Memo in the inbox at
opening time today. From
Divisional Headquarters, Department
of Intimate Affairs: There will
no longer be any
fucking between the husband
and the wife. Forms have been
submitted, a closed-door
hearing has been held (to preserve
the privacy of all involved),
and the decision has been
reached. What little has been
leaked and may be said with
any degree of certainty is
inconsistent and controversial.
The wife waved her arm and said,
“Look at him—those wrinkles,
those teeth—and he smells of
cheese.” The husband clutched
his hat and said, “It’s true that
I am flatulent and sniffle
and often scratch myself—
frankly, I wouldn’t want to
be mounted by such a one as me,
either.” The husband had a way
with words. The gavel sounded
and the matter was considered
settled. Coffee-flavored kisses
were still to be exchanged
on an ad hoc basis.
“The old God, all ‘spirit,’ all high priest, all perfection, promenades in his garden: but he is bored. Against boredom the gods themselves fight in vain. What does he do? He invents man—man is entertaining…. But behold, man too is bored. God’s sympathy with the only kind of distress found in every Paradise knows no bounds: he forthwith creates other animals. God’s first blunder: man did not find the animals entertaining—he dominated them, he did not even want to be an ‘animal.’—Consequently God created woman. And then indeed there was an end to boredom—but also to something else! Woman was God’s second blunder.—‘Woman is in her essence serpent, Heva’—every priest knows that; ‘every evil comes into the world through woman’—every priest knows that likewise. ‘Consequently, science too comes into the world through her’…. Only through woman did man learn to taste the tree of knowledge.—What had happened? A mortal terror seized on the old God. Man himself had become God’s greatest blunder; God had created for himself a rival, science makes equal to God—it is all over with priests and gods if man becomes scientific!—Moral: science is the forbidden in itself—it alone is forbidden. Science is the first sin, the germ of all sins, original sin. This alone constitutes morality.—‘Thou shalt not know’—the rest follows.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (trans. Hollingdale; emphases and ellipses in original)