Sex & Self: Identity and the Illusion of Agency

For a long time now, I have puzzled over the question of why humans are so messed up about sex. Why is human sexuality everywhere so fraught with shame, denial, even loathing? Why do human societies impose so many rules on acts of procreation and/or pleasure? No other species on this planet behaves as  self-conflictedly, as weirdly, as we do when it comes to sex.

Our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees, exist in two forms; two distinct subspecies of the genus Pan: "regular" chimpanzees and the bonobos. Separated by the formation of the Congo River around 2 million years ago, these subspecies are similar physically (99.6% identical DNA) but differ drastically in their social behavior. Especially when it comes to sex. Chimpanzees are led by an "alpha male" and maintain social order through aggression; bonobos are matriarchal, far less aggressive, and actively keep peace via sex.

Both chimpanzees and bonobos are highly intelligent social species. Both have evolved a functioning social structure. In terms of the physical manifestations of sexuality, humans are more similar to bonobos in that human female fertility is "hidden" -- there is no obvious physical change that signals a human female's fertility. Yet our behavior more closely resembles that of chimpanzees.

The discipline of evolutionary psychology is relatively new. And (for obvious reasons) subject to controversy. I am a mere amateur, a layperson curious about the human condition. Therefore my musings are offered freely, bearing no real weight.

Ancestral humans diverged from chimpanzees somewhere between 13 and 4 million years ago. Specifics are difficult to measure given that the fossil record is so scant. Nevertheless, it is manifest that modern human brains are ~3x larger than those of our earliest human-like ancestors. Our cognitive abilities, our capacity for reason, have eclipsed every other trait we possess.

(I have a personal theory that intelligence has evolved in almost every phyla -- from slime molds to plants to octopus to birds to elephants and dolphins. Which is neither here nor there, with respect to my point in this post.. yet I find it telling that our "efforts" to engage intellectually with other species mostly have involved great apes).

MY THEORY: our brilliant brains have, inadvertently, proved to be our downfall. Excessive self-awareness is too painful to contemplate for the vast majority of human beings. We fear our lack of free will, our helplessness in the face of who we are. We invent stories that grant us agency where none honestly exists.

I was sexually and emotionally abused as a child. Those experiences stripped from me a basic trust that most people take for granted. Like Cassandra, I see -- so clearly -- disturbing truths. Where others cannot. I see what we don't want to see.

For example: sexual attraction is not something we necessarily choose. I see it as being like breathing. A semi-autonomous reflex. You can control your breathing to an extent; you can even consciously stop breathing for a time. Yet ultimately, breathing will happen (if physically possible) regardless of your will.

My primary evidence for this is anecdotal. I think it bothers us. Seriously. That we do not actually choose our attractions. I have never been able to enjoy sexual intimacy. Even kissing leaves me cold. I have a libido but it is only useful in terms of fantasy; I simply can't enjoy normal sex, despite being partnered with someone I completely trust. I was imprinted wrong.

Despite my active dedication to self-awareness and logic, it's been difficult for me to accept the fact. That I am sexually broken, through no fault of my own. My schizophrenic brother believes a literal demon inhabited the house we grew up in. It's hard for me to deny his claims when I know his "madness" comes from the same place as my creativity. It's a matter of sensing patterns -- Starbuck's pebbles. I see my conscious, at-cause self as a person in the ocean: I have the power to swim, but the ocean is inevitably bigger than me. Its currents will pull against me. Things living in it will try to consume me. I am at an automatic disadvantage; claiming I'm not can only harm me.

St. Jennifer-of-the-Knife Groks the Zeitgeist

I think the thing that bothers me most about the farcical travesty of this Inauguration Day is how personal it feels. I am a reluctant citizen, inclined by nature and nurture to regard with skepticism the social contracts* so cherished by those who portray themselves responsible adults. My parents, though they possessed strong political views, never voted, and did little to inculcate within me anything resembling a sense of civic duty. My father, especially, held to the opinion that voting was pointless, because everything was rigged.
If you want to know what my father was like, think Archie Bunker, just a little more drunk and abusive. Maybe a little smarter, probably a little less ethical. It's the intelligence and lack of ethics that concern me here and now. Passed down as they were, from him to myself.

If I was the person I was supposed to be. If I was the person my father tried to teach me to be. I would be delirious with delight right now. Ecstatic at the overturning of an age of corruption. Giddy with seraphic glee, I would welcome this turning of tables, which I had predicted from the moment Donald Trump announced his candidacy.

