She wanted him to play with her hair.

In the online essay detailing an anonymous woman’s terrible sexual encounter with actor Aziz Ansari, I kept coming back to this detail: “When she sat down on the floor next to Ansari, who sat on the couch, she thought he might rub her back, or play with her hair -- something to calm her down.”

Instead, he asked her for oral sex. And despite what she really wanted and how shaken she felt in that moment, she consented.

This was the most illustrative and poignant moment of missed expectations in this hard-to-follow narrative.

She wanted intimacy. He wanted sex.

The anonymous account been alternatively described as “a bad date/bad sex” or a sexual violation, depending on how you read the essay. Some feminists have argued that when you are having sex in a sexist culture, when you are socialized to either pursue or be pursued, consent is more complicated than saying yes or no. To be more clear, getting what you want from a sexual encounter is more complicated than saying “yes” or “no.”

The scenario as recounted in the Babe.net essay described familiar and traditional gender stereotypes. He kept trying to have sex with her. He was aggressively persistent. She warded off his advances, gave into some of them and eventually gave up on the date and left, feeling terrible.

Their contrary expectations collided in a way that left one party feeling used and dehumanized. But while parts of this story might seem familiar to many of us, it unfolded in a cultural moment of eroticized aggression, when it’s easier than ever to engage in dehumanized sex.

More than 25 years ago, a small, private liberal arts college in Ohio made national headlines when it tried to reform the idea of consent. Antioch College passed a policy in the 1990s that required students to get “affirmative consent,” which meant that sexual partners needed to ask for explicit consent before proceeding in a sexual encounter. The policy was widely ridiculed -- from an editorial in the New York Times to a “Saturday Night Live” skit lampooning this “overzealous” notion of date rape.

At the height of the media attention on the Antioch Sexual Offense Prevention Policy, I was a freshman in college. I remember thinking how ridiculous it sounded. Who talks that way during a romantic or sexual encounter? Who asks for permission every step of the way?

Twenty-five years of experience later, with children who will be leaving for college in a few years, it seems far more reasonable.

And yet, in practice, perhaps it makes even less sense.

This generation’s first sexual experiences are mediated through a screen. A middle-school boy is far more likely to ask a girl for a nude than a date. Teens see porn much younger and more often. Post-internet pornography is a more aggressive and degrading version of what was widely watched pre-internet. There is endless choice and opportunity in hook-up apps. Technology has not created a more egalitarian sexual landscape; it’s introduced aggression and power imbalance at a younger age than ever before.

And it’s made it more difficult to expect or ask for emotional intimacy. Imagine a profile that says, “I expect to be held.” Or, “I would like a text the next day.”

Even if the ideals of explicit consent are part of the conversations we have with our children, it has to happen in way that works in the tech-saturated sexual milieu in which they are coming of age. Emotional intimacy is easily divorced from sexual intimacy, which for some people feels less satisfying, or even dehumanizing.

Zoe Peterson, associate professor of psychological sciences and director of the sexual assault research and education program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, says images of sex in the media -- not just porn -- don’t show a lot of talking.

“People have an idea that explicitly asking for consent is unsexy because we don’t have many models of it,” she said. It goes beyond asking and responding “yes” or “no.” It’s a bigger conversation of what a person is into sexually and his or her values.

Young people starting to navigate this terrain are just beginning to learn their preferences and how to exercise their agency. It can be difficult to express for those who don’t like to have uncomfortable conversations face-to-face.

“To ask for intimacy is really vulnerable,” Peterson said. “There’s a lot of fear of rejection, especially when there are no good models of, ‘how do you even do that?’”

To me, the allegations against Ansari didn’t suggest that women have lost their sense of agency. It’s that we’ve internalized a very low bar of expectation in such encounters.

Antioch’s explicit consent policy doesn’t sound so radical anymore.

Now, what sounds radical is being able to say, in a moment of vulnerability and sexual openness, “I just want you to play with my hair.”

Who would dare to challenge the killer whale, an apex predator at the top of the food chain?

Scientists have observed situations in which pods of humpback whales have curiously intervened in orca hunts to protect wounded whale calves, seals, sea lions, porpoises and other marine mammals. What would possess an animal to do such a thing?

Researchers don’t know for sure. Humpbacks may mistakenly think a young whale associated with their own pod is threatened, or it may be that interfering in orca hunts eventually pays off for their own species. Humpback whales may even be intelligent enough to have some degree of empathetic response.

Whatever the answer, there’s some instinctive or evolutionary response that prompts these animal bystanders to intervene.

Humans, of course, live in complex societies, with far more evolved relationships. So what makes humans less inclined to stand up to threats far less dangerous than a killer whale?

Researchers who study ways to reduce bullying look at the third party in the bully/bullied interaction: the bystander. He or she often has unutilized power to end a peer’s torment or minimize the risk posed to others.

If a bully, liar or cheat has an emotional or narcissistic wound so deep that he is unable to change his behavior, it becomes the responsibility of those around him to sound the alarm. When those who know better are silent, they become just as guilty as the aggressor.

As we’ve seen, however, people often don’t speak up when they have firsthand knowledge that someone is endangering or hurting others. There are many reasons for turning a blind eye when an insecure person tells outrageous lies or torments others.

They may include:

1. Apathy. The offender’s lies are so ridiculous and over-the-top that any reasonable person knows he is lying, and it’s not worth the fight to challenge it. The default response becomes to tune it out or roll one’s eyes.

