Since going without sex is undoubtedly a way of life that would be unpleasant to many of us, some have designated sex as a kind of human right. For instance people who, for one reason or another, haven’t managed to form relationships where sex is on offer should somehow have their needs met. Having sex with another human individual is consistently ranked higher than self-satisfaction or use of a mechanical device. So every few years the idea pops up that brothels should be made legal, and citizens who go without sex should have sex vouchers distributed to them by the government, or that young people should be required to serve a certain length of time in the sexual service, much like they do in the military. (Honest, these things were proposed in the 2010s – but only for girls, for some reason. As if women wouldn’t be interested in receiving the same services from some strapping young men.)
And now we’re at the heart of the matter, my dear. What’s your beef?
If sex is the same kind of basic need that meat is, and the availability of sex should be made the same kind of right as the availability of meat, then we ought to have government-run sex lots and fuck factories. They should have mind-crushingly small stalls where people are put with their limbs hobbled, where they could never see daylight or breathe outdoor air and be in constant pain and discomfort and kept in unnatural positions that cause deformities so that you can easily and conveniently, without their permission, satisfy your needs. Some of them could have parts of their bodies removed so they can’t harm anyone – perhaps have their teeth pulled out, for instance, to make it easier to fuck them in the mouth. Are you a breast man, What’s your beef? If so, meet the buxom Roz. She has enormous tits. So big, in fact, that she would fall on her face if she tried to stand up (if she only had the space to do so).* If a visit to the sex lot results in offspring they will, of course, be immediately taken from their mothers. The lucky ones will be raised to adulthood, but, of course, the needs of paedophiles have to be met, too, so some little ones will be made use of immediately. Naturally all of the screwees in the fuck factory will be given constant doses of antibiotics because, aside from the fact that diseases can quickly spread in such cramped quarters, many of them will be lying in their own shit. They’ll also be injected with hormones to give them those big tits or hefty backsides or whatever part of the body your fetish demands.
Would you enjoy sex under those conditions, Mr Beef? I think you would. You’d like it a lot. Your tiny little prick (or should I say your proggle prod?) would get nice and perky at the mere thought that they would all be just a mass to be fucked and that you would be their absolute master and for once you’d get some no-holds-barred enjoyment, and there would be nothing anybody could do about it.
Some people (not you, because it would be more expensive and not subsidized by the government) will want to go to all-natural sex lots where the screwees would have slightly better conditions, like taking care of their own children, not being force-fed medicines and eating somewhat better food. But they would still be slaves to the hedonism and indifference of people like you even if they hadn’t had every trace of human dignity taken from them.
Oh yes, and the Catholic priests you mentioned who are driven by their celibacy to do all those unfortunate, nasty things – if you, or all of us, for some reason were denied this critical source of protein, do you think there would be mysterious disappearances of small, or not so small, children in your neighbourhood? Because what else can you do if your means of satisfying this basic human need is taken away?
* Roz is a reference to the American chicken breed, the Ross 508. The vast majority of Finnish chickens are of this breed. It’s been ‘refined’ (in quotes because there’s nothing terribly fine about it) to produce the maximum possible quantity of the most desired meat – the breast. The breasts of Ross 508 chickens are so unnaturally large that in many cases the birds can no longer keep their balance. A Ross’s life is strictly regulated. In the feed lot the animals’ daily cycle is regulated through the use of lights so that they’ll sleep as little as possible. They’re fed constantly. Since they have nothing else to do, they eat. In six weeks the miserable creatures have grown to weigh nearly two kilos. They aren’t allowed to grow any older than that because it would make the meat unpleasantly tough.
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USER NAME: No user name
This E.H. guy is looking for a punch on the nose. Does anybody know who exactly he is? Give me a hint where the shithead lives, and I know how to teach him.
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DAY FOURTEEN
I’ve spent the evening at the console taking notes. I had to drive all the way to Tampere because I couldn’t get everything I needed at the village store. Some of the items were hard to find.
I read on the net that black velvet is the best material for lining the box because it doesn’t reflect light at all. I glue the pieces of velvet to the inside in strips and construct a tight, velvet-lined, removable cover.
You need the thinnest possible material for the pinhole. If you just make a pinhole in the side of a box that’s made of something thick like corrugated cardboard, it will scatter the light. I find a tip that says the thicker aluminium foil from the supermarket works well if you just remember to blacken the inside with a matte finish using the soot from a candle flame.
I make the shutter out of a thickish piece of black rubber attached to the outside over the hole. The rubber fits tight against the hole and the side of the box. I rig it with a wire hook to tug the flap away from the hole and control the exposure.
I’ve bought real photographic paper and developer and stop bath and vinegar and three shallow plastic pans and a red darkroom light. Port of Departure’s regular photographer, who helped me locate some of the hard-to-find items, suggested that photographing directly on to paper would be simplest.
This camera will have absolutely no electronic components in case that’s the key.
