Similarly, the sex between aliens and humans may not be “rape” in the traditional sense, but is disturbingly coercive. He says to her, in tellingly impersonal language, that he “ know who they mixed the stuff with.” Paul Titus, for example, morosely informs Lilith that he has never had sex but has fathered over 70 children with unknown human women, possibly his own relatives (incest is not a taboo within the Oankali community). Before they awaken humans on the ship, the aliens make imprints of their genetic code (which allows them to clone any human they would like) and, in some cases, take their actual genetic material and create countless offspring through surrogacy. While the Oankali never technically rape, another common tool of colonialism, but they depersonalize and objectify human bodies in more abstract, creative ways. That being said, the trilogy never fulfills the simplistic “humans fail to justify their own existence” trope. When two construct children are sold into a relatively prosperous human community, a contingent of humans attempts to cut off their sensory tentacles-an extremely painful, permanently debilitating, and potentially fatal act comparable to female genital mutilation. They routinely rape, pillage, murder, and commit all manner of violent transgressions even the relatively kindhearted humans condone kidnapping and selling hybrid (or “construct”) Oankali children on the black market. Meanwhile, the humans are often portrayed as comparatively primitive and cruel, especially after they are returned to Earth. By all accounts, Oankali never resort to violent rape, they don’t kill (or even harm) any living being unless absolutely necessary, and they live in a fully environmentally sustainable manner. Throughout the novel, Butler complicates the traditional dystopian victimization narrative by portraying the Oankali as-in a certain sense-more peaceful and “civilized” than the humans they are subjugating. What could they expect, she asks, when they deprived him of contact with other members of his kind, violated his mind and body, and treated him like an animal until he acted like one? As she puts it, Paul has never had anyone to “teach him to be a man.” They are then horrified when Paul violently tries to rape Lilith, and then beats her within an inch of her life, all while she pleads with him not to “make self their dog.” After the Oankali heal her, she never blames Paul, but rather places the blame squarely on the aliens’ shoulders. The Oankali tell Paul, a severely emotionally arrested man who still acts like a child, that he will be able to have sex with Lilith (because they simply assume that she will be amenable). Paul has been awake for longer than Lilith, and has been living in an Oankali family since he was fourteen years old. The most pivotal figure in Butler’s colonialism allegory is arguably Paul Titus, the first man Lilith sees after she awakens on the ship. In that context, any “choice” the humans have to resist the will of the Oankali is mostly illusory. Even if the humans were able to escape back to Earth, the Oankali have destroyed all remnants of human civilization for the sake of a “fresh start” (a clear parallel to real-life heritage destruction which has been perpetrated by colonialist conquerors throughout history and is considered a form of cultural genocide). Under the guise of kindness, the Oankali have taken complete control over the humans: they keep the remaining humans captive on their ship, put them to sleep if they become too difficult to control, keep them in isolation until they are within an inch of their sanity. However, “consent” becomes an increasingly muddied concept as the novel goes on. Lilith immediately becomes afraid that they will rape her, or remove her eggs without her permission, but they assure her, “No Oankali will touch you without your consent.” A black American woman, Lilith Iyapo, awakes among frightening aliens called “Oankali,” who offer humanity a devil’s bargain: they will “save” humanity from extinction by taking human DNA, blending it with their own, and creating a stronger hybrid species. By associating the violation of oppressed bodies with the erasure of a culture, Spencer demonstrates that one of the greatest evils of colonialism is the collective loss of agency that can reverberate for generations to come.Īt the start of the first book, Dawn (which will soon be adapted into an HBO series), humanity is decimated, and Earth has been all but destroyed by nuclear war. Butler’s sci-fi trilogy which presents an extended allegory for colonialism that is inextricably tied to rape and other types of nonconsensual sex. What is the meaning of consent within an oppressive culture? This question lies at the heart of Lilith’s Brood, Octavia E.
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