The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race Read Online Free

names.
    Our childhood dynamic was, if not stellar, then acceptable. I resented the skill with which Sam usurped attention. I tried and failed to compete. But these resentments were never an active dislike. They were just a desire to be rid of him. A kind of “No
personal
offense, but my parents find you
too
compelling. I would like for you to leave.”
    Our adult dynamic is even better. Sam makes a dependable companion in the slow march toward our parents’ inevitable deaths. It is therefore important that I am around when he needs me. Or rather, it is important that
he’s
around when
I
need
him
. So I pursue him via voice- and e-mail. I leave messages in which I say: “Hi there. It’s me. What if
Mom
dies first? That’d be weird, right? Okay, bye. Call me back.”
    So we get along now and fared okay as children.
    Adolescence, however, was war. Adolescence was
samsara
.
    THE PROBLEM STARTED my freshman year of high school. I had been encouraged by my parents to join an extracurricular club. I was trying to decide between the Student Coalition for Animal Rights and the Student Coalition for Awareness. I eventually decided on the Student Coalition for Awareness after realizing I was too passionate about bacon to do much in the way of animal rights.
    The purpose of the Student Coalition for Awareness was to allow its members a sense of superiority to all non-members. Beyond that, we worked to raise awareness around the issue of modern-day sexism. Our mission statement read, “Feminism Forever, Sexism for Never.” We’d attend weekly lectures on female oppression at nearby universities. To keep myself from falling asleep during these lectures, I’d imagine that I was the one delivering them.
    Other activities included choral performances at battered women’s shelters. These I saw as an opportunity to channel my desire for attention into my individual choral performance. We would sing rousing standards like “Freedom Is Coming” or Bette Midler’s “The Rose.” Song choice depending, I would sing either very high or very low to ensure the battered women could hear my voice above those of my fellow club members.
    By the end of one semester, I’d been inspired to replace the word “women” with “womyn.” I’d advise friends and family, strangers and enemies, to do the same.
    “So I ran into this woman I knew from …”
    “I’m sorry. But are you spelling that ‘whoa-MAN’ with an
a
or ‘whoa-MIN’ with a
y
?”
    “What? Um, oh. I guess, well, I’m spelling it like … you do. Like … with an
a
.”
    “Right. Well, you might want to
not
. Unless, of course, you think
womyn
—WITH A
Y
—are undervalued slaves in a patriarchal society.”
    “But I …”
    “What’s that?
Right
. I didn’t think you did.”
    AROUND THIS TIME , Sam turned eleven. He was enjoying the slow burn through puberty, and while normally an older sister wouldn’t have to clock such horrors, I did, and that was thanks to Sam’s problematic lack of self-consciousness coupled with his poor taste in home decor. Somehow, somewhere, he’d scored five life-size posters of Carmen Electra, and used them to wallpaper his bedroom. In each and every one, Carmen’s tanned and glistening body had been dressed in a bikini and posed on all fours like a dog.
    Sam’s behavior conflicted with my burgeoning feminist tendencies, and a civil war erupted. It began with frequent, high-pitched screams.
    “You’re an asshole! You hate womyn! You hate me!”
    Or perhaps: “You degrade us! You exploit us!”
    Sam’s favorite joke—owing to a recent social studies lesson on the Navajo tribe—was to respond to me with various Navajo-inspired nicknames.
    “Shut-up, Yelling-Stupid-Whore-on-Couch.”
    “DON’T CALL ME THAT, YOU SEXIST PIG!”
    “Fuck you, Dumb-Slut-Red-Hair.”
    In the early stages, our parents’ method for handling an argument was to refuse to get involved. My mother wouldtell us to be quiet or to go outside. So we