situation, which is why I’m adamant about sticking to the ‘nobody at work’ rule. But otherwise? You know damn well I don’t give a fuck about what society has to say, and never have.

“I’ll leave you with this question - if Birgit decides that one of the ‘uncles’ is the best choice for losing her virginity, would you call that abusive? I mean on their part, not hers!”

Bethany laughed, “Your daughter is NOT normal!”

“No kidding. But do you acknowledge my point? That it depends on the individuals involved?”

Bethany took a deep breath and let it out, “The problem, Steve, is that there is no way to know for certain.”

“Were you certain what would happen that day we went to the apartment? I mean beyond my penis entering your vagina? And what the results would be afterwards? And, I know I’ve asked you this before, was I abusing you because of MY experience? Or did you come to me for exactly that reason?”

“You never did fight fa ... uhm, actually, what other word could I use besides the ‘F’ word?”

I chuckled, “I’m not sure. But if you want to use the ‘F’ word, when I’m simply pointing out your own approach at fifteen, something which you’ve insisted, except for brief moments when you were upset with me, was exactly the right thing to do, I’ll allow it. I promised you then that I would never abandon you or leave you, and that you’d always be my Sweetheart. As I’ve said, if you want to go the ‘full fifteen’ with me on this, or any other topic, have at it. But I simply can’t abide you trying to impose what amounts to group punishment on the cousins because you believe assholes like Noel Spurgeon take advantage of teenage girls. Of course, you know MY thoughts on that, which line up with Elyse’s.”

“Where could she go to have sex with a guy and end up with a million bucks? I mean, besides you?”

I chuckled, “Look, I know there are situations where it IS abusive, but Spurgeon’s ‘girl troubles’ were, in my opinion, the videotapes. The state never produced a single girl who said he raped them, except in the sense of ‘statutorily’. In my opinion, the only girl Noel actually hurt by having sex was Samantha.”

“Which caused her to find a guy, like her dad, for what amounted to revenge.”

“I’ll agree that was part of it, but it was much, much more than that. He hurt her, badly, by the way he treated her. And that’s the reason for my rule about the kids’ friends, minus a certain daughter who was handing out coupons!”

Bethany rolled her eyes, “That one is going to be more trouble than you can imagine!”

“Actually, I don’t think so. Will she leave a trail of broken hearts and satisfied libidos? Yes. But I don’t think she’ll repeat the coupon thing, or anything like it. In fact, her close relationship with Jesse is helping, because he’s much more circumspect. He’s also FAR more devious!”

Bethany laughed, “I want to think Jesse is what you would have been had you had a healthy home life. And that Birgit is like what your sister would have been.”

I nodded, “With a healthy, proper relationship like the one Jesse and Birgit have.”

“You know the vast majority of the relationships I’m talking about ARE abusive, right?”

I shook my head, “I know no such thing! Do you remember what you told me after you came to Chicago about group relationships such as the marriage I was contemplating and the lifestyle I’d lead? That they either end disastrously or lead to abuse? I’ll admit we came close to the former, but never the latter. I think you fixate too much on the abuse, and not enough on positive relationships.”

“You know why!”

“Yes, of course, given your practice. But setting aside bosses, teachers, pastors, and so on, a fifteen-year-old who has read Smart Teens; Smart Choices and taken it to heart, is, in most cases, fully equipped to consent to sex with an older adult if they choose. The problem is that society is conditioning teenagers to think and act like toddlers! That is feeding right into your thinking and acts as confirmation, when the REAL problem is the infantilization of teenagers, not ‘power disparity’ because THAT can be solved, except in instances similar to the ones I mentioned before, by education and by treating teens as the adults they were!”

“There’s research which shows that our brains don’t fully mature until our twenties.”

“I’m also sure there’s research showing that the earth is flat!”

“Oh, come on!” Bethany protested. “Those aren’t the same thing at all!”