Alas. While the prediction was precise, my sentiments are.. dubious? Unconscionable would be a better word, and yet... I will not deplore that I feel the way I feel.

It's taken me a long time to acknowledge. To accept. That feelings are valid, in and of themselves. Right or wrong, they are real and have to be faced. It's been difficult for me to come to terms with the truth that emotion and logic are both so strong inside me, and that they in no way negate one another. I've found no convenient cancellation,  so perforce I face the paradoxical predicament that is self-awareness.

As I look at our nation, at the choices we've faced during this past year, I see.... myself, flinching from a mirror. In one hand, a shard of glass. Poised to slice the other hand's palm.

As a veteran of self-loathing, I assure you: the reason matters not. Excuses are empty. What matters is that something's wrong, Anything's wrong, everything's wrong. I am wrong, and my penance will purge. Will make this right.

Whether we admit it or not, we are one people. One people, forged from conflicting fires. Fires coruscating with strange colors which all eyes may not see. Pristine purity and unscrupulous avarice are no more incommensurate than fierce compassion and relentless reason, after all.

We are one people and we hate what we are.

So much of history remains untaught. So many voices remain unheard. We see the same world, from more perspectives than there are stars in the sky. It's no wonder (to me) that we destroy ourselves, again and again. I wish I could have warned you in time. I wish you would have listened. But I was brought up to believe that I'll never be believed.

*But really, who wouldn't be skeptical of the very concept of social contracts, after learning how one of the most ardent and enlightened proponents of such spent a large part of his career attacking colleagues in an attempt to square the circle? What a tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night!

A Brief Message to the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy

I am a dandelion, the most awesome plant ever.

Dandelions are despised for their ability to cheerfully survive all attempts to eradicate them. They thrive in chaotic conditions. They are smart: their stalks will grow short or tall depending on whether they are being mowed. They are beautiful at all stages of life: golden aggregate flower heads bright as the sun, wispy puffballs pale as the moon, drifting seeds like stars that can float five miles to begin a new life. They don't need to be pollinated to reproduce, but they welcome bees and butterflies anyway.

Every part of the dandelion is edible and nutritious. The fact that it tastes bitter reflects the lesson of the dandelion's life: unpleasant experiences can be good for us. Determination to live, and live well, in the face of the contempt of the world.

I am a dandelion. I ruin rich people's lawns. I give without expectation of being understood. Blow me.

In Defense of Compassion

The word "compassion" entered the English language in the mid-14th century as a loanword from French, derived from the ecclesiastical Latin term compassionem: com "together" + pati "to suffer."

That sense of "together" makes compassion more powerful than pity, and while "sympathy" is the precise Greek cognate of "compassion," its value has declined somewhat after centuries of neglect. Given the state of the world at this moment, as we stand on the edge of chaos with our collective illusions unraveling like the saddest security blanket, we require the strongest word possible for a much-maligned virtue. We believed (or pretended to believe) that our beloved blanket, called by so many names (society, culture, civilization, status quo) was a shining shield. Armor against any enemy, within or without. Such whimsical wards work surprisingly well — until they don't. Illusions are literally lies and their power works like a placebo, proportional to belief. Uncertainty is the natural enemy of authority yet it lacks vigor, always shadowed by fear, anger and confusion — peak 2020 zeitgeist aesthetic. Our frayed, shabby blanket has started to burn. 

To survive this crisis, we need something stronger than lies. Real problems require real power. There are three things that are never wrong: Compassion, Curiosity, and Courage Compassion is an emotional engagement with the perception of the sufferings or misfortunes of others. 

COMPASSION IS NEVER WRONG.

I spend (maybe too much) time perusing comments on trending news topics from a wide range of internet communities. I explore, investigate, seek to find out what people are thinking and feeling. Curiosity is a virtue that complements compassion, and by "virtue" I mean "strength." ("Virile" and "virtuous" come from the same Latin word; Roman culture did not distinguish between manliness and moral worth). Knowledge is power, and I'll take any potential I can use.

Perception of the pain of others comes before compassion. And yes, I think I am good at recognizing what other people feel. I suspect that being raised in an abusive family heightened my sensitivity. My mother believed she was psychic, and while I was always dismissive of her faith in the paranormal, she did have a knack for intuiting things, particularly about my brother. Sadly, it took me years of adult experience, along with finding out about the existence of mirror neurons and oxytocin, for me to start thinking seriously about the pragmatic importance of empathy.

