Posted on 12/29/2022 1:58:36 PM PST by karpov
Amos Wilson was not a happy man. What had his parents—actually, his father—been thinking of when they, or he, gave him such a name? He had been mocked for it as a child and had never recovered from the mockery. The child, after all, is father to the man.
There was another serious reason for his unhappiness, however. Now aged forty, he had never known what every man desires, sexual fulfilment. For some reason which he could not fathom himself, there was no satisfaction for him in any sexual activity unless he imagined himself to be an amputee. He knew that this was, by the standards of others, strange, bizarre: but which of us can account for his desires, how and why they arise?
Fantasy is all very well, it is better than nothing at all, but it is no substitute for reality. By middle age, Amos had had enough of it and its pretences. Why should he be condemned to a second-rate life just because, through no fault of his own, he had developed a unusual desire that, if fulfilled, would harm no one else? Every man has a right to fulfilment.
He didn’t tell anyone about his desire, of course. Everyone in the bank in which he worked thought he was a decent chap, perfectly ordinary except that he had never married: and even that these days was hardly abnormal. Men did not commit these days in case something better came along.
It was high time to declare himself, he thought: he did not want to die not having lived. His first step then, was to tell his doctor. After all, amputation was a medical procedure.
Dr. Smith was a doctor of the old school.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
“there was no satisfaction for him in any sexual activity unless he imagined himself to be an amputee.’
Nonsense. I’ll refrain from going on....
Named him after a man of the cloth
Called him Amos Moses, yeah
Now the folks around south Louisiana
Said Amos was a hell of a man
He could trap the biggest, the meanest alligator
And just use one hand
That’s all he got left ‘cause alligator bit it
Left arm gone, clean up to the elbow
This is not a typical Theodore Dalrymple piece. It is about a short story, albeit a very relevant short story for 2022.
Yes indeed, Allegory about trans-leggists. How old were they when they got to have train run over their body parts?
This disablist movement is a thing. There was something about it on TV maybe a decade ago. I bet they’ve really grown in number since then.
I identify as a super model. Who’s doing cosmetic surgery on me to make my inner-self my outer-self?
I identify as the third engineer who did not commit suicide.
:-)
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