“Sure they are - both are equally irrelevant! Or are you proposing that we begin treating college kids like toddlers? That IS the direction we’re moving. And then what? Raise the driving and drinking ages to 25 along with the age of consent and the age of maturity? You’ll need to repeal that Twenty-Sixth Amendment and limit the application of the Fourteenth to those who’ve turned 25, or whatever age you choose.”

“You’re being hyperbolic!”

I shook my head, “While it may sound like exaggeration for effect, the trend is there. And the study you just obliquely cited is just one more piece of confirmation bias for the moral panic that’s driving society to complete and utter destruction.”

“Back to that again?”

“Even you’ve admitted that trend in the past, and I don’t see it changing. Not to mention all we need is one good natural disaster to push the country into what amounts to a police state.”

“You do realize you sound paranoid.”

I shrugged, “Being paranoid doesn’t mean you’re wrong. ‘The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.‘ Or more pithily, ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.‘.”

“I’m guessing Jefferson didn’t really say that.”

“It doesn’t appear in his collected papers, and it seems to have been a well-known quotation, summarizing the longer one by John Philpot Curran. My point is, we HAVE to be paranoid about protecting our liberty, and that includes everyone, not just those whom you, and society, deem worthy of it! Yes, there are SOME limits we impose on children, but most of those limits should come from their own parents, not the government. And remember, I don’t think a fifteen-year-old is a child, though society is doing its damndest to make sure they are, and not just fifteen-year-olds, but all the way through High School and into college. Tell me, honestly, are ANY of the cousins who are, say, ten or older, ACTUALLY children by society’s current measures? Or are they very mature?”

“You don’t think your kids, or the cousins are vulnerable to being abused?”

“Sure they are! But which approach is better - giving them the information and tools to deal with it, or refusing to supply the necessary knowledge and relying on after-the-fact action by the government? No law ever passed stopped any criminal offense that someone truly desired to commit! All laws do is specify punishment for transgressions, and rational individuals evaluate the risk of being caught and the potential punishment, and decide what to do.

“I know a certain former Milford cheerleader who accumulated a number of traffic citations over the years! And a certain half-Swedish, half-Greek doctor who did likewise! And I’m not comparing those to murder, simply making the point that YOU do what you want without respect to the ‘law’ at least in some instances. Go back to Noel Spurgeon; no matter what the law says or what society thinks, he hurt those girls by secretly videotaping them, not by fucking them.

“Think about what you do, and what the schools are doing - looking for signs of abuse. That’s well and good so far as it goes, but it doesn’t do a damn thing to actually prevent abuse! Nor do sex-offender registries for that matter. The way to prevent abuse is to teach kids how healthy relationships work, what healthy sex is like, and what it means to truly give consent. And how to report anyone who makes any attempt to take advantage of them, allowing for a bit of leeway around the usual teen behavior as they dance around engaging in consensual sexual activity. Fundamentally, I want the woman who wrote Why Me? A Woman’s Guide to Surviving Sexual Abuse, Rape, and Incest and Smart Teens; Smart Choices to take her OWN advice which she gave in those books, and apply it to the world.”

Bethany took a deep breath and let it out.

“I understand your point; I really do. But things have changed.”

I shook my head, “Yes, but no. What we have is the result of a moral panic in the US. It is NOT the case in Europe or South America. I can’t speak to Asia because my interactions were basically limited to one small town in rural Japan, but they sure didn’t have a moral panic! In fact, Japanese law explicitly waives the age of consent rule for authentic, parental-approved romantic relationships. Even THAT would be a major plus here. But no, we can’t POSSIBLY allow parents to make decisions for their kids because they might make one, horror upon horrors, to which we object! It’s bullshit, Bethany. You’ve even said so! You taught me about consent! Work with me here, Sweetheart, and try to fix what’s broken, not reinforce the moral panic.”

“Whatever you think, research shows something different.”

