Who is Donatien?

This blog will generally be written from the perspective of "Donatien". I feel the need to explain who Donatien is, though, so you'll understand why he is so thoroughly awful. To really understand Donatien, though, you'll have to understand Charles, which is the name of the "complete person" behind this blog.

To all outward appearances, Charles is a fairly normal guy in his late thirties. Most people think of him as caring and sensitive, if a little obnoxious occasionally. He could be any man you know--he could be the guy sitting in the cubicle next to yours at work. He could be the guy who smiled at you on the train. He could even be the guy you dated last week. He seems pleasant enough, but there's something in the way he looks at you that both excites and terrifies you. Yet you're reasonably sure he wouldn't harm a fly. Reasonably sure. Hm, maybe you're not quite so sure.

That's because Charles is not alone in his head. Charles shares his head with Donatien. It's misleading to think of it as a dissociated personality, though. Rather, it's as if Charles hears two internal voices at all times--the voice he thinks of as "his", and this malevolent presence. He hears them both nearly all the time.

To give you an example of how this works, say that Charles sees a woman on the train whom he finds attractive. He may reflect upon her physical beauty, maybe make eye contact and smile. He might even let his thoughts wander about how nice it would be to touch her, maybe even to have sex with her. But these are just fleeting thoughts--she is, after all, a woman, a human being, and not a sexual object. Generally, Charles would rather go back to reading his book or listening to his iPod or perhaps thinking about his plans for the evening with one of the women he loves dearly.

That's about the time Donatien pipes up. Usually, the first thing he tells me is, "I wonder what it sounds like when she screams?" Next he thinks of ways that she could be easily restrained--if she is petite, he thinks about how great she would look with her elbows and wrists bound together, maybe her upper arms as well. This would force her to jut out her breasts so that he could roughly knead them in his hands while he thinks of ways to flay them from her body.

He then wonders whether he would have more fun today if he beat her behind black or viciously raped her. Or maybe he wants to beat her feet until they are bloody. Or hit her in the face repeatedly until she loses consciousness. Or pull her hair so hard it comes out at the roots. Or kick her up and down that section of the train. Or grab a pair of pliers and start pulling and twisting her nipples and clitoris until they are rasped and bloodied. After all, she is a woman--not a human being at all, but a sexual object to be taken, restrained, consumed, and destroyed.

And on and on like this for about 60 seconds. That's about how long it takes for Charles to convince him to knock it the fuck off. Donatien finally relents: "You fucking pussy." And then he's silent. Until he sees the next woman. And the next.

While Charles wonders about political issues, social justice, or perhaps an exciting new software technology, Donatien occasionally pipes up with great new methods of torturing a woman. Or maybe he pulls women out of his memory banks and enacts his fantasies on them over and over. Usually both occur. Charles is so used to Donatien "acting out" in his brain that he can often perform other tasks at the same time.

This leads to some pretty hilarious incongruities, such as Charles posting to a political forum standing up with the ideals of feminism while Donatien fantasizes about anally raping feminists while melting their breasts off with a blowtorch. Pretty much a typical day in the life of Charles' head.

Donatien is never allowed to rule the body. He has never been able to act upon these foul urges. He has never been allowed to harm anyone. Charles will never permit this to happen. This is not to say that Donatien doesn't have an outlet--yes, Charles engages in very edgy BDSM play, play that is certainly fueled by Donatien's madness. But don't be confused about this-it's always Charles who is in control. Always.

There have been a couple of close calls. Let me tell you about one of them.

Charles somehow got involved with a hypersexual psychopath in her early twenties about a year ago--we'll call her "S." S got to Charles while he was suffering the loss of another relationship and a host of other mental problems. He was very vulnerable. Donatien could not stand to see Charles show this weakness to such a stupid little girl any longer. He nearly wrested control of the body from Charles. If he had succeeded, S would've had a supremely miserable day. The last day of her life, in fact, and what an awful way to go. After all, no one wants to be found by her boyfriend with clitoris and nipples burned off, her heart stuffed in her vagina, her eyes gouged out and stuffed with rose petals, her entrails strewn throughout the apartment, and her dead kittens stuffed variously in her throat and asshole.

Charles responded to Donatien's offensive by taking 90 grams of lithium. Donatien learned--if he ever pulls a stunt like that again, Charles will kill them both. Fortunately (?), they both survived this.

Charles has been blogging a lot lately. Donatien is sad that Charles gets to do all the writing. Donatien has a lot to say as well, and he couldn't care less about Charles' effete ramblings on social justice and a better, more life-affirming world. Charles is finally tired of listening to Donatien complain about this, so Charles stayed up late one night and gave Donatien his very own email address and blog.

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to Donatien. He has a lot to say. It will be pretty hard to listen to him; doubly so if you are a woman; and triply so if you have suffered at the hands of a man anything like him. I am sorry that men like this exist. I guess I am a man like that, too, though unlike the others, I own the harm that I am capable of and would give up my very life to stop it.

I would give anything if I could "kill" Donatien and live life only as a basically decent man. I fear, however, it's like that silly episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk got involved in a transporter accident and got split into two different people--an agressive, homicidal maniac and very weak but gentle man. I am afraid that there is more to Donatien than his base sexual urges. I think he powers a lot of my strength and passion, as well. As I said in the beginning, he's not truly a dissociated personality.

Donatien, the floor is finally yours. Well, maybe tomorrow, actually, as we both need to sleep. Yes, Donatien is just fine with drifting off to images of women screaming in agony.