Avengers: Age of Consent

Does consent always matter? Like even if the fate of the universe is at stake?

And what if you’re literally fighting yourself?

And not to pull a perfect analogy, but what if you’re caught in the exact same situation as Captain America in Avengers: Endgame?

You go back in time — or to an alternate dimension (I’m still not sure if even that’s right??) — and meet your younger self. It’s part of your time heist to save all of existence. Or at least your own existence.

If you’re a person with transgender experiences, what you might be facing is the desire to go back in time and force yourself to make difference choices. To use your newfound power to take the septer that symbolizes your choices away from your younger self and…

That’s a hell of a situation. You can tell yourself everything you need to do to avoid the situation. You have a step-by-step plan for how to do it.

And yet your younger self could always say no. In fact, given that breaking the timeline could fracture all of reality? Given that violating your own will might fracture all of you, too?

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Maybe they SHOULD say no.

What then, Skywalker? Can you still see the fear in Ben Swollo’s eyes as you raise your lightsaber to strike him down?

One of the most amazing scenes ever filmed (besides all of The Last Jedi)

This has to be one of the most amazing scenes ever filmed. And I don’t just mean in comic book, MCU, or Disney history. I mean ever.

I could spent the next thirty years talking about everything contained in this brief sequence of images below. Instead I’ll spend the next few hundred words.

The time heist at one point requires Cap to go back in time and beat his younger self into unconsciousness. You know, so he can take the thing his younger self doesn’t want to give to a thief. Even if that thief does look a lot like Chris Evans.

And that’s where we get to the line you remember.

The line I remember.

The line you laughed at. I laughed at.

The line I’m gonna say right now and we’ll probably all laugh at it right now.

Let’s do it. Let’s get it out of the way.

In the context of the movie, it’s funny because Steve Rogers is eternally and jaw-droppingly humble. At least when it comes to how he sees himself. How he talks about himself. How he treats himself.

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When Steve looks at himself in the mirror, he’s still just that little guy that was so fragile, they rejected him from military service. The US was literally (well, almost literally) throwing bodies at the Axis of Evil, and they said throwing Steve would be too much trouble.

You can tell yourself everything you need to do to avoid the situation. You have a step-by-step plan for how to do it.

Well, until the multiverse allowed Stanley Tucci to abandon his hope that Miranda Priestly would ever show up for him. He went back in time, at least initially, to meet Miranda as her younger self and hopefully plant a seed in that cold heart before it hardened worse than a penguin teaching predators to prey without remorse or consequence.

People like Miranda aren’t evil, exactly. I don’t believe in that sort of thing. I have questions about free will and accountability even for psychopaths. What the heck happened in their noggins?

Whatever genesis gave us Miranda, she’s extremely cold. Calculated. And good at it.

The logic of successful grandiose narcissists with malignant tendencies — predators — is that people willing to manipulate and violate other people — predators who coordinate prey — provide a stabilizing force in the world.

Without those predators, we’d all descend into dystopia.

Even when their actions have an undeniably harmful or abusive impact beyond their awareness or intentions, the logic goes that the benefit from their actions far outweighs the harm. To the predator, that makes their actions good. That makes their actions helpful. That makes their actions heroic.

If you had a chance to change that person’s mind before they became traumatized and corrupted, wouldn’t you take it?

I *needed* you, as in past tense

Okay. So let’s say the situation is a lot simpler. Did you ever think someone would use that word to describe Avengers: Endgame?

You’re not trying to change who the person is. They just have something you want. Something you need. Heck, it might be something they need, too! At least according to you.

The problem is when they say no.

The devil wears red, white, and blue

In this forgotten part of the multiverse, Abraham Erskine arrived in the past and began by hoping to find and force Miranda to be who he wanted her to be.

Thankfully, he discovered a nobler purpose. He’d spent his life trying to empower young men the way he’d yearned to be empowered. You know, back when he was a young boy hiding under the covers so his family wouldn’t know he was obsessing over Runway Magazine.

