Man, for once i want to assume a serious deeper meaning into something the author freely admits he wrote as a reference to masturbation.
I kinda hoped it was about how the culture of machismo Rael grapples with is a cycle of abuse built on filling young men with self-hatred; to admit to emotions and empathy is seen as weakness to be punished until you learn to define yourself (and masculinity in general) through your capacity for violence, both in giving (starting fires, picking fights, and viewing sex as conquest of "sweetest meats...in striped sheets") and receiving (not being respected until he does time in reformatory, "we don't believe in pain, cuz we're only as strong...as the weakest link in the chain."
And so you "cuddle the porcupine": you see yourself as unworthy of comfort (and despise those who possess it, assuming that they "don't think I'm real") and deserving only of pain, you hurt yourself until you can't hurt anymore so that nobody else can hurt you, and you put up this nasty, violent tough-guy front we see throughout the song. And as much as I do not like the reference to r*pe, i don't interpret it as Rael having done so, but rather his fear that remaining gentle and kind and possessing the "fluffy-hearted" capacity for "romantic escape" in such a violent environment leaves you a target for those who have since given up their humanity and want to drag you down to their level.
Problem is, denying your vulnerability doesn't actually stop you from hurting, it merely frustrates your own expression of it, until you wind up disaffected ("this is your mess I'm in, I really don't belong"), angry at the world and lashing out in every direction ("I don't care who I hit...I don't care who I hurt, I don't care who I do wrong) and determined to hurt everyone as badly as you hurt ("you cannot buy protection from the way that I feel.")
And you have no patience for those who lecture you from the outside--"progressive hypocrites who hand out their trash", because they don't know the world you're fighting to survive in; it's yours in the first place, and you'll burn it to ash.
But in the quiet moments, with no one else around to lash out at, you're forced to confront the violence and pain--you chose to cuddle that porcupine and when you wake up covered in bloody pinpricks there's none to blame but you.
[Edit: it's 3 in the morning, i'm bound to make some typos]
Man, for once i want to assume a serious deeper meaning into something the author freely admits he wrote as a reference to masturbation.
I kinda hoped it was about how the culture of machismo Rael grapples with is a cycle of abuse built on filling young men with self-hatred; to admit to emotions and empathy is seen as weakness to be punished until you learn to define yourself (and masculinity in general) through your capacity for violence, both in giving (starting fires, picking fights, and viewing sex as conquest of "sweetest meats...in striped sheets") and receiving (not being respected until he does time in reformatory, "we don't believe in pain, cuz we're only as strong...as the weakest link in the chain."
And so you "cuddle the porcupine": you see yourself as unworthy of comfort (and despise those who possess it, assuming that they "don't think I'm real") and deserving only of pain, you hurt yourself until you can't hurt anymore so that nobody else can hurt you, and you put up this nasty, violent tough-guy front we see throughout the song. And as much as I do not like the reference to r*pe, i don't interpret it as Rael having done so, but rather his fear that remaining gentle and kind and possessing the "fluffy-hearted" capacity for "romantic escape" in such a violent environment leaves you a target for those who have since given up their humanity and want to drag you down to their level.
Problem is, denying your vulnerability doesn't actually stop you from hurting, it merely frustrates your own expression of it, until you wind up disaffected ("this is your mess I'm in, I really don't belong"), angry at the world and lashing out in every direction ("I don't care who I hit...I don't care who I hurt, I don't care who I do wrong) and determined to hurt everyone as badly as you hurt ("you cannot buy protection from the way that I feel.")
And you have no patience for those who lecture you from the outside--"progressive hypocrites who hand out their trash", because they don't know the world you're fighting to survive in; it's yours in the first place, and you'll burn it to ash.
But in the quiet moments, with no one else around to lash out at, you're forced to confront the violence and pain--you chose to cuddle that porcupine and when you wake up covered in bloody pinpricks there's none to blame but you.
[Edit: it's 3 in the morning, i'm bound to make some typos]