So, what's all this fuss about bisexuality? Consider the happily hermaphroditic earthworm, and other such natural wonders of polymorphous permissivity. If they exist in nature, can they be wrong? Will the moral mud-slingers now besmirch the lowly earthworm?
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Long ago, I worked for a nature and science museum, and raised live earthworms for an exhibit on city ecology. Exhilarated at the time, I proclaimed:
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I am the Mother of Earthworms! One thousand red wigglers, sent special handling from a worm farm in Flemington, N.J.
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A 10-inch carton arrives, packed with brown sawdust, marked "WORMS." But where are the worms, I ask, testing the soil for a telltale squirm. He's swindled me out of $6, I swear to no one in particular.
Suddenly my hand strikes pay dirt – a slimy sphere of worms clinging to each other. A whole universe of worms, not just a fishhook full, to face my secret fears.
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I scavenge through dumps for discarded orange crates to build Worm City. I make them at home in a mixture of sheep dung, peat moss and potting soil.
I imagine worms to be the most romantic of species. They have four hearts. They are hermaphroditic. They sink stones and help seeds sprout. They must have orgies in their subterranean tunnels of love, I see so many egg-cases, small pebbly and shaped like a lemon.
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I am the mother of earthworms. I have touched a thousand and lived. Their four hearts beat in unison. They are content. Have you ever seen a worm smile? From end to end.
Such self-sufficiency!
I repeat, why the brouhaha about bisexuality?
Today I think about earthworms, when I decide to set up my newly arrived DVD player. Of course, I encounter inner resistance. More useless complexity to fill my head with. As a single woman, wouldn't I really rather have a man do it? A man with the "electronics gene"?
Ain't no such animal.
In this new century of ours, I am both woman, and man. I must be, for survival's sake:
- Doing minor home repairs.
- Taking out the garbage.
- Teetering on a ladder to prune errant tendrils of ivy.
- Hooking up electronic devices.
- Installing new software.
- Making restaurant reservations.
- Asking for the check. And paying it.
- Reconciling the checkbook.
- Paying bills.
- Learning new computer programs.
- Dealing with the tax accountant.
- Finding my way to and from places.
- Leaving when I want to.
- Mastering the security intricacies of post-terror airline travel.
- Increasing my homeowners insurance deductible.
- Deciding what movie or music to see, what vacation to take.
- Figuring out how that bleeping 25-speed bicycle works.
All by myself.
I read the manuals. I make the mistakes. And then I correct them. No one yells at me. No one feels superior. No one makes me cry or calls me stupid. No one blames me if the souffle falls. No one complains if dinner is late, or if there is no dinner at all. No one belittles my choice of music. No one condescends about my primitive sound system. No one's furious about crumbs in bed. No one minds if the cat sneaks under the covers.
Who among you care what my genitals do? Whose business is that? What difference does it make? How dare you. Life is not just lived two-by-two into the Ark. I am different from you. So are the earthworms. Deal with it.
