Octavia Butler’s Dawn introduces a new world that is both terrifying and different from the world that we know. Additionally, her novel introduces Oankali, an alien-like species that saved what was left of humanity from starvation after a nuclear war. Throughout the book we get to know more and more about Oankali and what their intentions with the human race are. So what do we know at the end of Dawn, the first book in Butler’s Lilith’s Brood Trilogy? All humans are bonded to their ooloi, an Oankali with no gender, but the ability to manipulate genes. The full effects of this are not fully known yet, I don’t think. However, it is very strange that human couples are, for a lack of a better term, repulsed by each other after they have been bonded with their ooloi. One of the things that concerns me the most in this narrative is the issue of consent, especially when it comes to intercourse-like interactions involving humans, but somehow also involving Oankali.
I want to start at some of the first signs of sexual tones that I noticed in the text, and that starts in Part II, Chapter 8 of Dawn. Lilith meets her first human, Paul Titus. Nikanj says “Maybe you’ll want to stay here awhile” (Butler, 94) when Lilith asks if they will need the train to get back, implying that she may want to sleep with him. I thought this was weird, because although it’s framed as though it’s up to her, it also sounds like the Oankali set up this meeting for something that Lilith didn’t want. Out of the entire conversation between Paul and Lilith, when Paul says “They don’t teach for free! They didn’t save us out of kindness! It’s all trade with them” (Butler, 102) it caught my attention immediately. Here’s a human who’s been awake for years, knows far more than Lilith, and is definitely trying to send her some kind of warning. At this point in the text, the alarm bells are ringing, but the Oankali, so far, seem to be acting in good faith. I’ll save my words; the rest of Lilith’s encounter with Paul Titus is not pleasant.
In the jump from Part II to Part III, two years have passed. It is apparent from context clues that Lilith has been having some kind of intercourse with Nikanj and Nikanj’s Oankali mates. Although there are several, notably “Do you think it would help if he saw a demonstration?” (Butler, 177) from Nikanj to Lilith during a conversation about the ooloi’s sex organs. Although this is weird, it is seemingly consensual. However, the concern lies at the end of chapter six when Nikanj simulates (again, for lack of a better term) sex between Joseph and Lilith without the two of them even having sex. In chapter eight, when they finally awaken at least 40 people, and all the ooloi claim their people, Nikanj invites Lilith and Joseph to intercourse, again. “I left you no choice the first time” (Butler, 213) is what Nikanj says to Joseph, before offering him the choice. “He understood now. ‘No!’ he said sharply. ‘Not again.’” (Butler, 213) Joseph clearly states he is uninterested in sex with Nikanj, and that he is only interested in sex with Lilith, and Lilith alone. Nikanj continues to seduce a chemical reaction from his body for “consent,” and has sex with him anyways!
This is where the problem of consent gets sticky, and was pretty debatable in class. To this point we have been led to believe that the Oankali know humans very well. They saved them 250 years ago, and supposedly know everything about them, culture, biological, historical, etc,. I think they should know enough about them to understand the concept of verbal consent. They should understand the taboo of intercourse or intimacy on the level that Nikanj is practicing without firstly achieving verbal consent. Of course, we all have desires, and we can see that Joseph is not completely opposed to the idea on a physical level. However, as Professor McCoy noted, it is our right to refuse those desires, and I believe that in this case, Nikanj is sexually assaulting Joseph. So, maybe the Oankali miss the bits on verbal consent in human culture. Odd, but possible. However, the Oankali saw what happened with Lilith and Paul Titus, and how she reacted to the potential-rape when she came to afterwards. So, we also talked about how the Oankali are traders, they trade genes. To my understanding, from reading only the first book in the trilogy, they are hoping to make human-oankali babies. Is there not a way to do this in a way that is consensual? If they can put humans to sleep and keep them from aging and dying whenever they want, why not use that to their advantage, so they are not (essentially) sexually assaulting humans? I think it’s because they don’t know what they’re doing is sexual assault for humans. To them, what they feel from their human bodies is the only communication necessary. If the Oankali understood them better, would they still arouse them without verbal consent? Although this interaction between Lilith, Nikanj, and Joseph was very uncomfortable and terrifying in the big picture, it wasn’t until each of the new awakened humans was matched with their ooloi that I started to see this violation of human rights on a wide-scale. It felt like each time I turned the page, something more terrifying was uncovered about the Oankali’s true intentions. Finally, at the end of the book, after Joseph is killed by angry humans, Nikanj reveals that it has made Lilith pregnant with Joseph’s baby, but also Nikanj’s baby. So, Dawn ends with the revelation of Lilith’s human-Oankali hybrid baby, and also that Lilith won’t be going to earth with all of the people we just met. She’s back to square one, and pregnant with a baby she does not want to have. I know that Octavia Butler is known for setting traps for her authors, so I really am trying to stay open-minded and curious about how this issue of consent is going to unravel throughout the next two books.