On Being a Centaur

There’s an old Saturday Night Live skit with Christopher Walken where he’s interviewing a doctor, who’s a centaur, for a job at a hospital. Walken is impressed by his resume, but has some final questions that have to do with centaur stuff. He asks him things like, how they wipe themselves after going to the bathroom, if there’s centaur porn, and whether or not he (Walken) would like it. At the end of the interview, the centaur candidate asks if he got the job and Walken replies that they don’t hire dirty centaurs.

When people find out about my work it can put me (and Hannah) in the position of being like this centaur. Questioners are intrigued and ask questions about perspectives, stories, opinions, etc., but once their curiosity is satiated, it's better for them to maintain a distance. Even if they don’t have any personal negative moral feelings about more liberal ideas regarding nudity, this still happens. And it comes from those that are in relationships more than those that are single.

Some don’t want the guilt of associating with individuals that create things that could be labeled pornography, but I think there’s a bigger factor. Just as many couples don’t want their significant other having friends that are of the opposite sex (in the case of straight couples, but fill in the blank for other dynamics), most don’t want to spend time around people that blur the functional cultural lines of sexuality. Utilizing nakedness for something other than what’s "normal" isn’t worth it for most. And though it may be interesting to see what lies on the fringe of cultural norms, it’s existence is one of pure novelty for the average person. There is no reason why most should change their interaction with it and there are hardly any good arguments for them to do so.

So, when one comes across a centaur, politely asking questions regarding their existence then bidding farewell will inevitably be the status quo.