Chulhu Sex Report

OK, from a fictional point of view, we know that Lovecraft selected oceanic vermin becuase these things totally disgusted him. They were the most nightmarish and unpalatable things he could imagnie, so he cast his extraterrestrial gods into those forms. Kafka had his roach, Lovecraft had his rats, frogs, and octopus.

However all that being said, we can make a leap of fictional faith and begin to discuss why one of those elldritch god-like minions took the form of an octopus, and if so, what biological characteristics would that being have also adopted. To be "in the world" one must necessarily be "of the world. As an analogy, the Christian faith proclaims that God entered the word in human flesh and was subject to death, pain, and temptation. So, too, might a creature made of dark energy take the form of some earthly critter in order to "sleep and dream".

In Science News of 19 July 2008 we read this pericope*: "Male squid inject females with sperm packages that burst out of her skin to fertilize the egg."

OK, fixate on that mental image for a brief moment. That is natural for squid. No problem. However, when an abberant sea-thing tries to impose its biology upon frail humans, one can only imagine the pain and insanity that would ensue. That, I believe, is the essence of what is Lovecraftian. The imposition of the alien upon the human in order to achieve madness and atrocity.

Buy why?

It points out or frailty. It shows how weak a species we truly are, that it is we who are the vermin upon the Earth. However, knowing Mr. Lovecraft as I now do, I also understand that within the madness and terror, there is a gleam of hope. Lovecraft was not a man of despair and darkness. He enjoyed life, he enjoyed friends, and the reparte of keen minds in word-combat. He left an escape clause. To he who was erudite and learned and understood the full mysteries. To he who was initiated and fully grasped the nature of "the Other", then that individual made the transition. He was now a peer of the eldrtich gods, and walked among them invulnerable of the madness that crushed the weaker of the species.

Still, erupting sperm from flesh is a bit icky.



Science News: Magazine for the Society of Science & the Public, 19 July 2008, Vol. 174, No.2, page 31, book review of The Score: How The Quest For Sex Has Shaped The Modern Man., Faye Flam (of the Philadelphia Inquirer), Avery, 2008, 224 pp., $24.95