What Happens When

I attended What Happens When its opening night with Gaby. I was apprehensive when I entered Watson, but overall I found the play tastefully done, incorporating modern visual aids as well as important social issues present on this campus. An overall theme of the play was communication, both verbal and non verbal, as it relates to consent.
The ways in which we communicate our intentions and emotions with others is through visual, verbal, physical cues. Our five senses are paramount in assisting with our communication in the outside world. The play focused primarily on language as a means of communicating with other our intentions when in potentially dangerous sexual situations. You can read a friend's lips when their whispering to you from across class, when you're too spaced/hurried to acknowledge someone you can throw up a peace sign (or maybe that's just me..).  When discussing sex, it is important to engage visually, audibly, and physically to pick up signals from others. There were many characters within the play that voiced opinions on how differently they perceive actions and words of others. One couple disputed what the guy heard audibly heard and how it differed from what the girl physically said. The idea here is that sometime in times of heated, inebriated, and secluded sexual activity guys can hear what they want to hear, and read too suggestively into the actions of others.
If our senses can be subjected this easily to our personal interest and our more animalistic desires, can we trust them as processors of communication signals from others in the world around us? The play really drove home the fact that signals and modalities of communication can vary in definition from one individual to another. When engaging in sexual activity or even intimate behavior with another person, you must explicitly express your intentions and emotions involved in the activities occurring. These thoughts are paramount on a college campus.