Not You

Not You 

The short story "Bloodchild", by Octavia E. Butler, explores the complexity of the relationship between Gan and T'Gatoi.  T'Gatoi is a Tlic, which is a powerful kind of creature who needs to implant its eggs in another living creature in order to reproduce. Gan is a Terran, which are the Tlic's favorite vessels. The relationship between their two species was influenced by decades of conflict, violence, revenge, and efforts towards peace. "Bloodchild", however, focuses less on the history of these conflicts and more on the relationship between the two individuals. We learn that T'Gatoi was implanted in and born from Gan's father, that Gan's mother and T'Gatoi were friends when they were growing up, and that Gan's mother had promised T'Gatoi one of her children. Gan was, "first caged within T'Gatoi's many limbs only three minutes after my birth." (Butler 3) Gan and T'Gatoi's lives are complexly woven together, but their relationship is heavily complicated by the power dynamics of their two species.  

The Tlic are larger and stronger, and able to sting the Terran to death. They are also the ones who govern their shared society and gave themselves the right to use Terran children as incubators. The main weapon the Terran have against the Tlic is firearms, which are now banned. It’s clear that having guns wasn’t enough to shift the power balance on a societal scale, as we learn that entire Terran families were, “wiped out in reprisal back during the assassinations.” (Butler 5) But, within the relationship between Gan and T’Gatoi, a single rifle is enough to completely upend the balance of power. When Gan threatens to shoot himself, T’Gatoi offers to use Gan’s sister as a host instead of Gan. The entirety of “Bloodchild” is a navigation through the various ways that the balance or imbalance of power can affect people’s lives, and the ways those people can change the balance.  

For me, being in a relationship with a straight, neurotypical man brought up similar issues, of power on both macro and micro scales. As I mentioned in my first essay, we both had similar amounts of race and class privilege. In terms of gender, sexuality, and mental health, however, society privileged his identities over mine. No matter how either of us behaved within our relationship, those facts weren’t going to change. In all fairness, the vast majority of the time, the gap in our levels of privilege was a non-issue. In the relationship itself, we were on more or less equal footing. But, when issues of gender, sexuality, or mental health came up, we were forced to confront the difficult topic of what it means to have a power imbalance that was out of our control. 

There was one instance, in particular, where it suddenly became apparent to me that we were standing on opposite sides of a power divide. We were walking side-by-side in downtown Chicago, when a man drove by and shouted something obscene about my appearance that I would prefer not to repeat. I had been catcalled before, but I wasn’t mentally prepared for it to happen in that moment, so I became visibly upset. My boyfriend, however, seemed confused about why it had bothered me at all. He didn’t understand how it could have hurt me, especially since, as he pointed out, it was technically a compliment. He joked that he wished people would shout nice things at him from cars. In that moment, I was incredibly frustrated. I didn’t know why he was failing to grasp something that seemed beyond obvious to me. 

Once I calmed down a bit, I explained to him how being catcalled like that makes me feel objectified and violated, not complimented. I talked about how it doesn’t always stop at words, how it’s part of a larger culture in which men sometimes follow you for blocks, touch you without your consent, and feel like they’re entitled to your body just because you’re a woman in a world where that’s a very dangerous thing to be. He listened to what I had to say and apologized, saying he had never really given it much thought. I can remember thinking that it must be such a privilege to have never had to give it much thought.  

There were other times, when he would comment on whether he found some actress attractive or when he would call someone suffering from mental illness “crazy”, when I wondered how he could say something like that while still caring about me. When he would tell me that I wasn’t like the other girls, I had to tell him that I wasn’t special, that if he didn’t like the other girls then he didn’t like me. In a less dramatic way, it felt like the exchange between Gan and T’Gotoi, when Gan tells her that he “’doesn’t want to be a host animal … not even yours.’” (Butler 13) Even though balanced relationships can exist between individuals with different levels of privilege, there will always be tension. If it isn’t addressed, it reaches the point that it reached between Gan and T’Gatoi, with Gan holding a gun to his head and T’Gatoi threatening to use his sister instead of him.  

For my boyfriend and I, it took moments where the gap between our levels of privilege was made obvious before I actually addressed it, and even that didn’t meant that the issue went away. It can be incredibly difficult to try to have a balanced relationship when one of you has more power than the other right from the beginning. In some cases, the power imbalance may be so great, that it is almost impossible for things to remain fair. As long as the Tlic continue to have control over the lives of the Terran, even a relatively kind relationship, like between a young Gan and T’Gatoi, can be overshadowed in an instant when things become hostile and T’Gatoi decides to exert her power. As long as we live in a society with institutionalized prejudice, there will always be inherently imbalanced relationships. But they are only made worse by failing to acknowledge them. And if the relationship does not have space for open discussions on how privilege plays a role in your lives, then those differences may never be reconciled. Gan, at the beginning of the story, accepts it as a fact of life that T’Gatoi gets to use either him or one of his siblings to incubate her eggs. There was no discussion until he saw T’Gatoi cut open Lomas, and realized what she was capable of doing to people like him. People are more than their identities, but some situations, those identities are the determining factor for if you’ll be the victim or the aggressor. In the end, navigating a relationship like this requires a willingness to do as T’Gatoi does in the end, when, “She stood between us and her own people, protecting, interweaving.” (Butler 16) Interweaving is difficult, but it is possible, and above all, necessary. 

References

Butler, O. E. (1995). Bloodchild and Other Stories. New York City: Four Walls, Eight Windows.

Pinsky, E. L. (2016). June Jordan Response (Unpublished essay). Bryn Mawr.