Unconditional Love is a Fallacy

I'm revisiting something I wrote eleven years ago, here.

I do not believe in unconditional love.

Ok, it may be possible for a few masochists, or it may be some sort of rare mental disorder, but I don't think it's going to happen for the vast majority of people. For example, let's imagine Jill decided to start beating the shit out of her husband Jack on a regular basis. Imagine she began to systematically destroy all his clothing, microwave all his CDs, burn his books, and set hamsters loose inside his computer. She shit on his chest while he slept, then sent incriminating pictures of him to his parents, all while chanting, "Jack sucks! I hate Jack!" Now, imagine that she's not doing this out of some sort of mental illness, but out of sheer malice, a la The War of the Roses.

Would Jack still love Jill?

Maybe for a little while, but after a bit, I can guarantee that love will turn into a psychotic blitz of well-deserved hatred.

Some people say they like animals because animals show unconditional love. Again, I believe this is wishful thinking. If you have a loving, loyal pet dog, and every day, you kick that dog and screech at it, eventually, the dog will either run away or try to tear your throat out.

If there ever was such a thing as unconditional love, I think survival of the fittest has been doing its damnedest to breed it out of our systems. What do you think?

Vagina

One day a fisherman's penis got tangled up in his harpoon line.
The fisherman was never really good at catching seals
and as both prey and hunter tugged and hauled in opposite directions,
the man felt all the strength gush out of his penis.
He was relieved, if the truth be known.
He went home and dressed up like a woman.
He called himself Vagina and announced he was in need of a husband.
His mother was not happy about this.
She threatened to kick her son, who was now her daughter, out of the house
if he didn't again dress like a man and go out on the hunt.
Vagina knew a little magic, so she stripped the skin from her body
until she was just a skeleton. Her mother dropped dead in fright.
Vagina put her skin back on and started to behave
more and more like a woman. She fretted with her hair
and drew little tattoos all over her arms. Monthly
she made cuts at her groin so she could bleed.
She spent her days quietly softening fox skins with her teeth.
Vagina was still having trouble getting a husband
when a neighbor agreed to loan hers. When Vagina
removed her dress, the neighbor's husband
noticed her penis and called Vagina a madman.
Again, Vagina removed her skin as if to prove deep down
there was no difference between women and men
and their skeletons. Instead of consenting to have sex,
the man was so frightened he fell dead, like Vagina's mother, on the spot.
Vagina thought at least she could adopt
and then a child would provide her with company.
There was an orphan no one else would have.
Vagina tended to him like the kindest of mothers
until one day the boy demanded blubber.
"Can't you see I'm a woman?" Vagina said,
"I'm not allowed on the hunt. Find yourself a father,
a husband for me, and then we'll have plenty to eat."
The orphan was sharp. He had seen Vagina pissing
while standing up. He accused his mother of being a man.
Vagina, on impulse, became a skeleton again.
The orphan, instead of being scared, ran his fingers
over his mother's eyeball sockets and ribs. He drew a circle
around her pelvis and laughed. Vagina was forced
to use stronger magic. She reached into her chest
and pulled out her entrails. "There," she exclaimed,
"do you still insist on having some blubber?"
The orphan hugged his mother as some dogs
burst their way into the igloo,
stealing, among other things, Vagina's intestines.
She shouted, "Stop!" and chased the dogs
for miles. But before she could catch up, the biggest dog had eaten her heart.
And everyone knows a person is nothing without that.
Slowly Vagina wasted away as the orphan watched.
The orphan buried his mother beneath a pile of stones,
loving her in spite of her magic and foolish penis.
Loving his dead mother in spite of her skeleton games,
the orphan went to search for seals and whales and blubber on his own.

- by Denise Duhamel