Flower Logic

At Clark University, someone wrote survival tips about sexual assault that included this: giving flowers to someone you’re interested in is emotional manipulation, which makes it rape. That was the actual text.

The logic was straightforward: if you’re giving the flowers because you want something sexual in return, then you’re using them to make her do something she wouldn’t otherwise do. That’s coercion. That’s rape.

I understand that consent matters. But somewhere the definitions got so broad that everything meant everything and nothing meant anything. Desire itself became the crime. Every gift, every compliment, every attempt to appeal to someone—all manipulation, all assault. You can’t separate what you want from how you act. That’s not possible.

Some blogger made the obvious point: it made women sound defenseless, incapable of saying no to flowers, unable to judge a gesture for themselves. She was right. The guide was supposed to protect people and ended up describing them as passive, without judgment, unable to resist.

I remember thinking I’d never buy my girlfriend flowers after reading that. Not because I believed the logic, but because I didn’t want to have to explain it. Better to not try. Better to keep your head down. Maybe that’s the point.