“And I call bullshit on that, too! The premises are decided before the data is collected and the data is massaged to fit the foregone conclusion. There’s a reason why DCFS won’t release properly redacted raw case information, and I’m not going out on a limb when I say that’s because they show that DCFS always finds abuse. They would have found it with me when Jeri’s mom pulled that stupid stunt, and it was only because Gwen and the lawyers Jennifer and Josie hired that prevented it. If we hadn’t had those resources, that bitch from DCFS would have taken Jesse and the rest of the kids away because of my unique marriage situation and because Jen and Josie claimed to be married. I’m also not going out on a limb when I say those studies all purposefully ignore data from Europe because it contradicts them in every way. The age of consent is fourteen in Germany, for Loki’s sake.”

“Europe is different.”

“No shit, Sweetheart! That’s my point! Teens in the rest of the world are not treated like toddlers! That’s the problem, and it has to stop! You do realize that ALL of the parents of the cousins are in agreement, right? That we’ve ALL raised our kids to be independent and mature, and that includes Dave and Julia, Pete, Brian, and Jamie, all of whom are far less libertine than those of us at the compound, and less than my sister, Cindi, the Jaegers, or Melanie and Samantha as well. You know how Henry, Patricia, and Gabby are raising Jorge Louis, and you know how Ben and Elizabeth are raising Shoshana. I’d like you to come to the Rap Sessions and talk with all of us about this.”

“So you can gang up on me?”

“If that’s how you see it, then don’t join us. What I’m trying to say is this is not just me, but a small army of like-minded people who think society has its head so far up its ass there isn’t an enema big enough to clear it!”

Bethany laughed, “Wow.”

I chuckled, “That was something Elizabeth said about two years ago. She has a point. I seem to recall a certain Milford cheerleader duo repeatedly telling ME to get MY head out of my ass. I have, and one of those cheerleaders thinks I’ve done a decent job of doing that and generally agrees with my assessment.”

“We’ll see what happens when the girls get older.”

“Kathy’s opinion is the same as it was sixteen years ago, around the time of your accident. We were having a discussion about Penny and Kathy said that if her daughters come to me for the same thing Penny did, she wouldn’t call the cops, but was extremely clear that I’d need express permission from the future Mrs. Adams before I honored their request. My point is, that we’re all in general agreement, along with the young adults and college kids who attend the Rap Sessions. Come talk to them, Sweetheart. If you’ll pardon me being a jerk, you’re stuck in your ivory tower and need to hear differing opinions.

“In effect, you’re in an echo chamber where you only hear opinions which agree with your own, and you’re suffering from confirmation bias. I detected that problem with my Rap Sessions so we’re going to change how we invite new people because right now it’s self-selecting and people tend to conform to the group belief, partly because of peer pressure. And when we do get new blood, I’m going to play more of a Devil’s advocate role and debate the ‘wrong’ side of the arguments, allowing Patricia, Henry, Elizabeth, and a few others to take the ‘right’ side. It’s not perfect, but it will help. What made me realize I needed that was the past couple of years with Bob running HR at NIKA. I’ve said many times one of the reasons I hired him was because he’s contrarian. It’s one of the reasons I’m happy Dave will be back this Summer, and one of the reasons I keep Karl on the Board of Directors.”

“And you’re my contrarian advisor?”

“I’d be VERY happy to fulfill that role. Hell, you and I have debated these topics going back to Milford Junior High! And you’ve often been MY contrarian advisor, and I will point out that, in general, I have not only listened to, but taken your advice. I only push back when I think you’ve become extreme, and that is rare. Hell, despite my sparring with you, I adopted your very, very extreme, at least for the time when we discussed it, view of consent. Society felt, at the time, that acquiescence was consent, and for the most part, still does. I do not. And with good reason.

“But you see, OUR version of consent is the key to preventing the very abuse you’re concerned about. Teach boys and men THAT, and you’ve accomplished a significant part of your goal - reducing abuse. It’s like my head-shaking disagreement with the ‘Pro-Life’ crowd who also want to limit sex education and access to birth control. If they REALLY want to reduce abortions, the answer is right there in reversing their stupid views on sex. I don’t truly buy into the idea some have put forward that their goal with making abortion illegal is REALLY about punishing sex, but I see how that argument can easily be made.”