"The Aztecs sacrificed as hard as we work." Georges Bataille

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"According to the handicap hypothesis, the males with the most striking colors have a good chance with the females simply because they are still alive." Axel Buether

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"Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance." Samuel Johnson

Betrayal of oneself

Everything seems well, but than the connection is suddenly broken. Using a flimsy excuse, Ned cancels the previous evening's appointment in the institute cafeteria via short message service. Persephone is completely shocked. For the first time in three days, the connection on the tightrope of sexual tension is interrupted. Only now does Persephone realize that she was aroused the whole time, even ten minutes after the last orgasm and in her sleep.

The arousal is gone.

Persephone feels stunned, dismantled, hurt, humiliated, finished. She is just a heap of misery. Ned can never make that right again. It's like dropping someone from a great height.

Persephone flees from her depression to the campus cinema, which is also a blessed institution. The students gather easy and familiarly in the screening room. It feels like a tribal gathering. Lots of couples are sprawled in the rows of seats. Persephone envies every single couple. Everyone is chatting, rustling and answering phone calls while "Chroniquesexuells d'un famille au jourdhui" is playing. This is a film for the whole family. A wife and mother are worried about her widowed father-in-law's sexlife. There is something utopian about their inner freedom, and that is what the film is aiming for: a family utopia that takes into account Wilhelm Reich's insight that renunciation of instincts is a betrayal of oneself.

A handsome Slavist named Noah intuitively recognizes the gap in Nora's cover. Predatory and self-confident, he seeks connection. Persephone disguises her helplessness and vulnerability with indignation. Noah offers sex to all kinds of women at any time on his terms, and many consider the mixture of sexual competence and social shyness to be a good offer. At least at first. For Persephone, Noah is out of the question at the moment. But since they have had something together before, they get in touch and again what destroys Nora's desire happens. The unimaginative physicality kills the impulse to manifest. Persephone needs an erotic gem, a scene, an image, something classic, a streak of Renaissance horizon. What she doesn't need is a man who - breathing heavily - wants to bury her under himself.

Something can look like sex and yet be about loneliness, Persephone thinks.

Fisher's Runaway Selection

Charles Darwin believed in an optimizing alliance between female partner choice preferences and male selection pressure. The British statistician and evolutionary theorist Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890 - 1962) took up Darwin's idea of ​​inevitable improvement in order to contradict it. Fisher established sexual preference as a complementary category to natural selection. According to the Sexy Sons Hypothesis, the preference for characteristics leads to the establishment of male-connoted colors and shapes. What is interesting here is the insignificance of a color advantage that is carried forward with all its might in evolutionary processes without improving the survival chances of the trait carriers. Fisher called the curious process the runaway process. In this way, selection disadvantages (such as burdensome feather decorations) are passed on until vital impairments stop the experiment.

"According to the handicap hypothesis, the males with the most striking colors have a good chance with the females simply because they are still alive," says Axel Buether.

Sweet Home Alabama

To continue at another point. While Persephone is spinning the wheel, Ned is sitting in a bar. The "Dixie" had its heyday in the late 1990s, when twenty drug-related deaths a year were the norm in G. Now, in the current state of events, inconspicuous students and unemployed people share it with skinheads, the timeless motorcycle-riding thugs, boozy farmers who come at the weekend, and casual workers who, unlike in big cities, still saw their long hair as a form of protest.

Daniela often stands behind the S-shaped counter. The helmets of her admirers are lined up on the counter. They form a phalanx, behind which the second row emits smoke signals. Daniela knows her business, effortlessly penetrating the wall of admiration. The orders from the front row force Daniela to reach up. To reach for bottles that are placed on a shelf almost out of her reach. The spectacle excludes coincidence, that is what it is all about. As much as boredom is lamented, Daniela's fan club welcomes the eternal recurrence of the same thing.

"Sweet Home Alabama" - a Confederate battle flag is gathering dust in the bar. A Texas battle flag from the Fort Alamo era illustrates a mirrored wall. The front row sees themselves and their helmets in the mirror, listen to the Allman Brother's and ZZ Top. Ned is just as bored as everyone else, but unlike everyone else, he knows Dixieland from his own experience.

Daniela pays more attention to Ned than anyone else. She doesn't know that a Texan is sitting in her territory. Without any outward sign, Ned prevails in a cut-throat competition right at the bar. He takes up more space than anyone else. The way he is sitting there, two people could sit in the front row. It's a provocation. But Ned doesn't offer any opportunity for attack. He enjoys the commotion he is causing. He is sure that he can tear the whole bar apart if necessary. He offers the barmaid a drink. She accepts without hesitation. Ned and Daniela are of the same breed. They are both types who can drive others crazy from a standing start. They drink brotherhood. Daniela's decision to accept Ned leads to general brotherhood. The top dogs want to compete with Ned in arm wrestling and drink liquor, while Ned's smartphone vibrates continuously in his pocket. Ned registers this with grim satisfaction. If he is to be put on a leash, it will be expensive. Has Persephone taken on too much?

We're talking about a strategic retreat. The next moment, Persephone and Ned are reunited. Ned is pretty drunk after a few hours in the bar. Persephone finds this funny. Her relief is boundless. She immediately forgives him everything. The main thing is that Ned is back with her. Doesn't that mean that her power is unbroken?

The two are at the end of their third day of relationship. Finally the question arises: "My place of yours?" They haven't had that yet. The prospect of spending a night together makes Persephone want to discuss the conditions.

She doesn't want to be taken by surprise. She hates it when a drunk man thinks he can use her for a quickie, even when she is in love with him. That should never happen with Ned. He is a giant, the biggest fish Persephone has ever caught, but that doesn't give him the right to become ordinary.

In her mind she explains to him: I need you so much for a good life. I am sure that you are the perfect man for me. But you have to understand that I can no longer love you if you make a mistake on the erotic keyboard. That will always in my head, like an echoing fart of a person who makes me feel sick.

"I'd be happy to invite you to my place," says Persephone, "if you play a game with me before we fall asleep together."

Ned seems absent. Tiredness splits and gnaws the skin around his eyes. Perhaps Persephone is just asking too much for the moment. Doesn't everyone have the right to step out of character now and then?

Persephone lures him. "You love screwing me with your mind's cock. It can't be any better in reality. I'll take you with me if you play by my rules."

Ned comes to his senses. He shakes off the average guy and takes his place in Persephone's life again as a master of manifestation.