If the multiverse contains infinite realities, this isn’t just fan fiction. This is MCU canon. They just haven’t made a movie about it.

Steven Rogers is the hero we need, the hero we deserve, the hero who failed us

Do you remember how Steve Rogers proved he was worthy of the serum in Captain America: the First Avenger? It’s a moment in stark defiance to what he did in Avengers: Endgame.

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Steve was admitted into the military with a flag of men who were physically impressive but incredibly self-centered. When tested by sudden danger, only Steve chose to sacrifice himself rather than see anyone get hurt.

It’s the kind of moment I wish we’d get in a Superman movie. I don’t care who plays him, remind us that Superman’s nobility has nothing to do with how impervious he is to bullets.

hopefully plant a seed in that cold heart before it hardened worse than a penguin teaching predators to prey without remorse or consequence

That meme I made above (the one with Steve on the grenade) is meant to get at the point. Leaders don’t use other people like tools or fuel. They don’t use them at all. Take away Superman’s powers and he’ll still jump in front of the bullet.

Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, didn’t use anyone else to deflect the damage of the grenade’s blast. He didn’t coerce or persuade anyone else to do it. In a crisis, his instinct led him to sacrifice himself.

You fight yourself or you die

There’s another Captain America moment to look at for just a second. It comes from Captain America: Civil War.

“Unlike the morally complicated and occasionally mistaken Tony Stark (see: Ultron), Steve Rogers is the paragon of virtue. He’s the quintessential Good Guy, and yet he fights to help a terrorist suspect resist arrest.” — from “Why Iron Man Is Right, and Why Supporting Captain America Would Be Totally Insane” by Nicholas Grossman

The nature of character arcs is that you start off rejecting the thing you’ll inevitably accept as your salvation. It’s kind of the essence of character conflict.

So I guess it makes sense that by the time Captain America finished his arc in Endgame, Steve was ready to violate anyone’s consent to save the world.

Even his own.

I almost forgot that suit did nothing for your ass

If you haven’t read it yet, “I Am Trash” is my memoir short about surviving my family’s Snap. That’s a funny term for Trans Conversion Therapy.

My father was a lot like Thanos, except dumb and addicted to sex instead of infinity stones.

We can’t have a society that rejoices in the brutality of men and then pretend to be confused when men are brutal towards women.- from “The Real Reason Men Ignore Consent” by Victoria Strake

My twin brother and older sister inherited that sickness. Both became a kind of predator like Thanos. Each became willing to take what they needed from others without their knowledge or consent. They weren’t looking for permission, and they were way past asking for forgiveness.

No one had shown up for them, so they learned how to show up for themselves.

No one had shown up to stop their abusers, so they learned to hurt others before they could be hurt.

No one had showed up to stop them as adults from abusing their own victims, so they learned there are no rules but that which they determine for themselves.

The nature of character arcs is that you start off rejecting the thing you’ll inevitably accept as your salvation.

If there are no rules, there are no boundaries but their own. Another person experiencing a violation is just a feeling to be investigated, analyzed, fixed, perfected, molded to serve their frame. How could their calculation reach anything else? The abuser is reflecting that same cruelty modeled by their abusers.

Though my siblings remained hounded by their addictions and lust for validation — they are experts at covert violations— each believed that if they could just accomplish this one thing, they would be at peace.

The world might be a better place.

It’s almost like they watched Avengers: Endgame and instead of thinking wow, that Thanos guy was evil, their takeaway was wow, that Thanos guy had a good idea, but he went about it all wrong.

Avengers: Age of Consent

Consent means a lot less to a person when they believe there’s a cosmic being who made up the concept itself. A being who tells us what counts as consent and what counts as a violation. A divine authority whose very orders could never count as a violation — Thy Will Be Done — and so if we believe we are God’s instrument, could we ever do anything wrong?

