Consideration | God of the Sea, a Web of Desire

Tauba Auerbach. “Extended Object (detail)” (2018). Private collection, New York. © Tauba Auerbach. Photo: Steven Probert. Courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

I’ve always admired spiders. As a toddler i would circle our subdivision with my 阿姨 (Āyí·)—auntie, term of endearment for nannies—collecting arachnids into a glass jar I kept by my nightstand. Watching the spinning of a web was magical, tugging inner threads to weave something wholly external. Scientists now understand the web is an extension of the spider’s mind. The pattern is a physical manifestation of cognition. Spiders weave webs to understand and commune with the outside world, to problem solve, to eat. The shape of a web is not fixed—it is relative to the environment. The spider communicates with it, the same way your subconscious communicates with the ego—to make necessary adjustments for survival.  

One evening, running down the stairs to give my older brother a gift of my latest discovery—a massive orb weaver with yellow and black stripes along its abdomen—I reached the final step, and I tripped on my untied shoelaces. The jar flew from my hands and shattered onto the floor. The brigade of spiders skittered across the floor like shadows, disappearing into the crevices of the living room. My brother told on me. That night my dad walked into my bedroom with a rubber paddle and beat me until my entire backside was covered in purple and blue splotches. 

I was nine when I spun my first web. My obsession with spiders was replaced by Greek mythology. Poseidon was my favorite. For reasons I couldn’t articulate, I was mesmerized by the pictures in my World History textbook. Sometimes I would spend hours just staring at different representations of the deity. The way the veins of his arm bulged, gripping his trident, the strong barrel chest and perked nipples, the wild masculinity of his long beard, the ripped abs, the pelvic bones jutting out of the lazy tunic covering his groin. As a Christmas gift one year, my brother and I were given a laptop to be shared between the two of us—the same brother who tried in vain to chase my spiders out the living room. On a particularly innocuous day, while surfing on the laptop, I started browsing images of Poseidon. 

Google search: statue of Poseidon

I skimmed over all the familiar images. From the back of my mind, there was a curious voice that wondered what was under the tunic.

Google search: statue of Poseidon but with no underwear

The sculpture “Boxer at Rest” from the Hellenistic period popped up. Sweat collected at my palms, my heart beat elated steadily. I typed another query into the search bar, hesitated a moment, then pressed enter.

Google search: statue of Poseidon naked

An infuriating, intoxicating itch tick-tocked its way into my crotch. Each image I clicked through, the feeling grew tenfold. I felt dirty and exhilarated all at once. After clicking on a particularly salacious sculpture, under the “related images” tab, there was a hentai rendering of Poseidon. Growing up with a fundamentalist pastor as a father, I had never seen a naked body other than my own, let alone porn. And there it was—a poorly drawn caricature of Poseidon sprawled out on a beach front, with a trident shoved far up his ass. My belly churned with nausea, but I couldn’t look away. The picture was deeply disturbing and confusing to my prepubescent brain, but I kept trying to understand what exactly I was looking at. 

“Yo, Oli, I need my computer back.” my brother shouted from the bottom of the staircase. Fuck. I scrambled to close the window but the page was frozen, the cursor replaced with the multicolored spinning pinwheel. We still lived in China then—the internet was censored by the “Great Firewall,” which meant your browsing history was highly surveilled. If the server noticed any “unsavory” activity—pornography included—the computer was flagged and blocked from any WiFi connection. The only solution was a hard reset of the laptop. But my brother was already halfway up the stairs. My head was dizzy, my stomach churned like car sickness. The door knob turned. God must be punishing me for my sins. 

The door swung open. “I said I need my laptop back, what’s taking you so long?” I heard his voice but received the words in slow motion. 

Please God, if you get me out of this, I’ll never look at Poseidon’s dick again.

He stepped towards me, and in a moment of divine intervention, the browser shut down as he yanked the computer from my lap. I darted out of the room and locked myself into the broom closet, hyperventilating as tears stung my face. Ten painstaking minutes passed, then I heard my brother shout across the hall, “What did you do to my computer?”

In a moment of brutal clarity, I had a choice—he was bound to see the search history and realize the source of the glitch. Getting caught searching porn was one thing, getting caught searching gay porn would be irrevocably dangerous. At that moment, I was certain my core was rotten with demons. I gathered my breath. Determined to keep my possession private, I spun my first web. I left the broom closet and gently opened the door to my brother’s room.

He side-eyed me. 

“Why did you google naked statues of Poseidon?”

“We’re studying Michelangelo.” 

Unlike me, my brother hated school—he’d already repeated two different grades. Thinking quickly, I knew that if I spun as many threads as possible, he’d get stuck in the web.

“Our assignment is to look at different sculptures in history.”

The suspicion hadn’t left his eyes yet.

“So, I’m comparing Poseidon to the Statue of David.”

“But why were you searching for naked pictures?”

“Cause the Statue of David is naked.”

“No it’s not.”

“Do you even know what the Statue of David is?”

He paused, then resigned himself. 

“You’re such a dork. Get out of my room.”

For the next nine years, the louder my desires, the more elaborate the webs became. As with spiders, spinning requires isolation. It can be lonely, even if necessary. The problem is that after a while, you find yourself entangled. No longer a refuge, they are private prisons. Now I am twenty-three, and I can google Greek Mythology hentai at my own discretion. But I’m still tugging at threads.