Fetal Fantasies

Prologue: My aunt, an avid cat lover like me, used to say that when she died & went to heaven, she wanted one of the jobs painting the cats. My aunt has passed on, and I have no way of knowing if there is a heaven or if her fantasy of painting cats can be enjoyed… But sometimes to lessen my loss of her, I fantasize about her painting cats in heaven.

Act One: Watching the National Geographic Channel’s In the Womb: Cats, I was mesmerized by the beauty of the images of cat fetuses in the womb; it’s difficult not to be moved by the colors and patterns of an unseen world.

But as I marveled upon such miracles as tiny versions of cats, replete with the brush strokes of what will be patterned pelts, surrounded by brilliant blood vessels all hidden in the darkness, I was aware that all of this heavenly biology is meat.

I know that to many of you that sounds gross and icky. How can I profess to fancy felines as I reduce them to such a vulgar thing? But then your mistake lies in your definitions of and problems with meat.

Act Two: Along with a lot of water, all animals are made of meat. And that includes humans. No matter how loud segments of our animal kingdom cry that we are above the animals, we are, in fact, animals. And I find great beauty and joy in the bodies, the meat, of all animals, including humans.

It’s not a terribly fashionable thing to say; I grant you that. But it is the truth.

Act Three: Humans, especially the religious sort, want to focus on humans not being animals. Which I find rather crazy seeing as most of these people claim we humans were made in God’s image — are they saying that God doesn’t find us, our physical meat forms, beautiful? But anyway, we humans aren’t supposed to acknowledge (other than in a policing sort of a way) our bodies, let alone admire and enjoy them.

They say we are to rise above our animal selves & concentrate on our souls; but that’s not what they do. When they ignore, lie & deny basic education about the body’s functions, our animal biology, they pretend that the needs of the body aren’t part and parcel or our experience.

Except when that body comes with female genitalia — then our biology, our bodies, are who and what we are. And we are deemed weaker for it.

We are not treated as equals, lower pay, fewer positions of power, etc. — and the fruits of such low rank, such as poverty & being at the mercy of male law, are then proffered as proof of our weakness, perpetuating, if not further demoting us. We are the second class, the class of meat, the class of meat creators.

Act Four: Women, with our bleeding for 7 days without dying, aren’t marvels of beautiful biology; we are suspect, unpredictable. Feeble-minded and damn-near-godless meat which threatens males by weakening them, reducing them to their animal-meat selves.

The men can’t help themselves, God-bless-’em; it’s a problem, a weakness of the flesh which wicked women exploit. Please, save the men from the weaker sex! Worse, the women who believe it too.

Act Five: In a sick twist of irony, these very same people who deny the importance of flesh & meat demand that women — beautiful meat with souls already living here — sacrifice themselves (and, if they have them, their current children) for fresh meat, a fetus, parasitic tissue with the potential to become what we call human. Maybe because our weak, lesser female flesh will deliver more of the desirable male flesh, I don’t know… Please, save the unborn meat from the meat that houses them!

But being more meat than spirit, women are not to be trusted to make decisions. We don’t know what is right for us as individuals or for Us the non-meat-humanity. Like perpetual children, we require parental consent & male control — via fathers, husbands, sperm donors & governing bodies of mainly male meat — to regulate what is to be done with our flesh and the tissue it houses. The lower our female meat status, the more regulated we are, because our poverty & oppressions are signs that we need more oppression & regulation.

But few want to talk about this. Most prefer to talk about the fantasy of a fetus than the reality of the body & soul of the person already here. That’s not dealing with reality.

Epilogue: If cats are not painted or designed in a place called heaven, it makes them no less wonderful.

Even if souls are attached to fetal meat bodies, it doesn’t make them more important than the wonderful human animal which houses it — which will have to bear all the burdens & risks of carrying it.