One of Us

 One of Us

Anatomy Matters:

• It influences the assumptions people make on the basis of our anatomies
• It limits and effects what we can experience in any given context
• Anatomically based rules help to maintain order

Anatomical Normalization

• Most of us go through minor normalization procedures every day- change body to fit the identity we want to present socially
• But some things cannot be normalized
• IMPOSITION of normalization on children by adult
• Form of pity
• Pity silences the receiver of it
• Child’s anatomy is changed to fit the social context (desired)

Conjoined Twins and the notion of Individuality

• Trapped in such a way that makes a normal happy life impossible
• Usually they feel that they are perfectly normal
• Intentionally “sacrifice” one conjoined twin to save another
• What is the CULTURAL CONTEXT in which parents and doctors make these decisions about surgery
• Expose the SOCIALLY TENUOUS NATURE of all human anatomies and raise the question of who should count as NORMAL
• INTERSEXED CHILDREN: goal-make them look and cat like normal boys and girls
• Assumptions: none could be happy. Would be cruel to leave them like that 
• (but many inter-sexed people disagree and feel mutilated and robbed after such operations)

LIMITS OF INDIVIDUALITY

• Singletons see conjoinment as a “fleshy prison” which limits individuality and freedom.
• Makes public a physical intimacy that should be private (like breastfeeding)

Bunker Twins (Siamese) Chang & Ang

• Could have been separated today
• Led normal lives with wives and children
• Doctors of the day felt they had a certain RIGHT to their bodies
• Separation is necessary for the development of a healthy SOCIAL BODY (reaffirms social norms…there are ONLY women & men!) 
• More worried about interracial marriage thatn marriage to conjoined twins

Hilton Sisters:
click here

Types of Con-joinment

• PARASITIC TWINS
• May be unaware of this if it ceases to develop embryonically
• May be fully realized but not “alive” or without a head
• FACTS
• Unusual occurrence, but happens with some regularity
• 2/3 are women
• 40% are stillborn
• 35 % dies within one day because of profound medical problems
• Viable conjoined twins are very rare
• What the body DOES:
• Two people who can never eat, defecate, have sexual relations, or any other privacy defies imagination
• One withdrawals and stays emotionally distant during the other’s sex
• Individuality in American culture
• Individualism=independence
• Interdependence=weakness
• You must show yourself to be different, separate, unique, and distinguishable from all others
• We don’t even like when twins dress the same way (creepy)
• Does NOT mean being integrated into a community as it does in many traditional societies
• American story is the struggle against the system for individual rights

MONEY IS AVAILABLE FOR SEPARATION SURGERY, BUT NOT FOR RESOURCES TO LIVE AS CONJOINED TWINS!

Hensel twins

• Work out explicit negotiations about every day to day task.
• Model in cooperation
• Think of themselves as individuals
• Speak of themselves in the first person or as proper noun

DECISIONS TO SEPARATE

• Seen as a purely medical issue
• Need of a cure regardless of their medical (health) condition
• Parent’s psychology:
• Think of teasing
• See it as a reflection of their imperfections
• Imagining what all their lives will be like
• Part of the grieving process absent the birth of a normal child
• KNOW how to PARENT a normal child…surgical reconstruction will do this
• Give them a normal (sex) life
• When Normalization works
• Reduces shame
• Can achieve heroism
• Always left with abnormalities and often lives of repeated surgery and medical problems.
• Case where one twin was assigned as a boy, and one as a girl

Exotic and Aggrandized: Conjoined Twins

Jerry Springer and the Schappell Twins (in comparison to the Hensel Twins) HERE

• freak show?
• presentation?
• why is this ok?