Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [70]
“So love, joy, and peace must not exist,” she said. “It’s all pretty fucked up.”
“It also projects the presumptions of industrial production onto women, and to a lesser degree, men.”
“That women are here to make babies . . .”
“To manufacture them, as it were.”
“Pop them out like Model-Ts on an assembly line.”
“Or buns in a factory oven.”
“So why are we here?” she asked.
“It presumes the same for sex. That the purpose is reproduction.”
“Is it?”
“Maybe the purpose of both—sex and life—is to have fun, and to enter into relationships with those around us, and to become who we are.”
“So who are we?” she pressed.
“Humans, and this is just as true for rocks and trees and stars and catfish, have a natural mode of development, or many natural modes. And there are commonalities across all humans, just as there are commonalities across all mammals, all animals, all ‘living beings,’ all rocks, what have you. Humans start out physically small, we grow, we stop growing, eventually our bodies wear out, and we die. Emotionally we follow certain patterns as well: we live for a long time with those who nurture us, we learn from them what it means to be human, and what it means to be human within our communities (or in the case of the civilized, how to be inhuman, and how to live in cities). There exist normal patterns for how humans grow. Joseph Chilton Pearce, for example, has done as fine a job as anyone describing patterns of human cognitive and emotional development.”
“What does this have to do with rape?”
“I think we can say, or at least those of us with any sense at all can say,” and she knew I was taking a dig at her philosopher ex-boyfriend, “that just as we have physical needs that, if they’re not met, cause us to end up malnourished or our bodies to not develop to their full potential, to not work very well, so, too, we have emotional needs. Failure to meet these needs can stunt us emotionally, leave us emotionally undeveloped, leave us incapable of experiencing, expressing—participating in—the full range of human emotions. I think it’s safe to say that all other things being equal, it’s better to not be emotionally stunted than to be so.”
“And rape?”
“It can stunt you. Impede your emotional development. Let’s take this even on a fairly basic level. It’s one thing to be abstinent by choice. That’s a fine choice. But what of those people—women, mainly, but some men—who’ve been deprived of their capacity to take pleasure in sexuality because they’ve been raped? Their choice to participate in sexuality was taken away from them. Their ability to fully express and experience the emotions associated with that has been stunted.”
She thought a moment, then said, “Not only that, but they’ve been deprived of their capacity to simply be in the world without being terrified. If any woman, anywhere in the world, hears footfalls behind her on a darkened street, she has reason to be afraid. Robin Morgan called that the democracy of fear under patriarchy.”
I responded, “It doesn’t matter what stories anybody tells anyone else: these are all bad things. And of course I’m not just talking about rape, nor am I just talking about sex. I’m saying that just as we can say that drinkable quantities of clean water are good—once again, no matter the stories we tell ourselves—we can similarly say that actions causing us to move away from the development of the full range of human emotions are not good. Certainly an action that causes an entire gender to live their lives in fear is a very bad thing.”
“But isn’t it possible for trauma to open people out? You wouldn’t be the person you are had your father not abused you.”
“I’ve heard people say that. There were even a few who suggested I should have put him in the acknowledgments of A Language Older Than Words.” That’s the book where I describe his abuse, and my response. “But what do I have to thank him for? Insomnia?