Conjoined Twins

The story of the Hilton sisters was very interesting to read because their experience paralleled and differed to other stories of conjoined twins. In my bioethics class last semester we read a very good book, “One of Us,” by Alice Dreger.

In the U.S. individualism often translates into independence and strength whereas interdependence suggests fragility and weakness (i.e. mother and baby relationship). So in a situation where two people—two conscious minds—are sharing one body, it’s often portrayed as a form of entrapment, forever dependent on one another. However, this is not the case in conjoined twins—they too feel as though they are independent individuals.

A very clear example of this is Abigail and Brittany Hensel who are dicephalic conjoined twins. The girls have never required extensive medical care and are highly encouraged to express their individuality in terms of tastes and hobbies. They’ve learned to swim and ride a bicycle. What these girls make clear is that conjoinment, which interrupts our concepts and structure of individuality, does not automatically result in attenuated individual development.

There have been many references to psychological literature in order to justify attempts at separation. The thought is that conjoinment intolerably limited one’s life. However, this is not the case with most conjoined twins who often reject the risky operation since it would result in the death of one or both twins and a drastic change in their identity which appears to be two-fold; they see themselves as individuals but also as part of a whole.

This contrasts the Hilton sisters where even in the newspapers their individuality was never questions, but celebrated, even before they could speak. Their anatomy was celebrated and exploited. Not once were they pressured to separate (at the time the surgery would have resulted in the death of both) nor was Mary Hilton blamed for not encouraging them to separate. The ethical implications of separation surgeries complicated and multifaceted.

“One of Us” also explores separation surgery where physicians sacrifice one twin in order to save the other. Whether it be to further ones career (i.e. the surgeon’s) or for good intentions, sacrifice surgeries are morally problematic because of the implications for other procedures such as assisted suicide and organ donations. One case mentioned is that of Rosie and Gracie Attard. In short, Gracie was keeping both alive because Rosie had a heart that was not able to sustain life. Gracie brain was also underdeveloped, which resulted in cognitive impairments. The surgery was proposed as an attempt to save Grace’s life and if not done, both would eventually die. The outcome of this case reveals medicine’s thoughts on who is allowed a right to life. While the reason for the separation was due to Rosie’s heart, it easy to speculate that Gracie was granted a greater degree of right to life due to other reasons, namely physical and cognitive abilities.

There are several key issues that these sacrifice surgeries bring up. One of them is that in the medical community, personhood appears to rely on being able bodied, cognitively competent, and being a singleton. Seen in this way it is easy to see why the physicians advocated so persistently for the surgery. The apparent success of separation surgeries, such as Rosie’s case, will influence decisions more strongly than the deaths of those being sacrificed. 

Oregon Trail & The Oatmans

The Oatman tale lends a jolting perspective to the trip west to California. My limited exposure to history contributed to my shock at the journey's difficulty. My most recent exposure to this portion of history (besides Mifflin's novel) is from an Oregon Trail emulator, which is hardly representative of emigrants' difficulties. (I bet families that had made the trek would be furious to learn a game was created about the journey, trivializing the starvation and death many of them faced as they made their way west.)

"You have died of dysentery."

The striking aspect of this story to me was how it parallels that of Aurora Mardiganian, an Armenian genocide survivor. My friend, a PhD student in rhetoric, summarized her story to me, and reading The Blue Tattoo recalled aspects of her story.

Olive Oatman

Aurora Mardiganian

Similarly to Olive, Aurora was attacked and watched her family die around her then captured and forced to walked 1,400 miles where she was sold into slavery. She escaped, eventually seeking refuge in the United States with the help of the American Committee for Armenian and Assyrian Relief and the Near East Relief.

While in New York, a screenwriter named Harvey Gates picked up her story and sensationalized it, spreading the narrative across the country. For two years, her tragedy captivated audiences and generated lots of revenue before the public turned elsewhere for entertainment. Aurora suffered lasting psychological trauma and depression decades after the attack. She lived until the 1990s, when she died in a nursing home and was cremated and buried with in a cemetery with over 2000 people, name unmarked.

These two stories highlight the exploitation of the women described. In both cases, women endured a heart-wrenching tragedy and were then exploited by enterprising writers for a profit. Their clothing in the pictures above emphasize their exoticism and the media focused on religious narratives in the story. The nation was mesmerized by their stories, but as they got older, married and moved out of the limelight, they were all but forgotten and died alone.

While reading about these stories, I couldn't help but feel sorry for both these women. For Olive, my pity arose from her being taken away from her homeland with the Mohaves and flung into a life of show business. I felt bad for both when learning about their eventual fates, lonely and depressed.