“So much easier to just collectively ignore all of that and keep trying to educate and raise awareness, as if everyone were pure of heart. Then we would never have to confront ourselves and the mess we’re in. That won’t work, though.”- from “The Real Reason Men Ignore Consent” by Victoria Strake

If you’ve abandoned your consent and only follow Divine Command — why would you hesitate if divinity gives you an order?

Steve, I’d like for you to meet Steve

When I watched Avengers: Endgame, I bought into that feeling of divine command. The gauntlet had wiped out half of all life across the universe. A cosmic wrong was inflicted on anything capable of experiencing existence.

Isn’t that one of those situations where even a pacifist like me is compelled to act?

Each became willing to take what they needed from others without their knowledge or consent.

In that sense, Thanos stole power that never belonged to him. If there was a cosmic order, he gathered the tools necessary to break that order and enforce his own. He lost that fight because, as Strict Fathers say, an unworthy person might on occasion hold power, but they’ll never hold on to it.

But Strict Fathers are assholes. They believe our most authentic selves must be resisted in pursuit of a higher good. They use discipline and punishment, cruelty and neglect, to teach their pupils that resistance is always more painful than obedience.

There’s a name for this technique: neurolinguistic programming. Narcissists love it because it’s a mechanism by which you can — uh-oh — train a person to violate their own consent.

Keith Raniere would have fit in great as the next big bad for the Avengers.

The universe required correction

“That is what masculine men do: they use themselves, they use others, they win, they fight, they project their will into the world around them. So they invade women, too. All according to the masculine script.”- from “The Real Reason Men Ignore Consent” by Victoria Strake

Thanos didn’t do as Strict Fathers fear.

He didn’t lose because he stole power from the proper authority.

He lost because he stole power by violating half of existence. That power belonged to those people. Each individual. Never to him.

I’m a pacifist, but if you think everything goes and I have to just stand by and let Thanos get away with it…you’re probably as much of a predator as my brother lol. And the list of women he has violated and silenced is long enough as it is.

Thanos is a Strict Father. Thanos is a predator. Thanos is an asshole.

Thanos is willing to violate half of everyone alive if it gets him what he wants. If his methods, as the predatory penguins say, prevent society from descending into dystopia.

It’s fear mongering that inevitably attracts true believers. Even those among its most devastated victims.

And worse, note the tone of her post — she wants to share this — and him and his teachings — with others, for she thinks it has done her so much good and she thinks it will do others good. — “Allison Mack Post Reveals Influence Raniere Had Over Her” by Frank Parlato (offsite link)

The work is done, it always will be

Captain America already lived through Thanos violating half of humanity. He survived the assault. Avoiding death brought its own kind of grief. He sees what happened to the people who didn’t make it out.

And now he sees a chance to go back in time. Not a chance to stop the violation from happening — but a way to bring back those that were lost to us. A way to at least give them a chance to rejoin with the people who would have given anything just to be with them again. To hold them. To cry over what was lost. To weep over what might be regained.

To tremble over what might be required.

“I can physically say “no” to someone and within those spaces; it’s unlikely they will kick up a fuss. But “no” is more than just a simple word that’s a complete sentence — it’s a sentiment and right I am unused to having and exercising without penalty.” — from “When You’re On The Autistic Spectrum, Consent Is Complicated” by Lola Phoenix

We’re taking you back…to New York! (WTF?)

So Steve going back in time to get the infinity stones didn’t in itself bother me. It wasn’t until I got back to that scene after watching it a fresh dozen times that I saw why I kept coming back to it.

Why it kept triggering that feeling my siblings taught me.

Why I wish I’d had as simple a defense as the Ancient One when Hulk moved to violate their consent, too.

Hulk want stone. Hulk try to take stone. Hulk get hit so hard they disassociate from body.

Instead, it was more often me leaving my body. Not because I was violating them — I was groomed to be prey, not a predator — but because I wouldn’t let them violate me.

I didn’t give them their supply.

I didn’t show them the person they needed me to be.

I didn’t make them FEEL the way I was supposed to make them feel.

