A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal

I’m alarmed by the growing number of persons coming forward to accuse people of sexual harassment.  I’m not totally clear about what sexual harassment is because it seems to have a variety of meanings, but it certainly is serious.  And we should put an end to it, even if it was decades in the past.  Men are clearly a problem, and sexual attraction is as well.  To be sure power structures play some kind of role too.  Granted our entire culture is oriented towards marketing sex, and people, if they were to give a moment’s thought to the semiotics of clothing, would understand that sexuality is pervasive, like some plaguing disease.  But someone has to say enough is enough and have the courage to propose a measure which will surely bring to a close the male side of the problem, that being the true source and root in any case.

I stand ready to offer my services and herewith submit my proposal.  Now we all, at least, most of us, circumcise the male at birth, rendering the source of his libido comparatively mute with a simple snip that is forgotten because it is performed so early in life.  And therein lies our ultimate solution to the problem of sexual attraction in the work place, which really is where human value is decided nowadays.  My proposal then, drawing inspiration from the great boon of circumcision, is that we gouge out the eyes of our babes at the first opportunity.  I mean, why not?

The eye is highly problematic.  It might gaze at the breast in an unwanted fashion.  While sometimes a woman will wear a shirt with text on it, thereby ostensibly inviting examination, the fact is that the text really is for the wearer, not the observer.  Why invite the observer to observe?  Only evil can follow.  A person might wear a brooch.  Again, the ornament is for the wearer, clearly not for the observers, especially those observers who might compound their observation with sexual desire.  Frankly, male sexual desire, no matter how inadvertent, is clearly nothing more than domination by other means.  The time has come, and I say this as a man bent on doing right, to expunge from ourselves that attraction which can result in nothing less than the objectification of our counterparts.  Who can doubt that, because male originated sexual impulses are implicitly hierarchical, power itself is the fundamental issue at hand.  I know not myself how best to counter that imbalance than by removing from my brethren that pointed weapon which torments the weak and enforces their subordinate status.  And who can doubt that the primary organ of that repression lies in that which gives perception: the eye.

The time has arrived to grasp the nettle of decision and sacrifice for communal interest.  I hardly see how we can reach a true equality than by the blinding of those whose wicked libidos are the mere expression of innate evil.  What I propose is straightforward, simple of execution and certain to achieve the desired goal of extinguishing sexual interest.  Let us blind our newborns.  Gouge out their eyeballs and leave them blind and indifferent to all women in their presence. 

Some might object that this measure is extreme.  Well, no, it is not.  The fact that all women, or nearly all, if we are to judge correctly what is protested everywhere, are victims of harassment impels us to extreme measures.  What sane man would call for moderation where spreads a plague.  Ebola you say?  Do all you can to stop its ravages.  So it is with the male gaze.  Some will object on economic grounds.  What will come of our beer commercials, so to speak, if the key audience cannot even see the advertisements.  My argument is fundamentally moral in nature.  The question turns on how we do the right thing: is it not right to blot out absolutely the source of so much wrong?  Though slaves may have built a wonder such as the pyramids, it hardly justifies slavery!  Trivial goods count as nothing compared to great transgressions.  I find myself unpersuaded by such arguments for male sight.    Some of the soft-hearted will speak of the cruelty involved with digging out the eyes of babes: to which I say it is a cruelty forgotten before that child achieves speech.  More importantly, what good might be achieved by donating those eyes to the needy? 

No, there is only upside to this temporary cruelty.  Never mind the organs donated, never mind the end to sexual attraction, which truly is the problem, I think that finally this practice, however cruel it is labeled by the ignorant, will help to bring men and women onto an equal plane.  At last.  Male sexual interest is wicked because of its dependence on power.  Truly, once women are no longer objects of desire, once no one wants them, once they are as attractive to men as any frigid stone, then, and only then, will we have achieved our utopia.  Finally, we will have become an army of equal units, waiting for direction to serve some greater good, yet to be defined.  But in the meantime, let us blind our youth.