all different kinds of fucked-up

this semester i'm taking a 5000-level course in japanese literature. so far we've covered a lot of ground. watashi no genji monogatari, aoi no ue, hotaru, kouittenron. right now we're in the middle of oyayubi p, and let me tell you, oyayubi p is hands-down the most fucked-up story (it's actually a book, but we're only reading select chapters from it) i've ever read. not that i actively seek out fucked-up books or stories or what have you. but i've read chuck palahniuk's guts, a short story about masturbation gone wrong. unspeakably wrong. i read the majority of it, at least. i had to stop at the part where the main character and narrator plants his bare ass square on an underwater pool filter in order to get off. there is nothing a horny teenaged boy won't do to get off, i've found. but anyway, at one point he attempts to swim to the surface for air and the pool filter sucks his colon right out and he's forced to bite through his own intestine to free himself.

guts is fucked-up, no question. but it's fucked-up because it's disgusting, whereas oyayubi p is fucked-up for an entirely different reason. translated from japanese, oyayubi p means "big toe p," and p stands for "penis." it's a novel about a grown woman whose big toe suddenly and inexplicably turns into a penis. she dreams about it one night and wakes up to find out that her big toe has in fact turned into a penis. i'm going to translate a paragraph or two of her dream into english. i'm at a loss as to how to explain it in my own words.

"'even in dreams there's feeling, right? even just holding my toe-penis in my hand - how can i describe it? - felt good. tickling it and lightly touching it felt good. as i started stroking it my toe-penis expanded and got hard, and the pleasure got more intense, and i could feel the climax coming on in my chest. but -' kazumi's voice got low. 'i climaxed sooner than i thought i would. and it wasn't like i hoped it would be. as soon as the pleasure and heat quickly radiated throughout my body, my toe-penis went soft. i was disappointed. i mumbled to myself, "what is this? is this all a man's orgasm is?" then i woke up.'"

needless to say, the author of oyayubi p is a woman, and no doubt caught up in gender studies and feminism at its most radical.

"one day, at a conference attended soley by women, one woman asked as a discussion question, 'if you were a man for a day, what would you do?' i [kazumi] remember that haruko [kazumi's best friend who committed suicide like a week prior] instantly replied, 'i'd castrate [myself]!'"

this is the kind of woman who adopts "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" as her motto. this is the kind of woman who writes in her online blog that mimi smartypants is "unwilling to take on the unfeminist task of childbearing" (and to be perfectly honest, i don't even know what that means). this is the kind of woman who is, as far as i'm concerned, batshit insane.

on a completely unrelated note (or perhaps a completely related note), for a mere 690 pounds you could be the proud owner of a portable "rectal examination trainer", complete with 5 interchangeable prostates and carrying case!