My Human Pet Themes

“My Human Pet” is not meant to be just another science fiction romance to be taken at face value, and there are many deeper meanings to it.

*BEWARE OF SPOILERS*

• I begin the story with the words, "Shark attack," because it is more likely you will get eaten by a shark than abducted by aliens.

• Ensley is proud to be a New Yorker because the press and propaganda in the US she has grown up with have told her she should be. The other women treat Ensley badly because she is from New York and acts accordingly living up to every stereotype they have about New Yorkers. If you hate Ensley for her behavior but can't see anything wrong with how the other women treat Ensley in that cage, you are just as prejudiced against anyone not from the place you are from just as all those women are. And that includes Ensley, of course. This does not mean as an author that I don’t like people not from New York. I wrote a character who is prejudiced. And I wrote other characters who had a reaction to her behavior because of what they were told to believe through media propaganda. What they accused each other of were real life examples that I read online. Again if you believe this means I believe these things personally, then you must also believe Stephen King tortures people.

• I purposely did not describe any characters' ethnicity until the aliens came in because I wanted to prove how prejudiced we all are based on where we are from in the first chapter. Once we know the women's ethnicities, it shouldn't change anything except to let readers know that Ensley is the smallest and the weakest among all the women.

• As for language and the question, “How can the aliens be so advanced and not know Ensley is sentient?" Just like in the past on our own planet, there was propaganda that certain ethnicities were less cerebral than others. It was thought by Europeans until the 19th century that many ethnicities could not learn how to read or think complex thoughts. If you read to the end of "My Human Pet," you will realize that Seb figures out that everything he was told about humans is all government propaganda and that humans are no less intelligent than aliens (which is the whole point of the story, from chapter one and the women fighting because of where they are from to humans being seen as pets by aliens. It’s all just propaganda from more important people than Seb or Ensley, molding them into what their governments what them to be. It is the same with the women in the cage. The US has molded us into hating one another based on where we are from, the countryside or the city, the south, north, west coast, Midwest, etc.).

• Half the sex in the book is not supposed to be romantic. It is sex for sex's sake. Primal, animalistic, and physical urges that have nothing to do with how one thinks. The sex in the book only becomes romantic after she and Seb get to know each other better. This was not a mistake.  This was a commentary about women being sexual beings both in and out of romantic relationships.

• When anyone is taken against their will, sold, and still remains a captive, no matter how "comfortable" the circumstances are, they are still slaves because they cannot make their own choices. What becomes confusing for Ensley is that she has fallen in love with her captor and is experiencing Stockholm Syndrome. This is why when she sees Jupiter, she asks how she ever could have doubted that she would want to return home.

  
  

• Seb returning for Ensley with their son is HEA or at least HFN. Especially when Seb tells Ensley that he read her book (which is  literally “My Human Pet”), and it becomes clear readers don't know how much of what is written in this book is true because she says, "sex sells." 

  
  

  AS THE READER, YOU MUST DECIDE WHAT ENSLEY TOLD US WAS THE TRUTH OR NOT?

This is an ongoing question throughout the book: Are the characters even truthful with themselves?

This was a book not just about aliens but about the human condition.

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“My Human Pet” was inspired by biography of Ota Benga which I have a blog about if you are unfamiliar with his tragic story.

Blog about Ota Benga

And more broadly, the book is a commentary on the Golden Records that were sent out with Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 that contain Earth’s galactic address and our biological details. I think it was a mistake to send those out, because throughout our own history, whenever two civilizations have come in contact, and one had significantly less technological, the less technological culture always suffered greatly. And if humans can do that to each other then what will aliens, who are biologically different to humans, do to us? I think, at best, they will make us beloved pets.

Stay away from bright lights in the sky.

Olympia