Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

by Claire Dederer

In this construction, obsession has a very specific function: to indicate our special status as the most intense appreciator of this particular thing/work/item. It means I am a fan, a superfan, an intergalactic fan, I am verily defined by this thing, it is my personality, it is me, I am it.

My initial list of female monsters was short and the sins had to do, but entirely, with motherhood. To be precise: negligent motherhood. If the male crime is rape, the female crime is the failure to nurture. The abandonment of children is the worst thing a woman can do.

When I was young, I saw it, or rather felt it, like this: pregnancy was the very definition of the death of options.