If it's my "choice" not to do these things, why should I think about it all the time? By think, I do not mean "wonder if I should propagate after all." I mean, how am I to continue "developing" as a person when there's little to nothing that I do that actually counts as development, other than my career (which, let's face it, becomes boring to talk about after fifteen minutes). Deep down, I must really believe that some day it will no longer be cool to mention marriage+kids at a party. I've decided to start saying to my breeding friends, "Good thing you had a baby now while it's still cool." This works a little bit better than Marla's "heternormativity is doomed," although I like her quote much better, personally.
I'm left with the tired old debate in queer theory over "choice." I'd like to say that not having a family is not a choice, it's who I am. I could try it, but it would seem violently wrong. There are two problems with this. First, I face no political danger and this makes my anxieties unlike those of GLBT's. Second, saying this means conceding that breeders didn't choose to breed either. So how can I criticize them?
Besides overpopulation and First World privilege, most of them are simply going to have to stop it--or else. They will have to fight against their "nature" or we're all doomed, not just heteronormativity. My hope is that breeding will simply cease to be cool. Breeding will be like littering.
Aha! As I typed this, I realized I had unconsciously equated having "a litter" with "littering."
Okay, now I'm not depressed. I'm fucking happy as all hell and am going to use "litter" much, much more. As in, "Pitch in! Put Your Gametes in the Trash," "Litter is Unsightly. It Attracts Vermin and Causes Disease," or
4 comments:
"Breeding will be like littering."
That is an absolutely fantastic sentence.
Besides, isn't a future in which there are way too MANY people, instead of too few, a more threateningly potential and thus more terrifyingly realistic outcome for humanity? If humanity behaves like a virus, then the end of humanity will be the sheer destruction of the host system. In other words, we're gonna run out of food and clean water way before we run out of babies. Why doesn't someone make a film about that? I suppose it's not romantic enough, since it cuts at the very basis of heterosexuality's feigned legitimacy--its necessity as good and wholesome and, ultimately, productive of more flesh. Your idea of babies as waste-producing flesh sacks is one to be seriously considered...
I'm surprised that sci-fi authors don't explore what you propose. Maybe because to make that movie you'd basically be filming large parts of India. (God, how dangerously close one comes to the racist discourse of enforced sterilization! Only it's the First Worlders that need it...) We're going to have to see The Children of Men and compare how best to tell the story right. On the campy side of this genre: Soylent Green! Only Heston yells, "They're made of babies! Bay-beeeeeeess!"
Hmmmm. A modest proposal for the new century? I like to ask my students to write their own after we read Swift's. You know, they have to pick a real problem in the world today and propose satirical solutions to it. Occasionally, this is a deeply frightening exercise. On the up side, just maybe a group of freshman will start working as out call escorts (the full service variety) to faculty and alumni and getting a much needed break on their student loans for their trouble. Ooops, I'm sorry, what were we talking about? Oh yes. In any book that matters, B, you are clearly an honorary queer. Down with parasitical oppression! But seriously, I'm often filled with rage at the small things my family constantly does to remind me that I'm not yet having a life of any import that they need consider seriously. If only I had a couple kids by now, maybe I'd be an adult? Also approaching middle age...
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