Borders for Breaching Borders

Let's workshop this poem about the ethics of pushing boundaries in a romantic context!

Borders for Breaching Borders
         For Christopher Ryan (@ThatChrisRyan)

1

She insisted to him that she wanted to keep
the relationship platonic. But the door kiss
after dinner led to more kissing on his sofa.
A half hour into clothed humping, groping,
he shifted the sodden crotch of her thong 
and entered her wetness, raw. Tonguing her
stymied the “Let’s go slow” from taking shape 
a second time and she went stiff, just a body
numb, while he plungered longer than likely
for someone doing this for the first time—
working her fiercely in all the main positions,
friction stench mixing with her Saint Laurent. 

A dirty feeling of teeth-chattering queasiness
whispered “It was rape,” as she walked back
home in the dark fog of morning commuters.
But her foreplay, her “Get it!” and orgasms,
told her that no one else would call it “rape.”  

2

What makes “us” feel the man’s behavior
here was not okay? He breached borders,
of course. But that itself is not the reason.
Border breaches are untroubling—indeed, 
important—parts of intimacy formation:
taking her hand without asking first, say;
or a parting mouth kiss after a first date.

However risky they might be (which is
precisely the point, since taking such risk
communicates interest and confidence),
border breaches (their acceptance as well)
are core ways in which we show interest—
crucial aspects in the dance of romance,
common “tactics” to win someone over.  

Often endearingly effective especially—
well, mainly—if the breaker is attractive,
border breaches are ubiquitous strategies 
to forge an interpersonal reality in which
they do not count as the border breaches
they count as at the time, a reality in which
you already share with her the intimacy
your breaches are meant to s(t)imulate.

3

Taking her hand without asking first,
a parting mouth kiss after a first date—
border breaches like these are not okay,
so it seems, if you are just some stranger
never seen by her before (not okay even 
were you a war sailor reveling in victory).—
Do not make any (relatively) extreme breaches
seems to be the rule behind that intuition.

Taking her hand without asking first,
a parting mouth kiss after a first date—
border breaches like these are not okay,
so it seems, if she is not one with whom
you have a plausible chance (she claims, say,
not to be interested in those of your race).—
Breach borders only if you have a realistic shot
seems to be the rule behind that intuition.

Taking her hand without asking first,
a parting mouth kiss after a first date—
border breaches like these are not okay,
so it seems, if you do not genuinely desire
the relationship they help to cultivate
(since you would be misleading her).—
Want the bond that the border breaches foster
seems to be the rule behind that intuition.

Taking her hand without asking first,
a parting mouth kiss after a first date—
border breaches like these are not okay,
so it seems, if she had already told you, say,
that kissing, hand holding, would trigger 
trauma severe enough to ponder suicide.—
Never knowingly make (very) harmful breaches
seems to be the rule behind that intuition.

4

The man ignored none of these rules, even
the first—yes, even in spite of her insistence
on a platonic relationship. Foreplay of such
intensity, her wetness, makes it reasonable 
to think she became open. His penetrations
did not come from nowhere. He worked up
to entry with her willingness the entire way.
And let us not forget her order: “Get it!”
Of course, we can also assume his intentions 
were more serious than a one night stand. 

Why, then, do “we” find something wrong
with his behavior? Perhaps because for “us”
sex is still sacred. Perhaps because for “us”
rape is the Salem witch for which ever to be 
on guard. In a context where his lurid entry
would be on a par with his, say, taking hold
of his first date’s hand without consent
or his going in for a goodnight smooch
(and there were and are such contexts
in places and times now looked down upon),
nothing would be wrong with his entry. 
The borders around sex organs, though,
are still currently inviolable in our culture,
where the penis—although just a flesh hunk
like an elbow or toe—holds magical power 
to transform into a “whore,” “fag,” or victim
anyone who happens to brush against one.

Let us add, therefore, one more crucial rule,
however unromantic it might seem—a rule
backing “our” sense that the man did wrong:
attain RECORDED consent before ever trying
to breach borders imbued, for ridiculous reason
or not, with especially transcendent significance. 

This is an ekphrastic poem, a still-rough lyric essay, inspired by the famous Times-Square photo of the navy man kissing a nurse (and by many years of listening to Chris Ryan’s podcast Tangentially Speaking).

Photo: livescience.com/64802-kiss-wwii-sailor-dies.html