The Toronto Star
By Jen Kirsch
When lying in bed with a guy after a recent date, he brought up Jian Ghomeshi. I wasn’t surprised; we’d both been following the courtroom drama tweet by tweet every day for weeks.
He wrapped his hands playfully around my neck and kissed me. “Are you OK with this?” he asked, “I don’t want to get Ghomeshi’d.”
By “this,” he meant that he wanted to make sure he had my consent.
He used Ghomeshi’s name as a verb, to ensure I wouldn’t report him to the police for lightly choking me.
This Ghomeshi-as-a-verb reference is something I’m now used to, because other dates have used it as well.
In this situation, I responded by playfully telling him he had my consent, as I wrapped my hand around his. Some laughter ensued and we carried on with our encounter, as he ominously mentioned how creepy and sexy it was that the newspaper next to my bed had an image of Ghomeshi on the cover.
This case is topical. It’s what we’re ingesting as pop culture in Toronto. During the first two weeks of February, I — as many curious Canadians were — was refreshing my Twitter feed ad nauseam, following every tweet from the Toronto journalists in the courtroom during Ghomeshi’s trial.
Because of that, it’s made me self conscious and hyper aware with my dating prospects. I’m thinking about every action and every word.
Just the other night, I got an unprompted text from another suitor, who’d likely had one too many libations. The first text read: “Let me Ghomeshi all over your face.” The second: “I won’t let big ear’s teddy watch (sic)” The third: “No?” The Fourth: “Go top (sic) far?”
I’ve sent and received my share of late night texts, but this unprompted one caught me by surprise. It made me shake my head as I acknowledged a handful of single men referring to the case in a facetious way.
I finally replied: “Too far.”
An apology text came after, “Hey, sorry. I’m trying to have fun drunk text exchanges. It’s a bit early for us. I was not trying to offend.”
But, by then, I was a bit taken aback and stuck with a not-so-becoming visual in my head. …