I was hoping to wrap up this blog post with something inspiring to end on a happier note, but quite frankly I don't know of anything good to write about these to biographies. These women suffered tragedy and then public exploitation before finally being ignored through suffering and death. The exploitation of these women were wrong, and I can only hope that the propagandized retelling of real tragedies like theirs is stopped.

Modified Bodies and Extraordinary Bodies from Birth

This week, I was most interested by the remarkable story of the Hilton sisters. From a combination of coincidence and curiosity, I've watched and read several stories about conjoined twins: the documentary "The Twins Who Share a Body" about real-life twins Abby and Brittany Hensel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K57IcN9DWXo), and the excellent novel "Girls," about fictional conjoined twins Ruby and Rose (http://www.amazon.com/Girls-Novel-Lori-Lansens/dp/0316066346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424551772&sr=1-1&keywords=the+girls).

So far in class, we've discussed (obviously) body modification and the people who, from custom or individual choice, have modified their bodies in ways that often attract attention. But it's fascinating to consider the experience of people whose bodies attract the same interest but who never chose to create extraordinary bodies. People with naturally extraordinary bodies, including conjoined twins, have often ended up working in freakshows. Others, like Abby and Brittany Hensel, have succeeded in moving through the stages if their lives (school, chores, career) in sync with their peers. People like conjoined twins, whose bodies inevitably attract attention whether they profit from it or not, meet many of the same reactions as subjects of body modification, from mere staring to lurid interest. In that way, studying the cases of medical "freaks" can reveal many of the same truths about culture and society as studying people who modify their bodies.

It's extremely timely for us in this class that this season of "American Horror Story" takes place in a freak show. I've only watched the first two episodes of this program due to lack of time, but the show seems to take a nuanced approach to the idea of freakery, telling the stories of characters who chose to participate in the freak show as well as those who are coerced into it. But even more interesting, for many, are the YouTube interviews with the actors in the show, all of whom, except the fictional conjoined twins, have the same physical conditions as their characters (there's minimal CGI at work in the show). Some of the actors embrace the experience of working in a freak show and reclaim the term "freak" as one of empowerment. Others still struggle to deal with reactions to their bodies. The interviews, some of which I've linked below, are well worth watching for those interested in the modern experience of people born with extraordinary bodies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2zR0vgESBo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIrWu85JXKA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EDBas7srMQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtJawr3ZG8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asvYF-KLs-k

Stigmatization of Body Modification

Stigmatization of Body Modification

The life of Olive Oatman really sticks out to me in representing how body modification can be used for cultural reasons or branding. In the tribe she was taken by females had these blue facial tattoos. Yes, she agreed to it, but in the situation Olive Oatman did not really have another choice. It is hard to say if she was truly unhappy because she was adapting in order to survive in her given circumstances. In some ways the tattoo helped her be more similar to those of the Native American Indians.

However, all of this happened after she watched her family be brutally murdered. So in the back of her mind, there must have been some discomfort with her new life. I sew the tattoo as an agreement to fit into the society and adapt, rather than an autonomous decision. This relates to the tattoos on those of forced prostitution rings. It is hard to imagine that something we see as an art, can also have devastating consequences. Tattoos that are given to mark culture can be commonplace and necessary in certain societies, which is okay when that is a culture of ones choosing. However, in the case of forced prostitution and in Oatman’s life the tattoo is a mark of ownership (the Native Americans owed her the prostitution lords own the girls).

This made me realize body modification can be an art that is used to enhance one’s self emotionally or physically. People get tattoos for a variety of reasons. However, there is also a long history of the tattoos role in dehumanization.

For Oatman, she could not live a normal life after she was “rescued” because the U.S. culture regarded her as a victim and a freak. They might have pitied her or found her story interesting, but they did not accept her or treat her as they would anyone else. I think this strikes a chord for me because it really hit me that after the Holocaust things may have been similar. Victims of the concentration camps were tattooed (there no one tried to say the tattoos were done willingly), but it also did not let them fit into society when they were liberated. It is like once branded, a person has a new identity in these situations. Once a person get a strange tattoo or brand like Holocaust numbers or Oatman’s facial tattoo they are regarded as victims. They can no longer live in society as a strong independent person because people view them as victims, or freak. I have a lot of empathy and sadness about the situation.

