Notes on conjoined twins
July 27th 2010 05:36
Abigail and Brittany Hensel (1990-)
Freaks interest as curiosities, as scientifically and phenomenally new, but also as raising, inevitably, the question of what life is like from that position, and is there anything to take from there for our own beliefs and ways of doing things?
* What is it like to that extent to share the same environment, history, bodily sensations with another person? What is it like to share the most intimate experiences -- sometimes including, especially in cases of single organs, excretory and sexual functions? What is it like jointly to own an arm, and to fight for control of it, or to be responsible for just one arm? What is it like to coordinate, virtually telepathically, in typing an e-mail, kicking a soccer ball, eating a hamburger?
What is it like to rely on another person to that extent, or to that extent to have expectations from another?
* I've heard one wit remark, "Wouldn't it suck if you were straight and your twin was gay?"
The challenge to ideas about sex as private -- the growing into sexuality, the act itself, the sensations.
To speak of conjoined twins is to speak of their sex lives. But the reasons for interest seem to go beyond prurience to symbolism.
"My fascination with conjoined twins is rooted in their literal embodiment of our desire to connect with others and not be alone. But the flip side of that desire is also one of our deepest anxieties -- that we will never be alone. Never be completely autonomous. Never be free." -- Noria Jablonski, interview by Tara McCarthy, Friday 26 January 2007
* Are you still your own person? Are you still your self? -- What is a self, given such a scenario?
* Do you feel pity and relief upon seeing a conjoined twin? Do you feel horror? -- What do you discover about your own assumptions and dispositions?
* Do such cases challenge one's ideas about God, souls, a just universe, morality?
* Do they challenge ideas about what it is to be human?
***
Millie and Christine McCoy, born 1851, died of tuberculosis on 8 October 1912
* "Dasha became very depressed and tried to kill herself several times. When that didn’t work, she turned to alcohol. Although she was the one who was drinking, it was Masha who died of heart failure in 2003. Dasha had the option to receive medical care from doctors, but she refused it and was instead given a sleeping pill. She died about 17 hours later."
-- Stacy, "Seven Famous Sets of Conjoined Twins", Neatorama , 29 May 2008
Daisy and Violet Hilton (1908-1969)
On January 4, 1969, after they failed to report to work, their boss called the police. The twins were found dead in their home due to the Hong Kong Flu. According to forensics, Daisy died first, with Violet dying perhaps 2–4 days later."
-- Wikipedia
Chang and Eng Bunker (1811–1874)
NARRATOR: What puzzled doctors at the autopsy is why Eng had also died, even though he’d been in perfect health.
JOHN TEMPLETON: It’s clear when you go back to the records from the embalmer what really happened. Chang, who died first, his body was totally suffused in blood whereas Eng’s body had very little blood left in it and it’s clear that they shared blood across that band, even if it was a narrow band, they shared perhaps a small percentage of their cardiac output, their blood flow from one to the other. When Chang died Eng continued to pump his own blood into Chang, but there was no way that Chang could return blood to Eng, so what really happened is that Eng bled to death. If anybody had just taken a strong rope and tied it tightly on the band between them the haemorrhage would have stopped and he would have survived."
-- "Conjoined Twins", BBC2, Thursday 19 October 2000
***
Some more quotes from that BBC program:
-- "DASHA KRIVOSHLYAPOVA: We’d never agree to such an operation. We just don’t need it.
MASHA KRIVOSHLYAPOVA: Even when we were little we didn’t want that. We are a little collective. We share our grief and our tears."
-- "ALICE DREGER: Conjoined twins tend to grow into a body that they’re born with, the same way the rest of us do and so they’re born into this body joined and they will develop an understanding of their lives as joined."
-- "ALICE DREGER: The notion was that this was a moral outrage, that if you had two conjoined twins getting married that meant that you’d essentially be sanctioning group sex. What that fails to understand is that conjoined twins when they have sex they always describe it as having sex one on one, that is the other conjoined twin who’s in the bed with them simply zones out and pays attention to something else."
-- "ALICE DREGER: A lot of conjoined twins can’t make a living today. They can’t be hired because people don’t want to hire them and you have the flip side that they can’t exhibit themselves because people think that, that’s distasteful. The irony is that a lot of people with unusual anatomies today do exhibit themselves for money and these are people with unusually beautiful anatomies, these are people who we think it’s perfectly fine to have them exhibit themselves to make profit. We don’t see that as prurient or pitiful."
***
Some more extracts from the interview with Noria Jablonski by Tara McCarthy (Friday 26 January 2007). Both are authors of tales involving conjoined twins.
-- Noria Jablonski: "[Y]ou describe the narrator Sloan's 'unhealthy fascination with Siamese twins' as a child: she simulates being conjoined by tying herself to her sister with a wool scarf; she glues a pair of Ken dolls together; she builds Siamese snowmen; she stands sideways up against a mirror, fantasizing about having a conjoined twin."
-- Tara McCarthy: "As for our cultural fascination and revulsion I think it's because conjoinedness goes against our primal instincts. I suddenly have a lot of friend [sic] with babies and small children and it's clear from simple observation that we're born selfish. We need to be taught to share at a very young age -- otherwise it's all 'mine mine mine.' And we're also wired to assert our independence very early on. So being conjoined challenges everything we know about our own socialization. And of course sex is that most primal of instincts and the idea of having to have a witness to sex goes against a lot of the generally accepted views. If that witness is a sibling, you run right up against the incest taboo."
-- Tara McCarthy: "In another story, 'One of Us,' we're put in the point of view of formerly conjoined twin Hassan, as he struggles with the widening gap of experience between him and his brother Hussein. Hassan can't even remember being conjoined and yet he can't help but wonder -- longingly even -- what life would be like if they'd never been separated."
-- Tara McCarthy: "Like most living conjoined twins who are old enough to have an opinion on themselves, they say they're happy they weren't separated. But I think there must be an extraordinary amount of self-delusion required to live contentedly as a conjoined twin. Then again, maybe there's just an extraordinary level of self-delusion required to live happily as a human being."
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