There is a kind of spectrum among humans with respect to the skill of recognizing distress in others; nevertheless, the vast majority of people are capable of it. My husband has Asperger's, and he is unquestionably able to empathize. His disconnect is mostly about ambiguous, arbitrary or illogical social expectations. I think it's telling that autistic people often connect strongly with animals; the essential empathy is there, it's just not complicated by arcane social assumptions and the deceptions, to oneself and to others, that are inevitably entailed. In fact, scientists have shown that animals are capable of recognizing emotions and responding with compassion.

Of course, compassion is not the only possible emotional response to the suffering of another person. Alternatives include indifference, delight, satisfaction, even envy. And although I emphatically advocate cultivating compassion, I'm not interested in condemning those who cultivate these alternatives. Because I have done the same. I understand the many reasons people have for being averse to compassion. Central to them all is fear -- fear of the altruistic behavior that compassion can provoke.

I was sexually abused as a child. I have PTSD. I have a PhD in fear. It's been a struggle, but I've taken to heart the Bene Gesserit litany:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

When I say, "Compassion is never wrong," I am saying, "It is never wrong to reject fear." And I am saying this as someone who knows that people are dangerous. To themselves, to others, and to me. There are no safe places in this world.

I cannot count the times over the past year that I've seen people castigate others for expressing compassion. On all sides of almost every issue. Sometimes the assumption is that by perceiving someone's situation and feeling compassion for them, you are making an excuse for their behavior. People also attack others for showing compassion for one group of people and not another. All of that is rooted in fear -- fear that sympathy will lead to altruism which will benefit someone dangerous.

My intent here is not to endorse or prescribe any specific act of altruism. I'm a mom with two daughters. I know how complicated it can be, trying to balance competing interests while maximizing the family's well-being. Altruism doesn't mean giving people whatever they want. Biologists describing altruism in animals define it as "an act benefiting another at cost to oneself." The concept of "cost" in human terms is extremely complicated, which is why I'm keeping things simple. Compassionate behavior can make you vulnerable. Being vulnerable is not the same as being weak. In fact, the stronger you are, the more compassionate you can be.

Right now, the antithesis of altruism is trending all over the world. I call it spite -- "an act intended to harm another at cost to oneself." Spite is terrorism and military aggression. It is vicious speech of every kind. Spite is when anger blinds you to the costs of your behavior. Anger masks fear; it doesn't banish it. Anger often feels good, justified, even noble. Anger and fear are primal emotions with an ancient evolutionary history -- fight or flight. Compassion is more complicated; it involves acknowledging that the fear and anger of others is the same as your own.

It is all too easy to force people into states of fear and/or anger. Compassion, by its very nature, can never be enforced. It can only be tended, defended, encouraged, coaxed. Punishing people for not showing compassion is not compassion; it is spite.

It isn't instinctive for me to think positively with so much terror and rage breaking free around me. It has always been difficult for me to avoid being pulled along by emotional trends (a minor drawback of strong empathy). And I admit that I'm a naturally pessimistic person. I don't believe in the inevitability of progress. I do believe in the possibility. Our understanding of the human condition continues to grow, building on the shared experience of our species.

The word "monster" (from the Latin root monere "to warn") once literally meant "animal or baby with a birth defect." Because abnormal creatures were regarded as signs or omens of impending evil. We only use the word's figurative meaning now.

Our worldview has changed that much.

The more science discovers about what we are and how we came to be this way, the more opportunities for compassion we will attain.

On Creativity, Madness and Religion

The first time I can clearly remember it happening was at recess when I was eight. I gazed up at the impossible winter sky, a vast cerulean space castled with clouds. I looked at the people around me, fellow students at the Baptist private school known as Sky View Academy in Memphis, TN. I saw with painful clarity something I could not immediately put into words -- an affinity between the children, the sky, and the muddy ground beneath our feet. A physical throb of overwhelming love accompanied the insight, and I knew that God had shown me this, had given me a momentary glimpse of the way He saw His world.

Several days later, I did attempt to articulate the experience, in a poem I called 'The Cove of Eternity.' I can't recall anything more than the title; my memories of that period are capricious, and I have never been one to cherish physical reminders of the past. (For so many reasons.) Nevertheless, that day occupies a central place in the story of who I am.

I did not, in general, love or even like my fellow students. I did not get along with them. I did not know how. I was always insecure, always mistrustful, always, ultimately, alone. Looking back, the reason is pathetically obvious -- if I couldn't feel safe with my own parents, how could I ever feel safe among strangers? But at the time, as a child, in my innocence, I had a permanent sense of being wrong. I was an interloper. An outsider. I did not belong. The only trust I had, the only hope, the only chance for redemption came from God.