Would he ever have apologized if I hadn’t gotten so angry? No. It took me blowing up for him to finally respect me. — “Was It Rape If He Lied to Get My Consent?” by Mysterious Witt

I felt as lost as Bruce Banner hoping the Ancient One would let him back into his body. If they would just stop inflicting the cruelty, neglect, and abandonment that worked so well at getting rid of me so they could use my body for whatever they wanted.

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It didn’t take much to get my consent. A conversation, a hug, a plaything for their friends. At my youngest, my parents used me whenever they couldn’t use each other. They taught me to yearn for the same horrifying possession from others.

A person can’t survive like that unless they leave their body.

Narcissists love it because it’s a mechanism by which you can — uh-oh — train a person to violate their own consent.

Lost in my own version of the Sunken Place, I was desperate just to escape.

I would do whatever they wanted. Give them whatever they wanted. SAY whatever they wanted.

We’re talking about time travel here. Either all of it is a joke or none of it is.

Instead, the thing I kept trying to take back from my twin brother and older sister was something that never belonged to them in the first place.

My innocence, my consent, my belief that I was worthy of people who show up for me when they hurt me — I don’t think they meant to snap those authentic needs out of existence. It’s just what they feed on.

So they took them. Whether it hurt me didn’t matter to them as much as whether my suffering served as their next supply.

But now that I have the quantum tech to do it, I’m ready to follow in Steve’s footsteps and take back what’s mine.

I’m not looking for permission, and I’m way past asking for forgiveness

From a certain point of view, Steve is willing to violate his own consent if it means doing what he thinks will keep the world safe. Indeed, part of what makes the MCU movies so damn compelling is how easily they inspire the audience’s empathy for individual characters as much as the fate of all existence. They teach us to feel the connections between every part of existence that binds us together.

People in the 60s had to experiment with LSD to get that feeling. We get to taste it by watching Marvel movies. Neat! We have to learn self-care and self-worth somewhere. I mean, didn’t Steve have a mom at some point?

Oh…

“Rogers was playing with his toy soldiers when he was suddenly called by his mother, who was terminally ill due to the tuberculosis she contracted while in the hospital where she worked.” — from the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki (offsite link)

Marvel needs more moms

A prequel series about Captain America’s mom might be amazing. Just don’t let Sony make it FFS. Unless it’s me writing it…

Captain America is blessed with empathy that extends through him and beyond him. We feel Captain America’s love like a mother’s love. At least what would be a healthy mother’s love. But that requires a healthy mother.

I guess I have more in common with Steve than I thought. Not just a similar name. My mom was sick, too.

Whether it hurt me didn’t matter to them as much as whether my suffering served as their next supply.

I was raised by a mother so traumatized and addicted that while I won’t say she was a bad person, she was an awful mom. My brother owes a large part of his rage and abuse toward women to the violations he witnessed and suffered from his mom. Who was also my mom. Our mom.

“As a childhood sexual abuse survivor and someone who didn’t grow up being touched affectionately — aside from maybe one person — I never really understood the value of touch. As a result, I learned early to do without it. So touch almost always represents something symbolic before I can relax into the physical aspects of it.” — “When You’re On The Autistic Spectrum, Consent Is Complicated” by Lola Phoenix

A good childhood doesn’t guarantee we turn into good people, but a bad childhood means we’ll be playing cleanup for decades. Maybe the rest of our lives. Sometimes to the point that we’re never well enough to learn survival strategies beyond those that serve us. Entire political ideologies have been made to desperately justify why predators deserve unlimited freedom (and their victims no protections).

The only difference for Strict Fathers becomes whether you are imbued with power by nature of who you already are. Whether you were born worthy of power. Whether no one could ever take that power from you, but just the same, you could never give that power to someone else.

You’re either worthy or you’re not worthy.

