Why does the removal of the appendix seem mostly inconsequential,
leaving nothing but a small scar on my belly and a pat on the shoulder
—well done, you—while a simple orchiectomy leaves me branded
as a eunuch? In an overpopulated world, why are we still so obsessed
with procreation? Blaming the selfish gene seems a bit pathetic, doesn’t it?
After all, it was only going to take another hundred years of fine writing
and hard thinking to cure us of prejudice, and that was said two centuries ago
about our feelings for spiders—the milk of human kindness was the phrase,
if memory serves—when here we are talking about our brethren.
The problem is that it’s hard to expect milk from breasts made of marble
or silicone gel.