It's been my studied, gut-level observation since years, that the secret titilating interest found in watching nubile young women being slaughtered – as in for example, the slasher-film genre (which has never appealed to me for just this reason), or in certain literature for that matter – is based on a very ancient, deep-seated gratification, a sadistic strain of satisfaction out of not every male's but out of a part of the collective memory in our psyche, actually too horrible to look at for what it is. But only in looking at it – not the said material, but the recognition of this – can one fully distance oneself from it. I'm not for copping to the notion of "embracing this in oneself" as some false counsel would have it, but fully holding oneself clear of any identification with it. I know its name: it is the slaughter of Beauty, it's intended destruction. Every time a woman is violated, it is that. It is the only explanation I really "got" as to why this could appeal and why it has taken ages for us to overcome our detachment about it – if we even have.
The exact same studied, gut-level observation applies with an even
fiercer intensity, by my reckoning, to the unspeakable crimes against
children: it is the slaughter of Innocence, its intended destruction.
That is why the immensity of pedophilia has never been seriously dealt
with – or never with a determination to match its immensity, and to look
it in the eye and loathe it enough to wipe it out decisively,
consequently, and forever from our presence.
But of course, that's all nothing more than my studied, gut-level observation. Anyone can take it or leave it.
But of course, that's all nothing more than my studied, gut-level observation. Anyone can take it or leave it.
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