E tenebras, lux dormiens

[alert! long post ahead]

I just saw a documentary on PBS at 6:00 today Sound and Fury, an emotional documentary that divides myself (again). As you, who have read me before, do know, I am very often divided by choices. If only I could illumine the future to learn which course I should travel for a better existence. I do fear suffering so, and wish that I would never be hurt or be disillusioned.

I know that even now, there are people who are firmly against cochlear implants, and people who are firmly for cochlear implants. I am in the unfortunate third group, firmly ambivalent to the implants as the phospholipids are to water.

There is no doubt that hearing people are superior to deaf people in many ways, and other ways for which I am glad that Deafness exist. I am not hear to antagonize anybody. I am hear to show that I can argue with anyone, except myself.

Here's the synopsis on the documentary: There are two hearing parents and two Deaf parents. The hearing parents are well-versed in American Sign Language; the mother works as an interpreter and has Deaf cousins, Deaf Aunts and Uncles, etc. She has given birth to a deaf boy, and she wants to cochlear implant-ize him to give him the best opportunities that the world can offer to a hearing person. However, she has faced significant opposition from her Deaf family members.

The two Deaf parents have a daughter that is already four-year old and has a Deaf identity. But the mother wants to explore cochlear implant in the hope of giving her daughter a good start in life. However, in her exploration, she has found disappointment that children who had cochlear implants spent their days in speech therapy and didn't know they were deaf. She didn't want her daughter to forget that she was Deaf, first and foremost, and that being able to hear was simply a way to work with the hearing world. She and her husband face a multitude of heated arguments with their hearing families who did not understand them, or why they were ambivalent toward "normalizing" their child.

It was very sad to watch the documentary, because I knew that I was watching a process that is leading the Deaf community to potential extinction.

That which unites, deafness classifies them;
When a choice is given, now divides them.

To me, it strikes twice. If given a choice, would I ever be straight? If given a choice, would I ever be hearing? Someone proud would say never to these questions. But where one is proud, I humble myself. I am meek where one is strong.

If for one day, I could be attracted to a woman's hair, her eyes, her breast, her legs, her booty, her vagina, her teeth, her tongue, her hands, her everything in everything of divinity, I would try it. If for one month, I could be sexually attracted to her, I would try it. If for one year, I could marry a girl, a woman, a [insert synonym here], I would. If for a decade, I could fall into romantic love, have her cuddle into me and I enjoy it, I would. If for a century, I could have children, and raise them with her together, play catch with a son, see a daughter's ballet performance in school, have years spent in perfect contentment, I would.

But, as I am gay. A boy, a man, a [insert synonym here], has such an indelible arousal for me. There is no doubt which sex, which gender, I am sexually attracted to. There is no doubt who I would want to hold in my hand, who I would want to cuddle with, who I would want to walk with, talk with, go bowling with, play video games with, spend time of contentment with, merge souls with, read poetry with, go partying with, dance with, learn with, travel around the world with, go shopping with, be in love with, be with.

There is no doubt about that at all. No doubt. I have but one life to live.

The same idea could go for my deafness. If I could be hearing for a day, a month, a year, a decade, a century, I would do so. More likely than not, I would prefer to be hearing and be able to hear what the announcer is saying, whether from the radio, from the loudspeaker, from a sports game, or from the news sites like cnn.com. There are so many things on which I'm missing out. I mean, I'd love to have a choice in music (though I like the classical and electronic anyway).

I realize that if I did not know what music was, I would not have cared. But living in a hearing world with hearing parents, I am constantly reminded of what information I've lost. Ignorance is a blessing sent from hell, for if Adam and Eve knew not what they had lost, would they have cared for God or heaven?

I am inclined to believe that the vociferous debate that people are having speaks truly to the great variety, the endless complexity, of the human race.

It is a debate truly to be had. If to end all wars, and bring about everlasting peace, it was necessary to chemically castrate all men, deprive them of testosterone so that they would have no needs to sports, no needs to fight, no needs to watch violent movies or play violent games, no needs to invent, no needs to create poetry, play extreme games, skydive, climb mountains, swim to the deepest depth of the sea, feel competitive, feel aggression, would you (the man) do it? Come on, speak up!

Chemical castration is just implanting a bug underneath your skin. It releases estrogen, which would lower male aggression. There is no vasectomy or castration (pet-style) involved. Chemical castration has proven effective in lowering the tendency of sexual molestation in sex offenders.

Would you do it? All males of all age, gay and straight. Would you consent? This could effectively end poverty, end wars, end killing. After all, it was male CEOs that got greedy and brought Enron and Worldcom to ruins, it was male competitive drive that causes doping and steroids-pumping. Without the testosterone from which the males derive the stately pleasure of victory, what are they?

Would it not be great, would it not be better for the world, if world peace could be achieved? And if you learned that that is possible by modifying human beings, would you do it? Would you believe that human beings are inherently doomed to make mistakes, to do evil things, to be unable to achieve a state of perfection, a utopian society, that only by modifying them could world peace be achieved?

I mean, we can stop pornography completely. We can stop the celebration of the male and female body parts, simply through chemical castration! We can even stop people from breeding so much, making so many babies every minute! There's no needs for condoms, for birth control, because the sexual desire isn't there! It's like, a Brave New World or The Giver! How wonderful, how terrible, how human.

So my deafness, I do have a choice to open up my head and insert a piece of metal. But would any guy like me, if they know that I have something plastic behind my ear? It's not like piercing your nipples, it's a piece of machinery that isn't designed to look good. I would have a wire. But if I could hear, wouldn't that be something?

I mean, now that I'm old enough, I would still see myself as Deaf/hard of hearing. I would continue to use ASL, because I still like to sign. I would still interact with the Deaf community. I would, but would something in me fundamentally change such that I now would not like, but it's too late to change?