"peeing as a means to reevaluate the spaces I find myself in—to make them my own"

The author has much in common with the alley cat and dog.

A comfortable society always breeds deviancy. Deviancy is an outlet for the mentally maladjusted to compensate for a sophisticated, pressure-laden societal framework.

MA is right that there will always be those who exploit deviancy for financial rewards. When fashion convinced women and young girls to pierce their navels en masse, like some aboriginal sticking bamboo under their skin to create scarring which attracts fellow aborigines, one wonders how far removed humanity is from the animal kingdom.

The truth is disturbing, because the answer is humanity is only one step removed from the mindless beasts we eat, the sheep we shear and the lemmings we are mystified by. Vast masses of humanity can be considered sheeplike. Others have just enough intelligence to try and remove themselves from the sheep but not enough to direct their efforts into constructive or productive outlets.

When orgies became commonplace in Rome, new and ever more deviant outlets for sexual gratification emerged. In the internet age we watch deviancy glorified, packaged and marketed to ever larger audiences.

Humans have two major conflicting drives - the desire to be unique and the desire to fit in. That these two are completely incompatible are lost on most folks. So we have Goths. Not just one Goth mind you, but tens of thousands of them all convinced of their own defiance of the norm and yet conforming to another norm - completely defeating their purpose and neither being unique, or defiant. They simply throw on a different cloak of conformity. All the young girls getting piercings are doing the same thing on a smaller scale - trying to be different to fit in.

It would be funny, were it not so sad.

The deviant need their deviancy to compensate. It's an escape mechanism extraordinaire. It allows them a form of psychological shelter from a world they simultaneously fear, envy and ultimately fail to understand.

When deviancy becomes mainstream it is an indicator that the standard of living has already risen to such an extent that the masses are removed from spending their time and efforts on survival. Deviancy generally originates in the midst of great wealth.

So capitalism is to blame. Life is too easy for some folks who are not intelligent enough to use their providence for better ends. Such a book would not prosper under a Marxian societal framework or in a poor nation. Its market can easily be identified as middle class to wealthy deviants who share the same level of unintelligence.

Prosperity is not without pitfalls. Fortunately deviancy wears thin and the deviant thrill of today becomes boring tomorrow and must be replaced with some other form of deviancy - until such a time as these same folks realize they are participating in an endless stream of child-like psychological escape mechanisms.