Human Sister

up another. “This vaccination will inhibit the binding capacity of sperm to eggs. It should remain effective for about five years.”
    I felt another soft concussion of air against my upper arm.
    Grandpa put the syringes away in a drawer of his desk. From another drawer he took out a large book. In it, he showed me pictures of male and female human bodies in various stages of maturity and explained the transformation of breasts, genitals, and so on from childhood through adulthood. He told me about the physiology of male and female orgasm and concluded, “But making love has about as much to do with penises, vaginas, breasts, hair, and so on, as playing the piano has to do with hammers and strings. Of course, you need hammers and strings and your hammers and strings should be in good working order and well tuned, but real piano playing is about feeling, understanding, and technique. So it is with making love.”
    He leaned back in his chair, and took on a satisfied expression that seemed to say: There, now, you’ve heard it all. Let’s get back to your studies.
    But I was far from satisfied. I loved Grandpa, Grandma, Michael, Elio, and Lily; and all this love had nothing to do with penises, breasts, and hair as far as I was concerned. “Why is sex called ‘making love,’” I asked, “rather than ‘making babies’? I don’t see that love has anything to do with it.”
    “Now you’ve asked a question we can sink our teeth into,” he said, leaning forward again. “There are three main functions of sex: first, it is used to reproduce, one of its rarest and, considering the nearly nine billion people crowding the planet and the abysmal quality of most parenting, arguably one of its most perverse manifestations.
    “Sex is also used to give and receive pleasure and to express love. But you are not yet developed enough to understand such adult pleasure or love.
    “The third category, which is of particular relevance for adolescents, concerns the ability of sexual activity to reprogram the web of beliefs and desires that emerge from synaptic recoding throughout our brains and bodies.”
    “Are you saying,” I interrupted, “that having sex will recode my synapses and change my beliefs and desires?”
    “And your allegiances and whom you love. In a word, yes. Humans are reprogrammed by having sex, especially by early sexual activity. Have you read about Ivan Pavlov?”
    “Yes. He was the scientist who rang a bell just before putting meat powder into dogs’ mouths. After several repetitions, he found a high positive correlation between the ringing of the bell and the dogs’ salivating, even when the meat wasn’t present.”
    “That was his famous classical conditioning experiment. But have you read about his famous accident?”
    “Accident? No.”
    “One spring, a river flooded in St. Petersburg, inundating the basement of Pavlov’s laboratory where some of his dogs were being kept. By the time they were rescued, the terrified dogs were swimming with their noses at the top of their cages. How do you think this traumatic event affected the dogs?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “To his surprise, Pavlov found that the dogs had lost their prior conditioning and had to be retrained. Investigating this phenomenon, Pavlov found that isolation, starvation, or intense sensory stimulation can result in such unlearning. In humans, isolation and sensory overload have been used to destroy individual beliefs and preference structures—by religions, with their singing, dancing, and chanting to exhaustion; by fraternities, sororities, and military groups, with their initiation rights and boot-camp-style indoctrination; by sports teams, with their exercising to exhaustion and incessant harangues by coaches; and by other such groups.
    “But that is the difficult side, the unlearning side. The re-education side, the formation of new beliefs and desires, turns out to be remarkably simple. At the point of overload, the stressed individual will automatically form new preference and belief structures in line with those of whoever releases him or her from the ordeal or whoever offers some kindness during this period of emotional meltdown, even if—now get this—even if the releaser or the offeror of kindness, such as a coach or drill sergeant or police interrogator, is the one responsible for the meltdown in the first place.”
    “That’s called brainwashing, isn’t it?”
    “More commonly, it’s called social