Jaycee Lee Dugard: The Modern Olive Oatman

I’m going to take a different approach to this topic. Instead of reacting to Olive’s story I’d like to compare what happened to her to something of a similar nature that happened quite recently. I’m sure most, if not all, of you have heard the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard. Dugard was kidnapped at the age of 11 and held captive by her abductors, Phillip and Nancy Garrido, for eighteen years. Similarly to Oatman, Dugard was taken against her will and forced to assimilate. She was renamed Allissa, and realized that her captors wished to fill a child shaped void in their life. Like the Mohave people, the Garridos wanted Dugard to be one of them. Dugard’s name “Allissa” was the equivalent to Oatman’s facial tattoo, it showed that she was no longer her old self, and one of them. They told her countless times that her family didn’t love her and didn’t want her back. These falsities, combined with the immense loneliness she experienced, eventually convinced Dugard to cooperate with her captors. Like Oatman, Dugard saw no chance of being rescued, and thus assimilated. In her memoir, A Stolen Life, published in 2011, Dugard wrote, “ask yourself… what would you do to stay alive?”[1]           

            While reading The Blue Tattoo, I couldn’t help but think about the similarities between Oatman’s and Dugard’s stories. In addition to their ages and length of their captivities, their lives after being rescued are quite similar as well. As we discussed in class, Oatman was “rescued” and then thrust into the spotlight, seen as a celebrity of sorts. Similarly, Dugard’s story almost instantly became headline news. Published in People magazine, broadcasted on the news networks, discussed in her memoir, Dugard became a household name. I believe the only differences in their stories, besides the fact that Oatman’s face was tattooed, are because Oatman lived over 150 years ago.  Regardless of the era in which it occurred, both women became public figures, known by many, and publicly retold their story in depth numerous times.

            Both Dugard’s and Oatman’s stories share many components. The period in which it happened and the permanence of their scares may be different, but both women became other people during their captivity. For Dugard she became Allissa Garrido, and for Oatman she became a Mohave. In the end their experiences are shockingly similar, I would even go as far as calling Dugard, the modern Olive Oatman.

---

[1] Dugard, Jaycee Lee. A Stolen Life: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print.

The Tragedy of the Blue Tattoo

First, I would like to express my extreme sadness and empathy for Olive Oatman and her brothers and sisters and for their suffering. This is such a tragic story. Imagine your entire family being killed,  being taken into slavery, your only surviving family member dying of starvation, and after finally being accepted into a culture and creating a life for yourself with a husband and children, to be taken from this life and forced back into "normal society" as a victim and as a freak. Everything about this story makes me hurt. It reminds me of a novel I read when I was younger and really interested in historical fiction. It chronicled the story of a young quaker girl taken captive by local Native Americans who was assimilated into their culture. At the end when she was "rescued" she was so torn, worried that her husband was killed in the raid, and ultimately had a hard time adjusting back to her old life. Now, I am sure that this novel was partially inspired by the Olive Oatman story.

I think the tragedy of this story is the lack of agency she has on her entire story. She was unable to make decisions about her travel across the west. She was sold into slavery. And even though the tattoo may not have been forced onto her, we have to ask questions about whether she really had a decision about the tattoo or was it such a cultural mark that, like foot-binding, it was a necessity to fit into society. She had little agency over her rescue and her return to U.S. society left her with hardly any decisions as well.

Though this tattoo may not seem so shocking today, this marking and , perhaps her story, made her a freak in 19th century Morman America. What were her choices as she arrived back into this society? She could never be normal. I think its important to reflect on this experience and to reflect on what we see today as "freakery" in society. We should attempt to reconsider this position until we understand anothers experience and attempt to place it outside of our time frame.

Age Limit on Plastic Surgeries?

Hello Everyone!

Like I have said before in class, and other posts, I think that people should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies. However, I had always made that statement with the implication that people should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies, as long as they are of legal age. I had never even considered before that people, primarily talking about teenage girls, were getting breast augmentation, nose jobs, and other surgeries of the like.

When I was a teenager, especially in high school, I was highly insecure about my body: my breasts were too small, my thighs were too big, I was too tall, I weighed too much, I still had baby fat, etc. As I've gotten older, I've become much more secure about my body shape. (Not to say that I'm not still insecure about some things, but it has gotten a lot better.) I now feel confident with my smaller breasts. I am more confident now, and care less about what other people think.

Keeping this in mind, I was horrified to learn that normal (beautiful) teenage girls were getting breast augmentation and nose jobs because they felt self conscious about their bodies. I can't really fault them for wanting to feel better about themselves, but I can fault the parents for not knowing better. Their parents should have had the insight to realize that they might grow out of hating their nose/breasts when they actually become an adult and get perspective on the world.

I know that if I had gotten plastic surgery when I was a teen, (not that I had ever wanted to), I would regret it now.

In these cases, I think the parents and the doctors should be held responsible, and at least put an 18+ age limit on these surgeries. (With the exception of the extreme cases of disfiguring injury or health-impeding bodily afflictions.)

-Erika