That day on the playground marked the first instance of something that has been repeated many times -- a visceral comprehension of transcendental truth. I use the word "repeated" cautiously, because each insight is unique, and the accumulation of knowledge has transformed the context of "truth." But the feeling, the recognition, the experience is the same.

All my life, I have struggled to understand myself. Even at eight, I knew that other people did not think of themselves in the third person. I felt a muddled (but deep) sense of guilt for the running narratives I made up about myself in my head: Unlike the other students, she is gazing at her teacher with a look of avid interest, and indeed she makes note of everything said; however, her thoughts are more occupied with a fantasy of running away to live with elves.

Mental illness was almost never discussed in our family. By the time I was in high school, I was vaguely aware that my mother got medication (which she rarely took) from a person she called her "squirrelly doctor." I only knew about that at all because my father would yell at her for not taking it. He had a principled contempt for most claims of mental illness, particularly depression and anxiety, but my mother's bipolar disorder was different. She had acute manic phases which affected her behavior in ways that caused trouble, e.g. spending too much money and having sex with too many people. Both my parents were substance abusers, but I think it really annoyed him that she preferred to take drugs that enhanced her manic times.

Religion was discussed in our family. Or at least, it had a pervasive presence. Looking back, I can see that my parents were both acutely aware of their problems -- the drugs, the fights, the general semi-shadiness of their lifestyle. But however wrong they were, they still knew what was right. And they made sure their children knew, too. They loved me and my brother. They wanted us to end up better. They sent us to church even when they didn't go themselves.

I was the "good" child. Quiet, studious, mostly obedient. I was good at hiding the depths of myself. I was good at learning things, seeing patterns, accumulating knowledge. People tend to fall into roles within groups, especially families. I was smart but impractical. (While I suspect my parents emphasized my "lack of common sense" because it helped their egos, I have to admit that I fell willingly into the role. Even now it's hard for me to believe I'm capable of certain ordinary things.) It was harder for my brother. He believed he wasn't as smart as me, but he wasn't exactly practical either. His gift manifested itself as... religion.

There is substantial evidence linking schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and creativity. Because of my brother, I know how lucky I am to:

1) be only on the edge of these things
2) have the ability to express them

My brother is schizophrenic. The world speaks to him far more urgently than it does to me. It communicates piercing spiritual truths at every turn. It is no wonder that he resorts to any drug he can find to drown that voice out.

Can you imagine hearing the voice of God, telling you to kill your own child, exactly as He told Abraham?

I can imagine it all too clearly.

Religion serves a variety of social purposes, and people have many reasons for participating in it. But the central lure is the offer of something that afflicts my brother all the time, whether he wants it to or not. At its core, religion is nothing more than sane people seeking to emulate madmen.

Which is why the best thing that ever happened to me was going to college -- and learning to think critically. And guess what? Although I no longer believe in God (in fact I find Abraham's deity reprehensible), I am still, at times, struck by wonder and delirious love for all humanity. The questions I learned to ask simply freed my imagination.

On Racism

I grew up in Memphis, TN, which is perhaps the most archetypal city of racism. It is the city where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Its history includes the irony of a district called Whitehaven. 

(Whitehaven was blatantly organized as a suburb for upper class white people in the late 19th century. It stayed that way until the Civil Rights Movement. Now it is predominantly black.)

My parents were openly, unabashedly racist. My education and upbringing were colored by the casual use of words like 'niglet' and 'porch monkey.' I was taught a strict dichotomy, an unsparing worldview in which white was good and black was bad. If my room was a mess (and it usually was), my father said it looked like a 'nigger' lived here. He said that because in his culture, according to his values, the gravest insult to a white girl is to be associated with anything black.

When I grew up, I left Memphis, my father, and that culture without a backward glance.

Since then I have lived in many different places. A dorm room in Evanston, IL where I smuggled a mad prophet in defiance of I do not know how many rules. A residential hotel on Polk Street in San Francisco. A gated community in Texas, briefly. Now I live in Fairfax County, Northern Virginia. One of the most cosmopolitan places in the USA, on account of being near the capital of the nation that strives to rule the world.

At first glance, you might think that this affluent, multicultural place is a post-racial paradise. The schools, especially, actively encourage an exploration of ethnic diversity. I have two daughters, and I am delighted that they are not being exposed to continual overt racism.

However, not all racism is overt.

In fact, most of it is insidious.

