Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Can I Kiss You Lecture

Last night, I attended the "Can I Kiss You?" lecture by Mike Domritz. I wasn't really looking forward to going, but now I am very glad that I did. The talk was about relationships, and how to respect your partner completely. Mr. Domritz started off with a lot of humor, bringing up students from the audience to help act out situations that may occur on a date. Although he was using humor, his messages were important. What he was saying was strongly connected to Jesuit Education. This is because here at Loyola, we believe in unselfishness and helping others as often as possible. Mike Domritz also believes in unselfishness. He gave us students insight in how to give a partner an immense amount of respect. This is done by simply giving your significant other a choice when it comes to situations that involve intimacy. Whatever the outcome of this answer is, Mr. Domritz explained, you must respect it.

The talk then turned very serious. Mr. Domritz began talking about parties, and drinking, and how much too often people use alcohol to take advantage of others. He created a scenario where a college student, John, really wants to have sex with a girl he meets at a party. He continues to give this girl drinks, while he only has a few. By the end of the night, the girl is completely drunk, and John is able to take advantage of this girl sexually. Mr. Domritz asked the audience if we saw this happening, would we do anything about it? Most people answered no, and he explained this was because we all wanted to assume that nothing bad would happen. Unfortunately, not stopping John from abusing another person, is against the Jesuit tradition. By not aiding her, we were being selfish. We could have saved her from a devastating outcome.

Mike Domritz's talk also ties in with one of our readings in class, "The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education." On page 27 and 28, Kolvenbach describes the importance of social justice in the Jesuit tradition. Mr. Domritz spoke about a horrible incident in his life, in which his older sister was raped. His first reaction was that he wanted to kill the person who did it. But then he stopped and thought for a second, and he realized that was not just or fair. He needed to be thinking of his sister, not the man who committed the crime. Sometimes what you desire to do, and what is actually the right thing to do are different, and Jesuits believe that justice is always the right path.
His speech also connects to the poem "The Flea" by John Donne. In this poem, the speaker is trying to seduce their partner into having sex, and they are using argument after argument to achieve that goal. Mike Domritz would advise this person to simply ask their partner, and to respect the answer. By doing this, the speaker would show that they value their partner's boundaries. The speaker is obviously not respecting their partner and will probably get nowhere in the end.

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