2. Rationalization. Some onlookers are unable -- or unwilling -- to see the stakes of a bully’s bad behavior. This is the camp that says, “Fibbing is annoying.” They minimize the damage of antisocial behavior. They focus on how they might benefit, and ignore the reprehensible means.

3. Callousness. Others simply don’t worry about lies or harassment or threatening behavior that doesn’t impact them personally. As long as someone else is the victim or potential victim, they are unbothered.

4. Fear of the bully. Sometimes a bystander does feel empathy and concern, but is simply too afraid of becoming a target of the bully. They lack the courage to speak up or stand up against wrongdoing, even anonymously.

5. Fear of consequences. There are those who fear losing social standing or facing backlash from others aside from the bully. In these situations, the culture of the institution, whether it’s a school or workplace, often enables and empowers the bully. Many systems respond to reports by positioning the bully as the victim, and the whistleblower as the problem.

6. Greed. Other bystanders are more complicit. They want something from the bully, so they are willing to aid and abet unethical or cruel actions. They stand to gain personally from enabling the bully.

7. Protection. Some people, especially weaker ones, are easily seduced by power. They feel protected by association with a bully. It’s easier for them to be part of a protected in-group, no matter how compromised.

8. Desensitization. Those who spend the most time around a bully become accustomed to cruelty and antisocial behavior. They see everyone around them tolerating it, as well.

9. Meanness. There are some who share the same moral defects as the bully. They are just as ruthless, self-centered, greedy, spiteful or nasty. They don’t act out as much as the alpha bully because they are lower in the pecking order and don’t wield as much power. But they take pleasure in the hatefulness committed in their proximity.

Once we understand and identify what prevents bystanders from intervening, we can look for ways to better engage them.

A child may be too timid or scared to speak up around a powerful bully. That’s why parents need to have some awareness of the social dynamics in their child’s environments: Ask if they witness bullying at the bus stop, on the playground, in the classroom or in the school hallway. Let your child know that you would talk to school officials about it -- even if they aren’t the one being bullied -- and why. Children develop the strength of character to be active bystanders when they see it modeled at home.

We can model that for our kids, and we can also reform systems to be friendlier to whistleblowers, both anonymous and named. We need to continue to glorify the courageous, cultivate empathy and shame the complicit.

We can also learn from the mysterious behavior of whales, and choose to band together in the face of danger.

Preschoolers tell magnificent lies.

Not the boring, trying-to-be-polite lies that many adults tell to spare someone’s feelings. And not the evil lies of someone trying to defraud a grandma of her life savings.

No, 2- to 4-year-olds are still figuring out fantasy from reality, confusing wishful thinking with how things really are. They often lie to avoid time-outs, to make grown-ups happy or to feel good about themselves.

Perhaps the minds of a toddler and preschooler could offer insights into why some adults tell such whoppers. What prompts a grown adult to tell bald-faced lies, especially when the lies can be exposed so easily? When adults are perplexed by the inexplicable behavior of other adults, it can be helpful to consult the experts.

In the case of fantastical lying, the experts are tots.

A recent walk to the park with my 3- and 4-year-old nephews offered a master class in hyperbole and falsehoods. Being a responsible aunt, I ordered them to hold my hands while crossing the street because of the dangers posed by passing vehicles.

“I’m faster than a car and a truck,” the 4-year-old said in response. (Fact check: He is not.)

Perhaps he wishes he were faster than a speeding truck. Maybe he believes he could be faster if he really tried. Or maybe this bit of self-aggrandizing was offered simply to impress me.

We stopped on a bridge over a creek filled with turtles. I asked if the boys could see the dozens of turtles swimming beneath us.

“They are talking to each other,” I was informed. “To make a plan to get the humans if they fall in the water.” (Fact check: There’s no proof the turtles were plotting against the humans.)

It was impossible to dissuade my nephew from the turtle conspiracy theory he had concocted. It sounded like it could be true to him, and he didn’t have a reason -- other than science -- to disbelieve his preconceived notion.

Once we got to the playground, the 4-year-old climbed up a towering play structure. He hung from a rope ladder, peering down at the ground below him.

“I’m going to jump!” he said confidently. He looked down again and reconsidered. “No, I was just kidding.” (Fact check: He got scared.)

Even for a preschooler, the desire to save face is strong. When we started walking back home, he shared details of a recent exploit.

“I got 70 tickets from Chuck E. Cheese. And I got candy.”

This sounded suspiciously like fake news, although he said it very authoritatively. The last time we went to Chuck E. Cheese together, he had less than a dozen prize tickets. This boast could have been a case of exaggerating his wins, or simply misremembering seven as 70.

But his next revelation took things too far.

“I don’t have a shaker because my brother never lets me use it,” he confided, referring to a rattling toy.

His 3-year-old brother overheard and rolled his eyes.

“I let him use it, and he said no,” the younger one retorted.

The accusations flew.

“That is not true!”

“I’m not talking anymore!”

“He’s lying!”

“I have my ears shut!”

“You lie!”

It was difficult for an outsider to discern what was deflection or projection in this brother-versus-brother confrontation. A 3-year-old will vigorously defend reality as he perceives it, and a 4-year-old is no more likely to back down.

But since they raised the issue of lies, I wondered how well they grasped the concept of dishonesty at their ages. Kids figure out early that they can attempt to lie to get out of trouble or to get away with something. Could they figure out a peer’s motives?

I asked the toddler why he thought his brother may have lied about him.

“Trying to make me look like a bad guy,” he said. Bad guys lie, he added.

His older brother maintained his commitment to the truth.

“It’s wrong to lie,” he said. “Because it’s just bad.”

Wisdom out of the mouth of babes.