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“I know what I want, Decker! I am not a child.”
“No, point, granted,” said Decker. He lifted both of his hands. “Okay, I’m going to say a thing, and I’m worried about saying it.”
“Well, now you have to say it,” said Hollis.
Decker groaned. He rubbed his forehead. “Look, we have to assume one of two things in those situations. I think one assumption we make is that the pleasure is entirely one-sided, on the side of the predator, and that the victim has no pleasure at all. Or we assume that there’s an inherent pleasure in submission.”
“Decker!” said Essence, eyes wide.
“I know, it’s sounding like victim-blaming again, but I’m not saying that,” said Decker. “I already established that I think we have to fight against pleasure sometimes. Pleasure evolved for reasons that made sense in a pre-civilized world, so now sometimes there is a mismatch.” He considered. “Except in this case, I think it’s an adaptation that’s probably useful for mating, but it’s not entirely pro-social.”
“What the fuck are you even talking about?” said Essence.
“No, no, I get it,” said Hollis. “I think I get it. Assuming that sex is about dominance, then it would make sense for creatures who were sexually aroused by either side of the coin—either the dominant side or the submissive side—to be better at reproduction. And if it’s a genetic thing, that would get passed on, that would get locked in.”
“Yes,” said Decker. “Except, before you say anything, Essence, I’m not trying to say that means that there’s some Edict from Nature about gender roles. Because, for one thing, men are turned on by being submissive, sometimes. And for another thing, it doesn’t even matter what’s natural and what’s not, because we don’t have to do whatever is instinctive. We can override our natural instincts. You do it every time you don’t eat dessert or you stop picking your nose or you stop masturbating.”
Essence sighed heavily. “Can we, though? Can we really do that?”
“Yes,” said Decker.
“Well, maybe you can,” she said. “I don’t think I can. I decide to do a thing, and then, I don’t know, it’s like I just forget I decided to do that and then I’m midway into doing the complete opposite thing, and I’m just like, ‘Oh, well, forget it. I didn’t really want to do that anyway.’”
Decker furrowed his brow. “I mean, sure, that happens to everyone.”
“I think I have ADHD,” she said.
Decker nodded slowly. “No, good point. We are not all the same, are we? There isn’t just one natural prototype, one adaptation, one way to survive. There’s an array, variations on a theme, spectrums that we all lie along.”
“We’re getting off the porn topic again,” said Hollis. “And, you know, considering my academic curiosity and all, I’m here to steer us back.”
“Yes, get back to your horrible point about how victims of abuse like it,” said Essence.
“No, they hate it,” said Decker. “Or it wouldn’t be abuse. What I’m saying is, there’s a pleasurable element that the abusers are able to use to get in. They use the fact that people like submitting sexually to take control of people in a horrible way and to hurt them. And we need to be aware that the same thing could happen to grown-up people, too. It’s not as if this doesn’t happen to adult women, right? Why do women not want to leave the men who are beating them?”
“Well,” said Essence, “even assuming that’s true, Decker, you don’t want to control me. You don’t want to abuse me.”
“So sure of that?” Decker was sarcastic.
“Yes,” she said, glaring at him.
Hollis looked back and forth between them. “So, this is what I’m hearing from the two of you.” He pointed at Decker. “You feel in control of yourself, so it’s easy enough for you to admit that there are dark and dangerous things lurking inside you, because you feel you can fight them. So, then, you assume that there are dark and dangerous things lurking within everyone, and that they should fight them, too, and that this would make the world a better place.”
“I mean, okay,” said Decker.
“Am I wrong?”
“No, but I feel like you’re about to tell me I’m wrong,” said Decker.
Hollis shook his head. “No, don’t get defensive.” He turned to Essence. “And, you. You don’t feel as if you can control yourself at all, so you tell yourself, well, whatever it is that I give in to, whatever I indulge in, it must be not that bad. People are good deep down, and we don’t really want to hurt each other.”
“Well, we are!” said Essence.
“Except there are clearly bad things in the world,” said Decker. “So, where do they come from?”
“It’s just human nature to be disappointed is all,” said Essence. “I mean, everything’s fine, but everyone’s convinced it’s not. If we’d all just tell ourselves that everything was fine—”
“Lie to ourselves, you said earlier,” said Decker.
