Pussycat


It's always good for a cheap laugh in a BBC comedy when an eccentric old woman calls her cat Miss Pussy, but recent anthropological evidence suggests a deeper connection exists, and that Miss Pussy may not be entirely benign. In a documentary to be aired on the new, "Disney Dark" channel, the controversial theory is put forward that cats altered the brain chemistry of humans through what is called, "Feline Absorption."

I contacted the man behind the documentary, Dr. Yousef Katz.

"Just call me Yousef," he said.

He was a short bulldog of a man, who radiated intelligence. He had bright blue eyes, which didn't seem to fit with the Arabic name. "It's not your real name, is it?" I gave my suspicions some air to breathe.

"I'm a PhD from Harvard," he said. "Why would I use a fake name just to match my eyes."

"The point is your name doesn't match your eyes."

"They're Katz eyes."

"Okay," I said, spreading my hands to signal I didn't want to let my personal feelings to interfere with my objectivity as a reporter. "Just be Yousef. Tell me about pussycats."

"Of course none of this invisible information could have been documented without E.F.R."

"For anybody left in the world who doesn't know that's emotional field recording, which allows you to record the emotional field of the body, which, you argue, can operate in concert with the physical body or, it can act independently of it. Is that correct, Doctor?"

"That's right, Dan. Sometimes the emotional body ventures off on its own, and the physical body doesn't even know its missing ... but rather than tell you about it let me show you some film."

The film sequence was nothing of much consequence. There was a man and a woman sitting on a sofa, and standing in front of them, there was a large grey cat. "Is that Miss Pussy?" I asked.

"Yes it is, Dan. You'll notice how she doesn't just immediately go to him, but stands just out of reach, so that he has to strain a little to get closer, and at first all he does is rub her head with his fingertips."

"Yes, I see that. She's huge. She looks like a raccoon."

"She lives outside with the raccoons, so I think she's learned to impersonate them. They just think she's another raccoon. It's a survival strategy."

"So this isn't an entirely domesticated pussy?"

"No it's not, Dan. You might say she's half civilized and half ... well ... feral shape shifter. Here, watch this. Now, you see, he has managed to coax her closer and she's letting him pet her."

"Now he's really turning attention to her."

"Indeed he is. You notice now he's using technique, as opposed to the absent stroking of the fur."

"He's ruffling that fur, now. Listen to her purr."

"Yes, but now watch this. She's over stimulated."

"Ouch!"

"She got him. Notice how she went onto his hand? She grabbed it with her claws and bit it like it was a rat."

"Now she wants more and he's afraid to give it to her."

"That's right. He's asking himself, 'Is this friendly or feral?'"

"And that's the end of the clip?"

"That's the end of the clip without the addition of the EFR technology. Watch when I add it."

"It makes the bones shine."

"Just wait until ... here, you see how she's arching her back and moving around to get under his hand? That's the beginning of the feline absorption. Look at his hand separate."

Under the EFR we could see what wasn't visible in crude, surface recording. The hand was moving right through the surface of the fur. "She's taking his hand all the way inside her ..."

"Feline absorption. That's the basis of the theory, that cats have been agents of witches. Now, both witches and women start exactly the same way, that is to say, with a "W."

"Why?"

"We're not sure. What we're pretty sure of now is that women brought cats into the home thousands of years ago, to act as their agents. Through cats they have controlled men. Right now we're looking at the probability they did this as a way to counteract the effect of dogs in male sexual behavior."

"Back up a second. How could men be controlled by women through cats?"

"Well, they were teaching the men how to please their pussycat. If they were mean to her she'd just shy away from them, and if they were indifferent to her she'd be indifferent to them. On the other hand if they were too cloying she'd just snub them. But once she got them to pet her the way she wanted to be petted, she'd provide positive reinforcement through purring and body language."

"She makes him feel like an expert?"

"That's right. And the only way to the woman is through her representative on earth, her pussycat. You might say she screens all the calls for the decider. There. Look at what happens to his hand while he's stroking her fur."

"I can't believe his whole hand disappeared right through the fur. She just absorbed it?"

"She just absorbed his emotional body's hand right inside her and he didn't even have a clue."

"That was when she got over stimulated? Whoa. There it is again."

"It was a preemptive strike to hold on to the hand. I mean, that's real blood coming out of those scratch marks."

"That's a case for devouring love being violent, but I'm not sure you've advanced much of a case for cats altering the brain chemistry of humans."

He ignored my skepticism and concentrated on the film. "Now, this next scene is crucial. Why does the cat leave at this moment?"

He backed up the frames and played them forward a few times, but I couldn't see why the cat decided to jump off the couch, other than that the woman seemed to smile at it. I pointed that out, along with my doubt that it could be more than coincidence. "It's no coincidence," Yousef said. "My eyes being blue, that's a coincidence. But the effect of the smile on the pussycat is not a coincidence. It was like the star telling the opening act it's time for them to leave the stage, and thanks for warming up the crowd."

"Whoa. I didn't expect that."

"These are creative individuals."

"I heard that."

"She teaches him to respond to her pleasure."

"But then her attacking the hand that's petting her doesn't entirely make sense, does it?"

"That's an instinctual thing. The why is built in and you can't separate it from the action."

Dr. Katz documents how cats are controlled by women, and explores why, in popular culture, they can be called pussies without any negative connotation. As he states in the summation, "The origin of the word, pussy, originally meant females in general, and at that time it was not separated from a female cat. They were all pussies.

"Then the word became slightly derogatory, as it concentrated on the feminine in any form as inferior. Perhaps pussy is redeemable. Perhaps not. That's for the pinheads at lexicography to argue. What's important is the revelation that a pussycat is a satellite of a woman, witchy or otherwise, like an iPod is a satellite of a Big Mac."

Posted: Mon - March 5, 2007 at 03:08 PM