Blood Child

Blood Child freaked me out soooo much. I'm so glad that we read it though and it was especially fun to talk about it in class. The parallel's between the male view of a woman's body and feminism, and all of the crazy links that could be made with that story are incredible. It actually made me laugh to think about how the author just really didn't like buds and this was her interpretation of that, but how readers could take it as far as saying it's a reverse of the male and female role, that ACTUALLY isn't that big of a jump.

The group I was in had a great discussion about what we would do if we were in the boys situation and if that would be acceptable to us, as well as our views of human babies and if we felt the same way. Three of the four of us interestingly felt that having a human baby growing inside of us would be not much different than having the larva of the alien race grow inside of us. Granted one seems a lot more painful and horrible than the other. We all agreed that it would be unbearable to be a 'host' to this alien species.

I found myself drawing what I thought the aliens would look like, and when showing my group oddly enough Cassidy's mental image and mine were very similar but Emily and Miranda's were different. Cassidy and myself pictured them as graceful, snake like beings with a scorpion tail where Emily and Miranda pictured them as something like a large slug or worm. It makes me wonder even though I have this 'prettier' version of the aliens in my head, how would appearances affect my reaction to them? If they looked the same as humans would there be any real difference? It was more the idea of something foreign and ugly thing feeding off of my body that I didn't like. Babies are genetically combined to be an embodiment of the parents so combined so that wouldn't be near as bad as having a blood drinking slug in me.

Pitted against survival I think a lot of races would do whatever it takes to continue their species. If humans could no longer breed and artificial insemination was the only way we could possibly do it, then I think that the human race would become a lot more like a breeding farm where resources (like the humans) would be coveted. I really do like that side of the story where parallels can be made and it wouldn't be that different from a possible future to what earth may be eventually facing.

I give this story a 9/10 for horrible creepiness and thought provoking questions.