Season 2, Episode 7 - Shout, Part 1

Original Airdate - November 3rd, 2002 (that’s exactly 23 years ago. Fun!)

Content Warning - sexual assault (also BIG oops from me for not putting a content warning on the premiere. I will be better about that!)

I’ve been waiting for this one. Not because I was particularly excited for the essay challenge, but because I remember this as one of the great Degrassi two-parters. And let me tell you, so far, it’s hitting and hitting hard. This is a huge catalyst for change in Paige and will elevate her to one of the Degrassi greats. It’s also difficult to watch.

But before we get into that stuff, I’m going to cover the B story first today. It’s quick, and while it provides a great tonal break in the middle of this heavy episode, it would be weird to write about all at once at the end.

At the beginning of the season, JT and Toby agreed to share a locker since Degrassi is now a 7-12 school and a little overcrowded. They thought this would score them brownie points with Raditch they could use to get out of trouble, but it’s going badly. JT is a slob and Toby just can’t take it anymore. He yells at JT, and JT initially bristles. But that weekend, while making a truly disgusting box of macaroni and cheese, JT admits he should be a better locker mate.

Toby takes this as the green light to get a little intense and puts a dividing line in the middle of the locker. In the process, he dumps a lot of JT’s stuff on the ground. Toby’s stance is clear, JT’s stuff stays on his side of the line and does what Toby says. As he walks away, the sleeve of his sweatshirt falls below the divider. Pissed, JT cuts off the sleeve.

Toby confronts JT about this and the pair almost get into a physical fight, but Raditch comes and breaks it up. He imparts a piece of wisdom he stupidly calls the 3 Cs — Cohabitation requires Coordinated Cooperation. JT lets Toby cut off the long sleeve of his t-shirt and they seem like they’re okay now.

OKAY, let’s get to Paige. It’s a big soccer game with cross-town rival Bardell. Spinner may be the star on the field, but Paige can’t keep her eyes off Bardell player Dean. We’re not told explicitly, but Dean is clearly a junior or a senior and Hazel thinks Paige has no chance with the older guy from another school.

She does have a chance with Spinner, who rides the momentum of his game winning goal to ask Paige out. Paige interprets this as friendly, but Hazel, Jimmy, and Spinner all see it very differently. Spinner’s been crushing on Paige for a long time, and this is finally his chance. Unfortunately for our Spinner, Paige heads to the Bardell bus to flirt with Dean, and he invites her to a party the same night as the date.

Paige and Hazel go shopping to prepare for the party, and Hazel admonishes Paige for forgetting to cancel on Spinner. Paige texts him (our first Degrassi text!) and tells him that her grandmother is in the hospital. She buys a pair of very high heels. So grown up! Spinner is at the video store with Jimmy when he gets the text. He’s bummed, but Jimmy has an alternate plan to get his mood back up.

Paige and Hazel show up at the party and are obviously overdressed. I like this detail a lot. Paige sees it as an opportunity to stand out, not realizing that it highlights how much younger they are than the rest of the attendees. Paige inserts herself in a conversation with Dean and one of his classmates, lying about her interest in a band. Dean offers to get her a drink, and the older girl warns Paige to be careful. Dean is much older than her. But Paige writes this off as jealousy.

With a little liquid courage, Paige finds herself hardcore flirting with Dean. But Hazel spots Jimmy and Spinner. Apparently Jimmy’s alternate plan was this party. Hazel warns Paige, and thinks they should just sneak out, but Paige is too close to locking things down with Dean. She asks him if they can go anywhere private and he gladly brings her upstairs.

They go into his friend’s bedroom and the vibe is instantly unsettling. Dean leaves the lights off and won’t talk louder than a whisper. They start making out and Paige asks him to slow down. He doesn’t and instead pulls out a condom. She tells him to stop. He doesn’t and we cut away.

The next Monday, Paige is clearly feeling terrible. Terri and Hazel try to get the juicy details about her time upstairs with Dean, but Paige is not talking. Jimmy overhears them.

Paige didn’t do a big Media Immersion project over the weekend. She makes an excuse, which Simpson accepts. Hazel teases her about being lovesick towards Dean. Paige admits they had sex and says Dean hasn’t contacted her. Hazel assures Paige that he will. In Ms. Kwan’s class, Hazel tries to get all of the details, but Paige snaps at her and shuts her down.

