Conjoined Twins In Katherine Dunn's Geek Love

whenever I talked to him. Whenever he came around, she’d cut her voltage way back and stayed quiet. She wanted me to go ahead and love” (Dunn 280). This is just part of the entangled life of conjoined twins that Katherine Dunn describes in her novel Geek Love. Conjoined twins live every second of their lives as one, which immediately provokes questions about not only intimacy, but more centrally, identity and personhood. Are conjoined twins separate people? Should they be separated when medically possible? Current science and mainstream thinking categorizes conjoined twins as their own individuals primarily because they have separate cognitive abilities, the medical community characterizes them as such, and it has become society’s status quo.

If this is personhood, then a conjoined twin may be denied true personhood and hence separation is justifiable. However, these qualities are not linked solely with the body. For example, if someone loses feeling or control of a limb one day they wouldn’t be any less a person even though they no longer have ownership over a body part. Additionally, the rights and authority over your own body are non-existent as baby and child. Is this to say that babies and children lack personhood? Such a statement probably sounds blasphemous to parents. Even more narrow, people’ bodies, and thus their authority over them, are tied to decisions other people make. For instance, if someone decided to smoke or pollute the air it may cause lung disease for someone else despite a right held over your body, or if a contagious disease is spread by other people’s lack of cleanliness other people may face the consequences of it despite an authority and right over their body. Are these statements to entail that the lack of complete authority of your body means everyone lacks personhood? Certainly not, ownership, rights, and authority over your body do not define personhood for non-conjoined people so neither should they for conjoined twins. Consequently, conjoined twins are not denied personhood by the nature of being

However, this model is neglectful of conjoined twins’ capabilities to live a fulfilling life. Conjoined twins are two separate people that happen to share the same body, and are equally subject to the limitations that non-conjoined people face. Furthermore, unnecessary separation may be mental and physically detrimental for one or both twins. Generally, separation is harmful, close-minded, and denies the proven ability of conjoined