but just didn’t to me.
I read somewhere that women who choose not to have children are more likely to have grown up preferring stuffed animals to dolls. Though I’m probably still too young to make pronouncements about my wish to forgo motherhood, I must say that, at thirty, my desire for children is all but nil. Though it’s not impossible for me to enjoy other people’s kids, my biological clock seems to reside permanently in a time zone to my west. Babies amuse me only mildly, toddlers not at all, and children of the talking, television-watching, Happy-Meal-eating variety fill me with a kind of queasy empathy. When I see a mother with her child, I identify not with the adult but with the small person who, in my mind, seems trapped in a world governed by romanticized, consumer-driven notions of childhood. I see a kid and I think to myself, “I’m sorry you have to be a kid right now. I’m sorry you have to play with Legos. I’m sorry you have to ride in the back seat.”
A psychiatrist would see this as regressive. A lot of other people would argue that childhood is about as pure as anything gets, that the preadolescent mind enjoys some kind of blissful exemption from adult concerns, and that little girls and, when given the opportunity, little boys, gravitate naturally towards dolls. Dolls, say the experts, are merely objects on which to practice the care-giving skills we need to survive as a species.
Though I can understand that, I still can’t relate to it. To me, a child with a doll is a child who has been railroaded by the trappings of childhood. She has already acquired her first accessory, an inanimate version of herself, one that possibly even requires batteries. She has already tied up one hand, already spent more time looking down than looking around. You might ask how I make a distinction between the dreaded doll and the adored stuffed animal. Why is it that I can smile at the child with a bear but always end up pitying the child with a doll? Perhaps it’s because animals are more closely connected with the imaginative world than dolls are. They are ageless, genderless, and come in colors that defy nature. To play with a stuffed panda, or, in my case, to telepathically communicate with one, is a creative act. To play with a doll is to stare yourself in the face, to gaze at an object that is forever trapped in infancy. Maybe that’s why dolls frighten me so much. Forever trapped in babyhood, they threaten the very essence of life’s possibilities. They’re my greatest nightmare come true. They never, ever grow up.
A CCORDING TO THE W OMEN I’ M F AIRLY P RETTY
I have always had a problem with science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. Of all the subcultures that, for various neurotic reasons, provoke my disdain, none seem to bridle me quite as much as those comprised of people who appear to have forfeited real life for something they’re likely to characterize as “a quest.” Granted, my scope is limited. My associations with people involved in fantasy games and other pagan-oriented pursuits are confined to certain members of the high school science-fiction club who wore “Question Reality” buttons and the Society for Creative Anachronism types at my college who reenacted medieval battles on the grass outside the dormitories. These groups provide what is perhaps the only example of social harassment that actually gets worse as you get older. In the high school lunch room we merely laughed behind the sci-fi kids’ backs. In college, I once stood idly by as someone poured beer out a fourth-floor dormitory window onto the velvet cape of a jouster who called himself “Leaf Blackthorn” and felt no guilt.
This wasn’t supposed to be a story about geek love. This was supposed to be a story about a group of people in northern California who practice a way of life known as “polyamory.” As any seventh grade Latin student could probably infer, polyamory means “many loves.” Polyamorous
I read somewhere that women who choose not to have children are more likely to have grown up preferring stuffed animals to dolls. Though I’m probably still too young to make pronouncements about my wish to forgo motherhood, I must say that, at thirty, my desire for children is all but nil. Though it’s not impossible for me to enjoy other people’s kids, my biological clock seems to reside permanently in a time zone to my west. Babies amuse me only mildly, toddlers not at all, and children of the talking, television-watching, Happy-Meal-eating variety fill me with a kind of queasy empathy. When I see a mother with her child, I identify not with the adult but with the small person who, in my mind, seems trapped in a world governed by romanticized, consumer-driven notions of childhood. I see a kid and I think to myself, “I’m sorry you have to be a kid right now. I’m sorry you have to play with Legos. I’m sorry you have to ride in the back seat.”
A psychiatrist would see this as regressive. A lot of other people would argue that childhood is about as pure as anything gets, that the preadolescent mind enjoys some kind of blissful exemption from adult concerns, and that little girls and, when given the opportunity, little boys, gravitate naturally towards dolls. Dolls, say the experts, are merely objects on which to practice the care-giving skills we need to survive as a species.
Though I can understand that, I still can’t relate to it. To me, a child with a doll is a child who has been railroaded by the trappings of childhood. She has already acquired her first accessory, an inanimate version of herself, one that possibly even requires batteries. She has already tied up one hand, already spent more time looking down than looking around. You might ask how I make a distinction between the dreaded doll and the adored stuffed animal. Why is it that I can smile at the child with a bear but always end up pitying the child with a doll? Perhaps it’s because animals are more closely connected with the imaginative world than dolls are. They are ageless, genderless, and come in colors that defy nature. To play with a stuffed panda, or, in my case, to telepathically communicate with one, is a creative act. To play with a doll is to stare yourself in the face, to gaze at an object that is forever trapped in infancy. Maybe that’s why dolls frighten me so much. Forever trapped in babyhood, they threaten the very essence of life’s possibilities. They’re my greatest nightmare come true. They never, ever grow up.
A CCORDING TO THE W OMEN I’ M F AIRLY P RETTY
I have always had a problem with science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. Of all the subcultures that, for various neurotic reasons, provoke my disdain, none seem to bridle me quite as much as those comprised of people who appear to have forfeited real life for something they’re likely to characterize as “a quest.” Granted, my scope is limited. My associations with people involved in fantasy games and other pagan-oriented pursuits are confined to certain members of the high school science-fiction club who wore “Question Reality” buttons and the Society for Creative Anachronism types at my college who reenacted medieval battles on the grass outside the dormitories. These groups provide what is perhaps the only example of social harassment that actually gets worse as you get older. In the high school lunch room we merely laughed behind the sci-fi kids’ backs. In college, I once stood idly by as someone poured beer out a fourth-floor dormitory window onto the velvet cape of a jouster who called himself “Leaf Blackthorn” and felt no guilt.
This wasn’t supposed to be a story about geek love. This was supposed to be a story about a group of people in northern California who practice a way of life known as “polyamory.” As any seventh grade Latin student could probably infer, polyamory means “many loves.” Polyamorous
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