From: Dagmawi
To: Seble
Subject: I respond to your Secondary Plunge with a Tertiary Parry

Dear Seble,

Far be it from me to hold you back from planning a much-needed vacation. I am actually envious --- I truly feel a vacation is called for myself.

I just came back from spending an obscene amount of time in the mother country, so I do get a few raised eyebrows when I mention the fact that I am in need of a vacation from those people in the know (I believe that that is a Pavlovian response --- ABET QINAT!) Honestly, though, all of that joie-de-vivre and enthusiasm that I had accumulated during my travels has totally evaporated. Hence, my need for an extended vacation, and my morbid fascination with sexual crime profilers (actually, there is no connection but I needed a segue.....)

The book I mentioned (The Evil That Men Do) is a little outside of my normal reading genre, but it has turned out to be quite a good read (if I may be so bold as to appeal to your prurient sense of curiosity, do pick up a copy). While at times a bit graphic and disturbing, it is an excellent collection of case studies. One resounding take-away --- nearly all (but one)sexual crimes are committed by white males. The only exception (at least that is known of) was the character in Atlanta who kidnapped and killed 30+ young black boys.

The morbid fascination that I have had with the book has primarily been from the perspective of an objective third-party observer (trust me...) --- What drives an individual to such depths of depravity? Is it more of a socio-economic adaptation, or is it a vestige of our more savage, prehistoric existence? I am totally lost when I attempt to put these psychopaths' actions in the context of my own upbringing and culture (and, I assume, yours). I have yet to hear about an Ethiopian sexual deviant of this magnitude --- Christ, we have serious reservations about fellatio, let alone S&M, sexual asphyxia, sexual mutilation, hard-core fetishes, etc. (If you have any insight on this anomaly, please share...)

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate and salute an individual's right to experiment, but some of these characters really cross the boundary. What are your thoughts on the subject???

By the by, I apologize if this turned out a bit heavier than you expected. I was taking a break from doing some financial analysis at work, and my mind was in a pent-up state. I hope I haven't scared you off --- my impression was that you would be the sort to retaliate in full!

Regards.

Dagmawi

From: Seble
To: Dagmawi
Subject: Is the fourth prodding the charm?

Dagmawi--

I was in the middle of reading an inexcusably dreary work-related document, so, trust me, your treatise on sexual deviants was a welcome distraction--- although, I am not sure if it was a twinge of disappointment or relief that I felt when you mentioned that this kinda reading is "outside of [your] normal reading genre". :) The problem with a lot of us is that we don't venture out of our intellectual shells, so, bravo.

Coincidentally, Dagmawi, I have been recently asking myself questions like "how much evil am I capable of?" (You and me, Dagi… we thrust to the same music.) I have been thinking about this in the Ethiopian context-yes, my upbringing. A relative of mine is doing a bio on one of the more famous revolutionaries of 1974, and some of the tidbits she has uncovered about this man have been sending her into spirals of depression and shock. Seemingly, he was from a normal background-- decent education, cute wife, cuter children-but then the pebbled path of a conventional life capriciously (or is it?) breaks into this 6-lane highway of murder and mayhem. How? Why?

Dagmawi, when all's said and done, do I have the potential to buy into the same evil franchise? Sweet little me? Do you? Sweet little you. What exigency could trigger it? Poverty? Politics? Love? Obsession? Survival? Revenge?

Granted, I might not have the wherewithal to hack off anyone's extremities-if for naught, the CHewa in me might leave a note of apology on the victim's bed, "Sorry I went a little off kilter about hacking off more than a decorous length of your wrist. No hard feelings, I am sure you know. Cocktails tomorrow at 7? Love, Seble."-- but I wonder if the little every-day cruelties we immunize ourselves against do not furtively plant seeds of deeper depravity in our souls, and eventually someone will write about us, and we end up in someone's lap on a flight to Dallas being read about in morbid fascination.

Hmm. I just hope it's a nice lap.

Or, is evil and the potential to be evil an affliction of those who are weak, therefore, and thereby preemptively exempting those of us who believe we are strong?

…"When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak." - Eric Hoffer

I like that better.

"I have yet to hear about an Ethiopian sexual deviant of this magnitude…" I have. All the men and women in the motherland who mutilate their little girls by circumcising them… all the fallout of baby girls being wed off and left to labor 3-4 days alone while their premature, 11-year old wombs refuse to oblige… the honor associated with meTelfing a girl child… the innumerable cases of rape we take for granted. It's just that no one has written about them… yet.

Dag… I need a back rub.

Seble.

p.s. I love the way you say, "cordially yours". I have not heard that in a while. Pedigreed?

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