But if you put the hammer in the elevator…

We can educate all day and night about what consent is, but if men are still rewarded for trampling all over the boundaries of others as per masculinity, they won’t use that information for anything but improving their ability to manipulate and coerce and conquer. — from “The Real Reason Men Ignore Consent” by Victoria Strake

Predators carry a sense of entitlement that fills them with a dual nature. On one hand, they believe they can take whatever they want. But because they lack a healthy concept of self-worth, their need for power and validation never ends.

They’re insatiable. They take power for themselves wherever they can find it, dreaming of the Supply that will finally bring them peace.

So you tell me: Did Thanos really find peace after killing half of all life? Destroying the infinity stones? Harvesting fruit that probably tastes like skittles?

Does it really matter if finding that satisfaction required half of everyone else to pay the cost?

He killed his own daughter to get the Soul Stone.

He killed a man and wife (after resurrecting the husband just to kill him again) so he could get the last stone he needed.

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Sometimes, a person’s sense of self doesn’t go very far. They can take amazing care of their kids while they’re kids , but they can’t think of a person on the other side of the world and empathize with them. Watch them raise their children, you’d think they’re made of magic.

Predators carry a sense of entitlement that fills them with a dual nature.

But even with that kid with whom they once had a glowing relationship, once individuation begins and the kid is no longer an extension of their parents, trouble returns like Thanos saying oh neat! Let’s do that again, but louder. And with more purple.

If it doesn’t match their direct experience, they can’t empathize. It’s all about them.

But what if the person you need to empathize with is yourself? Don’t you need to show up for that person, too? Even if all they want to do is fight?

Kick his ass, Steve

Let’s recap the sequence of images that started this article.

Captain America goes back in time to take an infinity stone from himself.

Except it isn’t even his younger self. He’s…in a different reality? So when he fights Captain America, we can’t even bend the logic about how to negotiate consent with yourself.

This version of Captain America might look just like the one coming to kick his own ass, but it’s not. Steve is going to beat the crap out of a different person and take the stone, and then return it so that it’s like it never happened.

Now we’re in the endgame

I guess the point is that it wouldn’t end differently than it did before.

I’ve gone back in time as many times as a person can go back in time with the power of their imagination. I’ve taken the knowledge and self-awareness and skills I have now, implanted them into my younger self, replayed events — and seen them end the same way they always did.

I never had control over the people around me. I never had control over the million different variables that converged into what I experienced, what I contributed to, what I could lean into but never have power over beyond my relationship with the inevitable.

“On top of the sexual abuse I experienced, growing up as a disabled child often further underscored that what happened to my body was not something I had control over; doctors and medical professionals had near-complete access to it.” — “When You’re On The Autistic Spectrum, Consent Is Complicated” by Lola Phoenix

Bring me back to my worst moments — when I acted out my trauma in ways that hurt me as much as those around me — it’s not like knowledge and understanding in itself grants the power to change anything.

Even if I found myself willing to violate my own consent.

If you brought me back to the moments I best remember, hindsight and reflection wouldn’t give me perfect knowledge. I can’t predict it all. I can’t control it all. I still might nearly ruin everything when I can hear those heavy footsteps warning me to MOVE.

But nope, I’m still just standing there when Hulk throws the door open.

The end(game)

“There are days when I wish sex didn’t exist. Not only as a sexual abuse survivor, but also as an asexual person.” — “When You’re On The Autistic Spectrum, Consent Is Complicated” by Lola Phoenix

Did you read that Star Wars anthology called From a Certain Point of View? It contains lots of short stories that retell familiar scenes…from a different point of view.

I can’t go back in time and change what happened. No matter how much I fight, in the end, I’m just fighting myself.

Can that end well? Besides me finally getting a good look at myself on the ground and realizing I might be worth saving?

That doesn’t mean, however, that there’s no good news.

(OH COME ON SO THAT WAS A FAKE OUT?!?!)

One final twist

I do, it turns out, have an answer for the question that started this article.

Who does Captain America’s ass belong to?

Let the memes speak for us. Their power is without rival.

The End (damn girl, that’s dark)

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