*
At first I notice that although I can see the opening in the hayloft wall there’s no reflected image of the landscape on the back wall of the camera when I try it out. I don’t let this discourage me because I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to build the thing. I change the position of the camera and come up empty again. Then it occurs to me to put the box on the old kitchen stool from the junk room, with the front wall of the camera right next to the opening.
Now I can see it.
Finally. My stomach tingles with triumph and excitement.
The Other Side shows on the paper as a tiny, amazingly sharp, upside-down, detailed image.
*
I go through almost half a pack of photographic paper with no success. I know in principle, from the instructions I found, to count the time the shutter’s left open, but to calculate the right exposure I would need a light meter, and I don’t have one. I try just counting the seconds of different exposure times in my head.
It’s a task that takes an excruciatingly long time because after each exposure I have to carry the box down the ladder and over to the cellar under the cottage, where I’ve built a work table out of produce crates and plywood, then turn on the darkroom light, use tongs to rinse the exposed paper in developing fluid and wait to see if anything appears. It’s also hard to judge the results because the paper creates a negative, black-and-white image, so a very bright image is badly underexposed and vice-versa. Most of them are underexposed. I obviously don’t have the patience to hold the shutter open long enough.
When I gradually begin to believe that I’ve nearly got it right I realize that the evening is starting to get dark.
I can’t take any more pictures today.
The funeral’s tomorrow.
PERFECTING THE HUMAN SPECIES
A BLOG ABOUT THE ANIMALIST REVOLUTIONARY ARMY AND ITS ACTIVITIES
A REQUEST FOR HELP
Can anybody rake up some muck for me about beef production? I have quite a bit of dirt already, but more wouldn’t hurt. Beef cattle is of particular intere
st to me at the moment. Production maximization.
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USER NAME: JesseP
You find all kinds of stuff in the US these days. The use of hormones and antibiotics is old news, of course. Both the hormones and the antibiotics can be transferred to humans, which has happened in the United States among other places. Hormones are particularly dangerous for children because they can cause puberty to start years ahead of time. The reckless use of antibiotics has caused a steady increase in resistant super-bacteria that are entirely unaffected by even the strongest drugs. The way antibiotics are being used, on humans as well as animals, is like starting a forest fire to kill a little bug – it will kill the bug, but all the beneficial bacteria are killed in the process. And if resistant bacteria are left behind an unbelievable ecological niche is available for them to fill, reproducing and spreading through excrement and other means to the whole environment. Artificial meat production is a significant cause of the misuse of antibiotics. You might already be biting into some meat that has antibiotic resistant bacteria living in it, and it might very well come from Finland. EU inspectors can’t necessarily find every little trace of antibiotic in meat.
MODERATOR: E.H.
Solid! There’s a kind of cosmic justice in the fact that humanity’s reward for its unending hedonism would come in this form. Our animal slaves nurturing their vengeance within them. It’s like a sci-fi movie. :-)
USER NAME: Simo K.
Feeding cattle offal to cattle – forced cannibalism, in other words – was a common practice in the United States, but it wasn’t widely known until British meat producers who used the same practice were struck by hoof and mouth disease in 2001. Does anybody remember that? It’s good dirt, even if it is a bit old.
USER NAME: Suzy
This is old dirt, too, but pretty choice. The USDA, which is the United States Department of Agriculture, did some other interesting experiments on cows aside from feeding them the bodies of members of their own species. Some cows were given plastic pellets instead of grass to eat. Cows’ digestive systems need non-digestible material, after all, which they normally get from the fibre in grass and hay. But a cow fattens up faster if you feed them soy or grain feed, which means that buying, transporting and storing hay is just an extra expense for the producer. By feeding the cows plastic you avoid having to buy hay. This brilliant plan also made it possible to recover some of the plastic from the cows’ manure and still more from their organs after slaughter and then feed it to the cows again. The USDA also researched the possibility of feeding cement dust to cattle. It had a lot of calcium in it and probably other elements, too. And let’s not forget that such a diet would no doubt bring an animal up to slaughter weight nice and quick.
MODERATOR: E.H.
I was going to put a smile on this one, but I can’t do it.
USER NAME: Tirsu
Let them tell you themselves.
I can’t bring myself to write something so cruelly ironic, so I’m just going to copy this quote from an actual beef producer’s website. The title is ‘Converting to an All-In All-Out Production System’:
‘In an all-in all-out production system calves are brought to an empty compartment and raised to slaughter weight. The compartment is then completely emptied, washed, disinfected and allowed to dry before a new production unit is brought in.
‘All-in all-out can be achieved in an entire production facility or can be used in individual lot units. Use in individual units cannot prevent the spread of diseases from one unit to another but does have distinct advantages over continuous production.
‘The first culling can be completed more quickly when cows come to slaughter weight. In addition to slaughter-ready animals weak individuals that shouldn’t be fed to normal weight can also be sent to slaughter. The cull can make more space available for the remaining animals. The last cows can be sent to slaughter approximately one month after the first culling.
