Revising History

SHE WAS SIXTEEN IN 1970, to which I can relate, having been fifteen in the long ago year. In 1970 I was girl crazy, but utterly incapable, emotionally or intellectually, of doing anything about it. She, like many people of her age and generation, had a crush on one of her teachers, a forty seven year old art teacher. Long story short, then ended up getting married, and stayed that way, happily so, for decades, until his death did them part. A writer since she was young, in 1996 she wrote a book in novel form based upon her life with her much older husband, titled "Half A Life", which is fascinating and enjoyed some success. In her book, she falls in love, and goes to class every day, feeling teenaged hopelessness. Her feelings for her teacher only intensify, so boldly she acts, seducing him, luring him into a relationship, dating, becoming engaged, then marrying and spending forty happy years together as man and wife. Her theme is somewhat "against all odds"; a most unlikely love story which began as an impossible fantasy, and turned into a beautiful love story. In her book, she is very definitely the instigator, her husband merely a passive participant. Now in her mid sixties, a widow, she has just published another book, the same story told from another point of view, titled "The Other Half". Between 1996 and 2019, the world, in particular American culture changed. the "Me Too" movement sprang forth, as seemingly thousands of rich and powerful men, most famously Donald Trump, were exposed as sexual predators, as having spent decades sexually mistreating women. In the United States, sexually mistreating women, much like drinking and driving, was considered essentially harmless, to be expected, with blame distributed between the "participants". In 1996, when the author was forty one and happily married, her story did not seem to her even remotely related to any form of sexual misbehavior. Now, it does. In her revised version, she tells the story from a 2020 point of view, the same story, only her husband becomes what we all agree he is today. Both books are believable. Both tell the truth. and yet, they cannot both be true. They give contradictory versions of the exact same story. By the time she was in her mid sixties, she was willing to accept the reality that he, not she, had been the initiator, the "aggressor". What his true motives were, back in 1970, when he, as a forty seven year old teacher decided to "pursue" a sixteen year old girl, we'll never know. Maybe we don't really want to.