It is the year 2040. In a gloomy European prison cell, a group of three sex offenders sit chained. They have committed different offences. One has been convicted of sex with a 19 year old girl. They met at a party, and the girl told him she was 22 – one year above the age of consent in the year 2028. He was sentenced to life. He admits he is an ‘ephebophile’ – different to other men – for being attracted to women who look under 21, but he maintains he is a virtuous ephebophile, and that he would never make the same mistake again.
The other two prisoners call themselves ‘Male Sexualists’. They have not broken any sex law, other than blogged years ago about what they described as the creeping insanity of ‘anti-sex’ laws. For that, they were both convicted in the late 2020’s of sex thought crimes and also sentenced to life. One is Eivind Berge, and the other is the Anti-Feminist.
All three prisoners are bound in such a manner that they are forced to constantly stare straight ahead at the dimly lit wall facing them, unaware even of what is taking place around them in the prison cell, let alone the world outside. They have been in that situation for over a decade. The ‘Ephebophile’ has forgotten what the prison cell looks like other than the wall, never mind the world outside. Eivind Berge still vaguely remembers details of the prison cell behind him, but has largely forgotten the outside world. The Anti-Feminist, however, still retains a vivid memory of life outside the prison cell.
Behind them is a fire, which causes shadows to flicker and change shape on the only wall the three inmates can see.
On the floor, in front of the fire, scuttle cockroaches, also known as paedocrites. They cause vague and fleeting shadows to appear on the wall. The ephebophile thinks these are normal people walking in front of them. He wishes he could be like them, but he can’t. He knows he is a bad man, unlike the paedocrites, but if only he could be released from his chains, he would show he can be a virtuous ephebophile. Eivind and the Anti-Feminist both laugh at the ephebophile for being so stupid and submissive.
Larger shadows come into view occasionally on the prison wall. These are the prison guards passing in front of the fire.
The ephebophile thinks these are Gods come to save them. He has vague memories of the feminist judge sentencing him to life without parole, and gloatingly telling him and the court that he is a subhuman paedophile who will get raped repeatedly while incarcerated. Over years of mental deterioration caused by his situation, the ephebophile connects the shadows to feminist Gods, who have omnipotent power over the world – the prison cell – and as Gods are benevolent, will one day save him and other ephebophiles if only they pray fervently enough and prove their virtuous nature to the feminist God.
Eivind realizes that the ephebophile is mistaken. The shadows are not Gods, they are male prison guards. Eivind wishes he could tear the prison guards with his bare hands, but when he attempts to grab them, he finds there is nothing there. He still cannot see that they are merely shadows.
Still, Eivind thinks he has the answer. If only he could enlist the help of the ephebophile, perhaps the combined might of the two of them could reach out and grasp the guard whose dark shape appears to be tauntingly moving right in front of them on the wall?
But no, the ephebophile is furious at Eivind for suggesting he attack the Gods who are their only chance of freedom.
Only the third prisoner – the Anti-Feminist – realizes that the shapes on the wall are not Gods, nor are they actual prison guards, but they are in fact merely the shadows of prison guards. Trying to grab them is, therefore, futile.
Furthermore, not only is the Anti-Feminist the only prisoner who can see that the shapes on the wall are merely shadows, unlike Eivind, he remembers that the prison guards themselves are not the ultimate cause of their life in the prison cell. He recalls that it is the feminists themselves, out in the real world, who are causing their experiences in the prison cell, and that the male prison guards are simply puppets.
Finally, one day, after disturbing dreams, Eivind woke up and realized again that it was the feminists outside the cell, who were the real enemy, the real cause of their captivity.
He turned away from the ephebophile at his side, and he turned away from the shadows on the wall, and he looked at the Anti-Feminist again as his brother, in order to make one final bid for freedom, to escape the prison cell, and to confront the feminists in the outside world with the light of defiant truth once more.
But Eivind remembered he had killed the Anti-Feminist years ago. He had choked him to death in a fit of self-righteous fury when he caught him fapping to a shadow on the wall, that by a trick of the flickering light, bore a very erotic resemblance to the shape of a nubile 17 year old Russian ice skater.
Eivind realized there was no other option left but to side with the ephebophile. The ephebophile was so happy that Eivind had been restored to sanity. He lost no time in finally convincing Eivind that the shadows on the wall were in fact feminist Gods, and that they must bow down and pray before them every day for the rest of their lives in order to reach deliverance and truth in the next world.
A finer analysis is not needed.
In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see.