obscenity jim goad (Excerpted from Shit Magnet) I often wonder about my father. I wonder if he ever fucked my mom in the ass. If so, did he pull out and spew his shit-smeared load on her back? Did he ever eat her pussy? Did he ever tell her to wash the stinking thing? Did he ever make her cum? Did he fuck her while she was pregnant with me? Did his angry blue-collar cock squish up against my baby head? And what about mom? I wonder about her, too. Did she ever suck dad off and slurp his nuts? Did she swallow? Did she ever think about his best friend while he was balling her? Did she ever fantasize about women? Did she really want a black guy? Did she ever play with her clit? Did she even know she had one? My mother didn’t make any sense. She’d go insane whenever I’d say the word “fuck,” and yet she fucked my father in order to bear the foul-mouthed child who would say the evil word. To her, the word was more offensive than the act which it signified. But make no mistake—she knew, from personal experience, what the word ‘fuck’ meant. She just couldn’t bear to be reminded about it. Sometimes, I wonder about myself. I’m not sure how many spermy tadpoles inhabit the average male jizzload—millions? And I was the only li’l fishie strong enough to make it up to mom’s egg. How long did I ferment inside dad’s sweaty ballsac before he launched me into mom’s equally repulsive gummy womb? How long did it take me to swim up to her speckled ostrich ovum? And did I really crouch up there for nine months? You’ve probably pondered some of the same things, then swiftly swept them out of your mind due to the nauseating implications. But trying to suppress something won’t make it untrue. Face it—you were once a tenant in your father’s scrotal condominium. You once swam inside daddy’s hairy, low-slung testes. You once shot out of his cock like a human cannonball. If that’s offensive, then so is the story of your birth. So is universal human reality. As human beings, there are so many things we have in common: Everyone has an anus, and they all smell. Everyone has genitals, and most are slimy and deformed-looking. Everyone has thoughts they might be hesitant to share. Even you. I often wonder about you. And why you think I’m trying to offend you. Sorry, Gumdrop, but you aren’t so important in my cosmos that I’d expend any effort trying to bruise your feelings. Hate to break it to you, but you have nothing to do with why I wonder all these things. You could walk out of the room at any time, and I’d keep wondering. Once and for all: I don’t want to offend you. Really. As hard as that might be for you to believe. My life would be a lot easier if you’d just get past being offended. I understand what offends you; I just don’t understand why. There is no such thing as right and wrong, only sense and nonsense. And a lot of times, you don’t make any sense. There you are with your Charles Manson T-shirt, gasping at the very idea of date rape. You contradict yourself. And I consider it my duty to write about such contradictions. I’m very dutiful that way... ...Both the leftoid radical twats and the rightie fundamentalists are sexually repressed control freaks who insist—under penalty of damnation and/or jail time—that everyone else submit to their version of reality. The leftist ideologue, like the Christian bible-thumper, is entirely evangelical—she will not be satisfied until everyone who doesn’t think like she does is either converted or jailed under hate-crime legislation. The censor tries to control the dark patches she fears within herself, the elements of her own personality she’s spent a lifetime avoiding. She has a hunger to ban things, an infantile craving to close her eyes and pretend she can make the naughtiness disappear. She wants to slay the demons that haunt her dreams. She tries to create a world without any of the bad stuff. And she isn’t above using force to do it. Like the Christian crusader, the leftist censor needs evil enemies who deserve to suffer... ...Funny—I probably have less desire to control others than anyone who’s ever tried to silence me. Never in my life have I dictated how anyone else should feel or think. I couldn’t give an unlubed fuck if someone’s opinions differ from mine. I have no interest in controlling the cavernous expanses between someone else’s ears. I only have a desire not to be controlled. Silly me, expecting the same in return. My attitude is that if I can handle it, then it’s everyone else’s obligation to aspire to my level of sophistication. I’m sick of having to dumb-down everything. Let the slaggards catch up to me for a change. Being raised Catholic gave me a fascination for the taboo and why it held people in its thrall. I never understood why certain things were unmentionable. If they exist, why not talk about them? The taboo never made any sense then, and it doesn’t now. Peel away the layers of inhibition and illogic, and there’s nothing left. No solid reason exists for getting offended by anything. If an idea can destroy your mind, then your mind is weak and deserved being destroyed. You can only be a sinner if you believe in sin. You can only be a transgressive if you believe in the boundaries. You can only get offended if you’re offended by something within yourself. Depictions of genitalia should only be offensive if you have problems with your own. Obscenity is such an antiquated concept. The idea of uncrossable boundaries only exists to assuage someone’s fears about unpalatable truths. I’ve never seen, read, or experienced anything that I felt went too far. People have called for me to be murdered and raped, and it only amuses me. In the way that they get offended, in the sense of “that shouldn’t be said” or “that’s over the line,” I can’t get offended. I’m offense-proof. But there are several things which bother me. I’m bothered by this culture’s celebration of the lowest common denominator. I’m bothered by its rampaging wart-hog illiteracy and its suspicion of almost all forms of intelligence. I’m bothered by the incessant shrieking of loudmouthed, self-righteous cunts. I’m bothered by the scary idea that people would pass laws to prevent themselves from getting offended, that they’d weave an insane web of civil lawsuits and demand millions in cash because their piddling feelings were hurt. I’m bothered by dumb ideas. Like the idea that Jesus rose from the dead. Or the belief that the term “happy ending” isn’t oxymoronic. Or the silly ideological construct called “justice,” a thing which has never been achieved anywhere on the globe at any point in time. Or the primitive faith in nonexistent phantasms such as good and evil. Or the falsehood known as society, which proposes that people won’t actually trample over one another to get off a sinking boat. I’m bothered by all of life’s empty promises. Almost without exception, I’m bothered by precisely those things which give others hope. And in a small way, I’m given hope (or at least gladdened) by almost everything which causes others to despair. A lot of times, the fact that you’re alive bothers me. What if you find nearly everything about human existence bothersome? Jesus Christ, waking up in the morning sometimes bothers me. And yet I’m still able to put on my shoes and go for a walk. Imagine that. I’m still able, somehow, to prevent myself from being reduced to tears by it all. How the fuck do I manage it? There are truckloads of things that bother me, yet I wouldn’t censor any of them. I find a lot of anti-rape literature to be fairly tasteless and poorly executed, but I wouldn’t ban it. I still don’t wish to stop subliterate circus clowns from expressing themselves. As disgusting and stupid and irrational as most people are to me, I still don’t seek their elimination. That’s because they exist, so they must be part of the plan. Nothing is unnatural. If it occurs within this universe, it is bound by natural laws and properties. If a fifty-year-old man is able to impregnate a twelve-year-old girl, even against her sacred will, then nature approves of their union, even if the law doesn’t. Rape is natural. Child molestation is natural. Serial killing is natural. Fist-fucking is natural. And so are all the variegated hysterical responses to these things. Yes, even feminists are natural. So is arguing with them. And winning. But offensiveness only exists as an emotional salve for those too weak to handle reality. Only a dirty mind believes in obscenity. Nothing’s obscene. Everything’s fair game. As St. Paul said, “To the pure, all things are pure.” Or, as the Negroes say, “It’s all good.” Take a look at Jim Goad's prolific collection of essays, rants and commentaries on his site: www.jimgoad.net.