Should Have Had A Safeword

(I am sitting at a study carrel studying for a philosophy class when a strange man comes up to me.)

Him: “Well, hey there.”

Me: “Um, hi?”

Him: “How about we go back to my place and I give you a real good spanking?”

Me: “WHAT?!”

Him: “Well, you’re into that kind of thing, aren’t you?”

Me: “Why would you EVER assume that about anyone?!”

Him: “I’m not assuming! You’re the one reading p*rn!”

Me: *it clicks* “Do you even know who Michel Foucault is?”

Him: “Sure, she’s that chick who wrote the dirty books, the Fifty whatever ones.”

Me: “Uh… no. He was a French philosopher who wrote about the various social manifestations of power. ‘Discipline and Punish’ is about the evolution of the prison system.”

Him: “Yeah, sure. I think you just get off on reading smut in public.”

(I turn the book toward him so he can see the page I’m reading, which begins: “It was a time of great scandals for traditional justice, a time of innumerable projects for reform. It saw a new theory of law and crime, a new moral or political justification of the right to punish…” and continues in that vein.)

Me: “Now will you please let me finish reading for my seminar?”

(Later that semester the class studied “History of Sexuality,” which I was careful to only read at home!)