‘The emptied lot is washed, disinfected and allowed to dry. Necessary repairs to buildings can also be made at this time. The lot is ready to take another batch of calves about one to three weeks after emptying, depending on the situation.
‘In an all-in all-out unit all the calves are roughly the same age. This makes it possible to optimize feed according to age. All-in all-out also prevents diseases from spreading from one age group to another. Health maintenance is made simpler and more efficient when needed treatments can done to the entire herd at the same time. Infectious diseases such as salmonella, ringworm, respiratory infections, parasitic infections and foot-and-mouth disease can be contained in one unit.
‘All-in all-out can significantly increase the animal mass at the final stage of production. This increases the ventilation demands. Dividing facilities so that infections don’t automatically spread from one unit to another can also lead to increased profits in many lots.’
USER NAME: Smart Alex
We don’t treat animals humanely because they’re not human. We do other people because they are human. The difference between cannibalism and omnivorism is clear, both ethically and scientifically. We ought to be focused on the fact that in many countries people face hunger and live in really terrible conditions, and soulless animals who don’t even know anything better aren’t the first thing we ought to be worrying about.
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DAY FIFTEEN
I’m already dressed in my black suit as I climb up to the loft one more time with my pinhole camera.
The queen is in the bag against my chest. The dew is gleaming on the Other Side, slanting August light strikes the trees, bushes and tufts of grass form intricate mosaics in the shadows.
To get a decent picture feels more important than ever. I can show it to someone, as if in passing, mention that I’m learning to use a pinhole camera, which would be reason enough to show it to someone, maybe an acquaintance I run into at the grocers. There’s nothing unusual in the photograph; the date palms and olive groves aren’t visible in it. It’s just a Finnish forest. I can watch their response, see what they say. If it’s just my brain making an image on the paper, if someone else sees nothing but a timber wall, I’ll know what I’m dealing with.
I place the box on the kitchen stool and lift the shutter. I stare at my watch and count the seconds in my mind. When I get to forty five I let the rubber spring back over the hole.
I take the camera into the house because there’s no time to develop any more photographs; it’s too late in the morning. But the exposure will be safe in the dark box, a dream lying latent there.
*
The memorial is held in the chapel, although Eero was no more a churchgoer than I am. It’s just simpler to arrange everything according to pre-existing logistics and routines. Eero is to be cremated, the coffin moved along rails through the curtain and into the crematory. Pupa and Grandma are buried at Kalevankangas cemetery, but we secular family members haven’t taken the trouble to find a burial plot. It seemed much too early, unnecessary. Until now.
As I get out of the car in front of the chapel I see someone in a broad-brimmed hat who looks vaguely familiar climbing awkwardly out of a taxi. It takes me a moment before I realize that it’s Marja-Terttu. She’s gained weight and grown older, but then so have I. Jani isn’t with her – and why would he be? Eero was just a sniffling, pink obstacle to the progress of their relationship. The driver helps Marja-Terttu take a largish flower arrangement out of the back seat. Pink carnations and white lilies attached to a split-leafed philodendron with an overly decorative gold-edged ribbon.
I should have taken care of the flowers myself. It’s tasteless, effeminate, a product of her Australian tastes. I also could have got a substantial discount from my regular florist, but Marja-Terttu insisted, said I should at least let her participate in the arrangements in some small way.
Marja-Terttu sees me and looks at first like she’s trying to decide, is that Orvo? It must be Orvo, and she hands
the flowers to the taxi driver and comes towards me, holding her arms out a little like she wants to hug me. I deliberately misunderstand and hold out one hand, my right hand, and we shake. We don’t know what to say to each other.
Can you say, my condolences, when both people are facing exactly the same loss?
Her coming to the funeral is an unnecessary gesture, almost a farce. And the farce continues when the cab driver comes over with the flower arrangement and thrusts it at her, saying, ‘I’ve got to get going,’ and she thanks him and apologizes in a trembling voice.
She thrusts the flowers at me in turn. ‘I ordered them to be from both of us, like we agreed,’ she says, and then, with surprising naturalness, takes my arm and starts pulling me towards the chapel.
She probably didn’t dare to stay away; it would have been too cold. Her correspondence has been sporadic – a card on birthdays and Christmas when Eero was little, sometimes a gift, too, which was nearly always something bright-coloured and noisy. Toys made in Hong Kong and broken the day after Christmas. After that there were just birthday cards, cards that even at a distance showed that her restrained Scandinavian aesthetics had long since dissolved in the land of the nouveau riche – childishly garish with two verses of some syrupy sentiment printed in gold on the inside. And a few equally garish-looking Australian dollars tucked in it.
*
The first person I see in the chapel is Ari.
What the hell is he doing here? There’s no need for pall-bearers, especially not if they’re the people who put the contents in the coffin. I would turn and leave, but Marja-Terttu’s grip on my elbow is as inescapable as a ball and chain.
Ari sees me and starts towards me decisively, a carefully constructed expression on his face – condolences, solicitude, perhaps even something like manly regret. I notice that I’m shaking.