heknewherasachild

Came across an interesting moral case on Reddit (via YouTube)

Everybody loved middle aged Bob and his twenty-something wife Sue…. until it was revealed that he had known Sue since she was six (6) years old, and then absolutely everybody turned on him.

Including me. I was as disgusted and outraged as his friends and relatives when I first read that, and as patient readers know, I am fairly broadminded about such things.

But it got me to thinking : why? Why would that be so offensive? Bob and Sue were both consenting adults. Why should him having known her as a child matter?

So I pondered that a while, gave it a right good think, and this is what I came up with :

As near as I can tell, when Bob knew Sue as a child, this put him in outermost circle the parent or caretaker role in people’s minds, and that permanently locked their relationship in that state : one adult, one child, him the “uncle”, her the “niece”.

Ergo, the same child/sex taboo that punishes pedophiles applies, at least according to the social rules we have all internalized.

Of course, people in the Reddit thread were accusing Bob of being a pedophile and “grooming” Sue. but there was absolutely no evidence of that in the original post.

I think people just leapt to that conclusion in order to explain how they felt about Bob.

I call that “reasoning via emotion” and it is not logically valid. You can’t say “I feel X therefore Y must be true!”. You can’t assume all emotions are justified.

Otherwise, a white woman being frightened by a black family having a picnic would be evidence enough that the black family was up to no good.

Anyhow, I thought it was an interesting case because it pointed out an aspect of our social programming that I had no idea existed : that when you know someone as a child, the taboo against connecting with them sexually is permanent.

There is no statute of limitations on pedophilia, it seems. That is how powerful the child/sex taboo is. Anything that even resembles a violation, however falsely, receives its full wrath.

But what if there had been a long period without contact in the 25 years they had known each other? What if he’d known her when she was six but then her family moved away and he didn’t see her again until she came back after college? What then?

And even if they had known one another all that time, that doesn’t necessarily mean he had any influence over her. “Knowing” someone is a very broad statement and most of the people we know we do not try to have sex with.

And I hate to point this out, but even if he had some influence over her growing up, the fact is that “grooming” is not, as yet, illegal in and of itself, and so legally speaking, Bob is in the clear unless there is clear evidence they did more than talk.

So really, the taboo makes no sense in this case, at least without further information.

And yet I still kind of hate Bob.

I guess some taboos are just like that.

More after the break.

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A very special funeral

(We open on me, standing at an altar, dressed in a purple (with gold trim) priest-style robe but with no religious iconogaphy. To the right and behind me is a curiously large stained-wood coffin)

Me : Good evening, and thank you all for coming to this very special, very personal ceremony. We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of all the potential lives I might have led if things had gone differently.

(There is a soft murmur in the crowd. People saying “oh!” in pleased surprise can be heard. Things soon quiet down. )

Me : Hence the size of the coffin. It has to be big to hold all the versions of me that I need to bury. As you can imagine, there’s an awful lot of them, and it’s time that I stop clinging to them as though at any moment I could jump into that possibility and become and fully accept that they are dead and gone forever.

In fact, most of them have been dead for a very long time.

Sorry about the smell. I did my best.

So tonight, we are gathered to bid farewell to all those versions of me that never were. It would obviously be impossible for me to name them all – trust me, this speech is already long enough as is –

(Audience chuckles amusedly. )

-but naming a few of the most prominent ones is well within the limits of my time and your patience for long speeches.

(Another amused chuckle)

Let’s start with Accountant Fru. Some of you may not know this, but I took an Accounting class in high school, and got a 98 percent in it. Understandably, this made the teacher really, really want me to go into accounting as I clearly had the knack.

But not the desire. I gave up on that dream the moment I realized I could not imagine ever even introducing myself as an accountant.

“Hello, I’m very boring, please ignore me. ”

Um, Nope. So farewell, Accountant Fru, You never really stood a chance.

(The coffin clacks against its stand, as if something heavy had just been added to it)

Luckily, there was another thing I am very good at, and that leads us to our next departed soul : Psychotherapist Fru.

This is a big one because it’s the one I spent the most time thinking was going to come true. Had things gone the way I planned, I would have graduated from UPEI with a double major in Psychology and Philosophy, and gone on to get a Masters in Clinical Psychology before setting up a private practice as a therapist.

I’m sad to see you go, old friend. But you are never going to happen now.

(The coffin clacks again)

Finally, we bid a sad farewell to Scientist Fru. There was a time in my life when I thought I would grow up to be a brilliant, groundbreaking scientist of some sort.

But then, Calculus happened.

(More amused laughter.)

And I realized that the path to science was littered with math much harder than that, and that’s when I realized I was not as cut out for the scientist’s life after all.

So farewell, Doctor Fru. Let math do us part.

Me : Thank you. Okay, let’s do this.

(Flash cut to the coffin slowly rolling down the conveyor belt of a crematorium. Mourners are arrayed on either side of the belt and I stand at the end. My eyes never leave the coffin as it moves down the belt. Eventually, it passes through the door into the crematorium oven. When it is fully inside, the oven door closes behind it and the oven briefly glows red and a loud crackling is heard, then all is silent again.)

Me : That’s it, then. They are gone, gone forever past that final horizon. And now, a few moments of silence for all the versions of me that left us today.

(I bow my head, pain and grief write large on my big face, and tears run down my face. A few sobs are heard from the mourners, and they bow their heads too. Eventually, I straighten back up and smile brightly at the mourners. I clap my hands to signal that the ceremony is over.)

Me : All right! Who’s up for some Chinese?

And I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.