A
with Index Finger Inserted in B’s Anus
by James Swingle
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A: What issues does this raise?
B: It’s uncomfortable, though not painful.
A: Discomfort is not an issue.
B: You are the one in the position to determine the
issues. I am reduced to sensation.
A: Reduced?
A: What issues does this raise?
B: The fact that your index finger is inserted into
my anus?
A: Yes.
B: My consent or lack of it in this act is the primary
issue.
A: For you, perhaps. For me it is only an issue if
I choose to admit it.
B: Are you a police officer?
B: Is this some kind of examination?
A: If I say yes, does that change your experience of
the act?
B: I associate examinations with medicine. In the context
of medicine, immediate discomfort can be seen as a
necessary consequence of the long term health
benefits of an action.
A: What if I say yes, this is an examination, but not
for medical reasons?
B: Then I am the subject of an experiment?
A: Perhaps.
B: Does this give you pleasure?
A: Once again, if I say yes, does that change your
experience of the act?
B: If I am the subject of an experiment that gives
me discomfort, and you are enjoying it,
I’ll be angry.
A: What if we are both the subject of an experiment?
B: Are we having sex?
B: You are removed from the act you commit.
A: How so?
B: The nerve endings in my anus convey the commission
of the act more forcibly than the nerve endings in
your index finger. For you, this becomes an intellectual
act more than a physical one. I am, however, rooted in the
physical.
A: So the power of my intellectual act is to root you
in the very physicalness of a situation I am free to
rise above.
B: Like a tenant, denied heat and hot water, is constantly
made aware of a physical reality that a landlord who
merely faces a business dilemma escapes.
A: So oppression is the act of making your intellectual
decision someone else’s physical reality.
B: More precisely, the oppressor plays out on an
intellectual battleground
the conflicts the oppressed plays out on a physical
battleground. Oppression occurs when one can define another’s
reality as an intellectual problem.
A: I can experience my index finger in your anus as
a purely intellectual issue, while it is
an inescapable physical reality for you.
B: Do you represent the government?
A: I am going to begin to move my index finger back
and forth within your anus. Does this change anything?
B: I had grown accustomed to the sensation of your
finger in my anus, and it therefore occupied my consciousness
less directly than it had originally. It is now brought
back to the forefront of my consciousness.
A: Do you enjoy the sensation?
B: No. Has my enjoyment become an issue?
A: Must something be an issue to be admitted into
discourse? Can’t I acknowledge
your sensation without giving it the status of issue?
B: No.
A: You said initially you were reduced to sensation.
I was the one in the position to determine what the issues
were.
B: I was wrong. That is what you want me to believe.
You can put your index finger in my anus through an
act of power. You cannot likewise control discourse.
Discourse is whatever is said, but also whatever thoughts
are planted in the minds of listeners even
if not directly spoken. Your control over discourse
is limited to what you say, and what you can cause
others not to say. You cannot control the unspoken
interpretations.
A: Have you just proven the theoretical impossibility
of tyranny? I would say there is empirical evidence
to the contrary.
B: Obviously it has existed. Unspoken interpretations
need a spoken catalyst to foment revolution. But information
moves quickly, it is easier to bring the catalyst into
contact with the unspoken interpretations.
A: So this ultimately leads to revolution?
B: Yes.
A: What if a listener were to suspect you enjoyed the
sensation of my index finger in your anus?
A: Have we achieved intimacy?
B: We are bound together psychologically as well as
physically. I would not call
it intimacy.
A: Nor would I.
A: I am removing my index finger from your anus.
B: No. It can’t end like this.
A: It is over.
B: I must destroy you.
