From what I've now learnt, my actions that night in 1996 were a self-centered taking.I felt deserving of Thordis's body.I've had primarily positive social influences and examples of equitable behavior around me.But on that occasion, I chose to draw upon the negative ones.The ones that see women as having less intrinsic worth,and of men having some unspoken and symbolic claim to their bodies.These influences I speak of are external to me, though.And it was only me in that room making choices, nobody else.When you own something and really square up to your culpability, I do think a surprising thing can happen.It's what I call a paradox of ownership. I thought I'd buckle under the weight of responsibility.I thought my certificate of humanity would be burnt.Instead, I was offered to really own what I did, and found that it didn't possess the entirety of who I am.Put simply, something you've done doesn't have to constitute the sum of who you are. The noise in my head abated.The indulgent self-pity was starved of oxygen, and it was replaced with the clean air of acceptance
