Poetry
Taboo
A Piece By: Nyambura
We build fences around our basest shadows,
We draw lines in the dirt and call them civilization.
There are things we do not name in polite company,
Things that sit so far outside the boundary of our humanity
that the stomach turns just to speak them.
Cannibalism.
The consumption of another’s flesh.
A deep, visceral, instinctual no.
We do not have to teach a child not to look at his neighbor and see dinner.
It is hardwired.
Socialized.
Absolute.
But why is the boundary line blurred when it comes to the body’s sanctuary?
Mary Pipher wrote it down,
A blueprint for a shift in the cultural ground:
“Young men need to be socialized in such a way
that rape is as unthinkable to them as cannibalism.”
Let that sink into the marrow of your bones.
Why must we negotiate consent like a legal contract?
Why must we teach “no means no” as if it’s a foreign language,
When it should be as glaringly obvious as a brick wall in the dark?
We need a shift in the soil.
A rewiring of the machinery.
Where taking a body without a soul’s permission
Is viewed with the same exact horror
As tearing into flesh with teeth.
It’s about how we talk in the locker rooms.
It’s about the jokes we let slide in the group chats.
It’s about the passive nods that validate the hunt.
We have to dismantle the myth that desire is a monster that cannot be tamed,
That men are just beasts driven by an untamable flame.
No.
Men are architects.
Men are protectors.
Men are human.
And humans can decide what is sacred.
Imagine a world where the boundary of a woman’s body
Is not a question, not a conquest, not a gray area,
But a holy ground.
An absolute taboo.
So let’s change the curriculum of survival.
Stop telling daughters how to hide, how to shrink, how to dress for the wolf.
Let’s talk to the sons.
Let’s plant the seed so deep within the soil of their character
That the very thought of violation
Evokes the same shudder,
The same sickness,
The same absolute, unquestionable refusal.
Make it unthinkable.
Make it impossible.
Make the peace of a woman
As natural as the air we breathe.
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