When my husband and I moved from Texas to Northern Virginia, I was three months pregnant. We moved without having any idea of where we might find a place to live. My husband's sister knew a real estate person who found us our first apartment on Mosby Woods Drive. The condo area was charmingly named after Confederate commander John S. Mosby. It is right off a street called Plantation Parkway. Fairfax High School (one of the best public schools in the nation) which my daughter would have attended had we stayed living there, used to have a 'Rebel' as their mascot. It is now a lion, but they still call themselves 'Rebels.'

The place I live now is called 'Colony Park.'

I want to believe that racism can die in America within my daughters' lifetime. But I know it won't, unless white people take an aggressive anti-racist stance. It is uncomfortable for white people to talk about racism. Indeed, some people go to extreme lengths to avoid it. But the entrenched, invisible-to-white-people racism in our culture needs to be seen, acknowledged, excised.

My 94-year-old father-in-law lives in a retirement community in Culpeper, VA. One Easter, after we had dinner with them in the elegant dining room with its silver buffet and crystal chandeliers, I asked my girls if they'd noticed something about the experience. "Did you notice how all the people eating there were rich old white people? And all the people waiting on them were black." They blinked at me in bemusement, rethinking what they'd seen.

This isn't about 'race baiting.' This isn't about 'white guilt.' This is about looking with clear eyes at things that are wrong. Inequity is the enemy of us all.

My Father, Bill Cosby, and the Kafkaesque Comedy of My Life: Part I

In 1997, I graduated from Northwestern University with a double major, math and history. My paternal grandparents, my parents and my brother had traveled to Evanston, Illinois full of pride in my accomplishment. I was the first in my family to graduate from college, and not just any college - Northwestern is a very prestigious university. The celebrity invited to administer the commencement speech was Bill Cosby.

Like many people of my generation, I grew up watching The Cosby Show. The show resonated with my life: a father played by an actor named Bill (same as my dad), a father of amiable comic charm (same as my dad). But my particular fascination came from the portrayal of a healthy, happy family. The relationships between Clair and Cliff Huxtable and their children seemed pure, untainted, free of spite or corruption. Conflicts got resolved, bonds were reaffirmed in every episode. I knew it was fiction, fantasy. I knew real life was never like that.

What I didn't know was that while perfect families may not exist, my own family was far from normal. Far from what most people think of as real.

Sexual abuse is an ugly topic. And I have never been able to discuss it cogently. My memories are ephemeral. It's the effects of what happened that eventually led me to realize what had gone wrong. The behaviors, the survival mechanisms. The scars.

I wet the bed until I was almost 11 years old. For punishment, I was made to sleep in blankets reeking of piss. I think I was afraid to leave my room at night. My father once urinated on me while I was in bed. He was drunk.

Alcohol, sex and drugs defined my parents' lives. They met in rehab. She was bipolar, and she used uppers when up and downers when down. He was a drunk. A drunk driver, in fact.

One memory I do have is of my mother lying naked on the floor, with my father pointing a gun at her.

Because it wasn't just drugs and sex, it was violence. It is almost impossible for me to type this. Because for so many years I believed it was my fault. Something wrong with me. An innate predilection for evil. Even now, as I near my fourth decade of life, I cringe in shame at the memory of being a 6-year-old girl fantasizing about being raped and murdered.

I think I must have seen pornography of that type. I know my father's tastes ran that way.

(To this day I cannot really enjoy healthy sex. I take pleasure alone in dark reveries. At least it hurts no one but myself.)

Relationships rotten at the core, that was my childhood. I never learned a basic trust that so many people take for granted. Some people take it so much for granted that they can't even see it. They think they are skeptics. They think they are like me. The words I use aren't so different. It's what's beneath the words that bites.

So much misery lurked beneath the surface of my family. But the surface was bright! That's the worst part, for me. Like Cosby, my father was a charismatic man. He was good at pretense. Not once in my childhood did any teacher or official suspect there was anything wrong with my parents. Things were wrong with me, oh yes, but nobody ever considered that it was anything but my own fault. I remember being paddled by the principal in first grade for crying every day - separation anxiety, because while I couldn't trust my parents, I trusted outsiders even less. In sixth grade my application for advanced curriculum was denied because of my "poor social skills." I developed a deep contempt for authority. I delved into my imagination; very early on, my inner life became more real to me than anything else.

I survived. I adapted. I found ways of getting by involving minimal contact with other human beings. I went to college 500 miles away from home, and when I graduated I ran away to California with a mad prophet I met on the moral wilderness that is the Internet.