I managed to create a system for my annotations that my brain can comprehend but it might look crazy to everyone else, which often happens. I thoroughly enjoyed chapter 1 of Merepeople compared to the introduction. At the beginning of the chapter, I enjoyed the small story just showing how weak men are about keeping their emotions in check that a carving is bringing out these human natural emotions. The hypersexualization of the mermaid and his hunger / temptation makes it uncomfortable from an outsider point of view that isn’t a desperate man. I was uncomfortable with the narration while reading it, just the objectification was wild and had me cringing about how this man was acting! Unhinged deacon at its finest. I wonder if there are texts out there about a woman having sexual desire for a triton..? But, considering that Christianity and their leaders were trying their hardest to denigrate femininity, I wouldn’t be surprised that it was destroyed or hidden deep. Later in the chapter on page.51, the details were clear on how tritons were perceived, which was more conservative than their counterpart. I had this thought that popped up during our lecture this past Tuesday, that since mermaids are a reflection of humans.. Creating the narrative around mermaids is a soapbox for Christian leaders to passively ruin femininity. An indirect way of criticising women and their feminine attributes. If the church is on a mission to ruin femininity, why isn’t it a sin considering that Mother Mary is a woman too? And my last question that has been bothering me is that on page.40, why would scholars assume “vagina” as another meaning for the fish held by the mermaid? I don’t understand the reasoning for this metaphor. Like the mirror/comb, vanity, but what does the dang fish mean? 

This is how I sum up my takeaway from this week’s reading: in the name of “goodness”, there is plenty of evil doing.