Spinner is planning his make up date with Paige, when Jimmy tells him what he overheard. He confronts Paige about her lie. She tries to walk away from him but he grabs her arm. She yells at him not to touch her, and he says “why not? Everyone else does.” She slaps him and runs into the bathroom.

Hazel finds Paige and tries to comfort her. It’s not Spinner’s business what Paige chose to do with Dean. But Paige admits she didn’t choose it. She breaks down and says that she told Dean to stop and he didn’t. When Hazel says that that’s rape, Paige crumples.

After school, Paige tries to run away, but Hazel chases her. They said they were going to go to a doctor. But Paige has lost her will. She doesn’t want anyone else to know about this. She went to the party, wore her fancy outfit, drank, asked him to come upstairs. She’s blaming herself, and nothing Hazel can say convinces her that this isn’t all her fault.

To be continued.

Something embarrassing happened to me the other day. It was the end of a Halloween party, and all night I’d been flirting with someone. He was hard to read, probably just being nice. I wasn’t getting enough back to make me feel like it was a no, but I wasn’t flirting so hard that I worried about being annoying.

I talk a big game when I’m flirting. I compliment myself a lot. For instance, when this man and I started talking about his vision correction surgery, I had to tell him I have perfect vision, but I said I have perfect eyes. It was intentional double speak. I have really pretty eyes (am I flirting with you now??). I definitely wanted this man to notice that. I wanted to draw his attention to things I felt confident about.

I left the party quite late. My brain had just enough function to drive myself home. I definitely wasn’t firing at 100%, and I definitely wasn’t remembering everything I had said a couple of hours previously.

The fog machine was going hard. I walked into a room to say goodbye to people. One of my friends made a comment about how I wasn’t allowed to leave yet, but it was so foggy I couldn’t see who. I said as much, and the man I’d been flirting with all night said “but you have perfect eyes.”

And my dumbass thought yes, finally, he’s explicitly flirting with me. I thanked him for the compliment and asked him why he didn’t tell me that earlier in the night. He seemed confused and said he was referencing my own words. I felt very embarrassed.

This is the inevitable trap of my flirting method. I give myself compliments looking for the person I’m flirting with the mirror them back to me. So anything that sounds vaguely nice becomes confirmation. And I have an attraction confirmation bias, like most people do. I am constantly looking for proof that someone I find attractive is attracted to me. I will take anything as that proof.

Flirting is a perpetual dance between confidence and insecurity, hope and rejection. In any social situation where someone feels uncomfortable, or uncertainty starts to rear its head, we puff up or we shrink down. I am not a scientist, but let’s pretend its that simple.

I am a puffer. Paige is a puffer. Social success looks like attention so we seek to draw attention. I bet Paige has a prominent Leo placement. I think puffers are often much better at successfully flirting, even when insecure, than shrinkers.

It’s not perfect. When I’m doing it wrong, I repel attention. I seem stuck up or too proud of myself. I’m unapproachable and it seems I think I’m better than the environment I’m in or the people I’m with. Who wants to talk to a person like that? What a bitch! When I’m doing it right, it works very well. As we’ve all heard a million times, confidence is sexy. It draws people in. People want to be a part of it. I’m a very good flirt!

But when you’re dealing with men, the slightest misapplication of technique becomes fraught. As Paige learns in this episode, and I have experienced myself, a man will take your confidence as a green light to pull you into things that you are are not interested in. When I go out and act like a bitch, people leave me alone. When I am projecting confidence, men think its okay to grab my ass without asking. That’s not my fault, and Dean’s disrespect for her agency definitely isn’t Paige’s fault, but it is, unfortunately, our problem.

Unlike Paige, there is another dimension of this I have to pay attention to. I am, myself, a man. When I’m acting from a posture of self-confidence and when my confirmation bias is activated, it’s incredibly easy to misread a signal.

It is vital to understand the difference between performing confidence and feeling confident. When you’re actually confident, rejection doesn’t bother you. You are waiting for enthusiastic consent, because why should you settle for less? When you are playing confident, you’re looking for validation. You increase the size and strength of any perceived green light to keep going.

I’m not saying that performing confidence makes someone a rapist. Being a rapist requires dehumanizing people around you and thinking they don’t have or deserve agency. But it can certainly make a person act boldly towards someone who isn’t interested in receiving it.

It’s a recipe for misreading the moment. For saying something awkward to a man at a party. For failing to tell the difference between friendly and flirty. For going along to get along and finding yourself in too deep. When it comes to projecting confidence, faking it until you make it can really work. You just have to make sure the person you’re fooling isn’t yourself.