On a cold, rainy morning last week in London, I walked past a trio of older teenagers. The guy in the middle had said something and the Asian kid leaned over to ask, “What is consent?” It felt like the kind of scene, if tweeted by someone like me, would fetch many replies suggesting that I had made it up. “Oh, consent,” the guy said, “it’s like when you like somebody, you know, you should take their permission before proceeding.
” “Ah, of course, consent!” the Asian kid remarked. “So how do you communicate consent here? Do you ask in a direct sentence?” I walked away to the sound of the other two establishing a scenario with an example. It was fresher’s week in college campuses across the city, and everywhere you turned you encountered young people, shivering in anticipation at the beginning of the big story of their lives.
No better time to think about consent, to check with your new friends, to verify that your understanding of the culture is correct. Often, in writing this column, I have wondered about what really the zeitgeist of Modern Times is? Often it feels like nothing has changed, that we are grappling with the same questions decade after decade – of wars and brutality, of women’s safety, the perils of a planet that is rapidly depleting of flora and fauna. But sometimes it feels like even if the wheels are slow, they are turning.
That if a white, a brown and an Asian student, all of whom likely met earlier that week, were discussing consen.