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Unequal Intimacy: Power and Play of Pet MakingDominance
and affection are two sides of the same coin in the making of pets.
Tuan,
Y. F. (1984). Dominance and affection: The making of pets. Yale University
Press.Sources:https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300102086/dominance-and-affection/https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n07/judith-shklar/thinking-about-bonsai-treeshttps://www.forbes.com/advisor/pet-insurance/pet-ownership-statistics/#sources_sectionhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2024.106140Human
society is increasingly urbanized. On one hand, relationships between people
are primarily secondary, based on increasingly specialized divisions of labor,
resulting in brief and superficial interactions with little emotional
investment. On the other hand, urban residents generally lack experiences with
farm animals and wild animals, yet they harbor deep affection for pets.
Worldwide, both the proportion of households that own pets and the number of
pets are on the rise.According
to a study based on a sample survey of six Chinese cities, approximately 21.6%
of urban households in China own pets. There are over 91.49 million cats and
dogs kept as pets in Chinese cities. According to a survey by the American Pet
Products Association, in 2024, 66% of American households (86.9 million
households) own pets. Among them, dogs are the most popular pets, followed by
cats, and then freshwater fish. In 2022, Americans spent $136.8 billion on
pets, with the average annual cost of owning a dog being $1,533. Forty-two
percent of dog owners and 43% of cat owners purchase pets from stores, while
38% of dog owners and 40% of cat owners adopt pets from animal shelters or
rescue organizations. Ninety-seven percent of pet owners consider their pets to
be part of their family. Many cat owners refer to themselves as "cat
slaves" or "poop scoopers."The
relationship between humans and pets is not solely based on love; there is a
more important aspect of dominance and control. Although owners love their
pets, they will not hesitate to abandon them when they cause trouble. A 1976
study in the United States estimated that nearly 15% of all canine animals are
killed in kennels or animal shelters each year. Most Americans only keep pet
dogs for two years or less. The 1964 book "Man meets dog" noted that
the average age of pet dogs in California was only 4.4 years, with the majority
being under three years old. Pet dogs receive good care, but they rarely spend
their old age at home: they are euthanized long before reaching old age. A 2003
report, " Companion Animal Demographics in the United States,"
indicated that the average age of pet dogs in American households was 6.6
years, and pet cats averaged 6.4 years. Seventy percent of dog owners have had
their dogs spayed or neutered, and 82% of cat owners have had their cats spayed
or neutered. Regardless of how much owners love their pets, they feel little or
no guilt about having them spayed or neutered.How
have humans turned animals into pets? In Dominance and Affection: The Making of
Pets, Yi-Fu Tuan discusses how humans have tamed and controlled both inorganic
and organic nature (including plants, animals, and other humans) to turn them
into pets. The relationship between humans and pets reflects a spectrum of
dynamics: dominance and affection, love and abuse, cruelty and kindness.
Dominance and affection are two sides of the same coin in the making of pets.“Affection
is not the opposite of dominance; rather it is dominance's anodyne—it is dominance
with a human face. Dominance may be cruel and exploitative, with no hint of
affection in it. What it produces is the victim. On the other hand, dominance
may be combined with affection, and what it produces is the pet.”Tuan’s book
builds upon the classic question in human geography, “Man's
role in changing the face of the earth” and narrows it
to “man’s role in in the making of pets”. The book weaves together various themes, including trimming
vegetation, practicing horticulture, designing gardens, building fountains,
breeding and feeding pets, slavery, eunuchs, children, and women. The common
thread among these themes is power and dominance. In each of these subjects,
power and dominance manifest differently: some are innocent or even beneficial,
others are brutal and cruel, yet most are a mixture of necessity and moral
ambiguity.The
book focuses more heavily on the "power and dominance" aspect. It
explores the psychology of “playful domination”—a specific use of power that results in the creation of pets. In
Tuan’s broader definition, pets are not limited to
animals; they include inorganic nature, such as water; plants, such as potted
plants; gardens and landscapes; and even humans, such as slaves, dwarfs,
eunuchs, children, and women. Anything in the environment that humans can
change through effort can be coerced and abused. The term
"environment" in the book refers to both nature (climate, terrain,
plants, and animals) and human-made spaces, as well as other people. Power can
reduce humans to a form of living nature, allowing them to be exploited for
economic purposes or, condescendingly, treated as pets.This
book draws on a wide range of sources, spanning across history, citing numerous
examples that describe how the strong reshape and torment the weak in various
ways, even as they claim to care for them. Whether it involves inanimate
nature, plants, animals, or other humans, the strong exert their will—such
as twisting plants into unnatural shapes or forcing animals to behave contrary
to their instincts. Despite the fact that plants, animals, and human subjects
seem to have their own will, the joy of power lies in making these wills submit
to one’s own.Yi-Fu
Tuan traces the making of pets back to humanity’s efforts to modify and
conquer nature. He cited Cicero, "We are absolute masters of what the
earth produces. We enjoy the mountains and the plains. The rivers are ours. We
sow the seeds and plant the trees. We fertilize the earth. We stop, direct, and
turn the rivers; in short, by our hands and various operations in this world we
endeavor to make it as it were another nature."When
we view the beauty of a man-made landscape, we tend to forget that it was often
initiated as an exercise in power; in the case of Louis XIV’s
Versailles, for example, 30,000 soldiers had to labor day and night to bring
water to the arid palace grounds. In the same way, the creation of topiary art
and bonsai can be viewed in a dual light: as a playful, pleasurable activity or
as a deliberate reminder of our ability to command and impose. Our relationship with animals is another
vivid example of our inclination to control. Tuan contends that cruelty to animals is extremely widespread: breeding
animals for aesthetic purpose and training them to perform are not only favored
hobbies but examples of delight in willful manipulation.Pets Began with DomesticationYi-Fu
Tuan explains that domestication implies domination; both words share the same
root, meaning the act of mastering another being—bringing it into one’s home or domain.Specifically,
domestication of plants and animals refers to altering the genetic makeup of a
species through selective breeding. Domestication began over 10,000 years ago.Throughout
history, humans have sought to control nature by miniaturizing it. The
wilderness was reduced to bonsai form. In the early stages of domestication,
large animals were made smaller, and large dogs were bred into small dogs.
Compressing a large animal into a smaller one—the pet, which
literally means "small"—makes it more
manageable and easier to control.Another
more direct method is castration. Since prehistoric times, removing the
reproductive organs of powerful animals has been a technique of domestication,
making male animals more docile.Breeding
animals to retain juvenile anatomical and behavioral traits serves human
purposes. In addition to size, archaeologists use the retention of fetal and
juvenile characteristics as a criterion for determining whether a particular
skeleton belongs to a wild or domesticated animal. These juvenile traits
include shortened jaws and faces. Dogs and many other animals exhibit such
traits.Dogs
were the first animals to be domesticated, and they remain the most numerous
pets. Under human domestication, dogs have developed more breeds than any other
animal. “The dog calls forth, on the one hand, the best that a human person
is capable of—self-sacrificing devotion to a weaker and
dependent being, and, on the other hand, the temptation to exercise power in a
willful and arbitrary, even perverse, manner. Both traits can exist in the same
person.”The
domestication of nature into pets has different answers in different times and
places.Dominance and Affection in the Making of PetsYi-Fu
Tuan points out that dominance and affection are marked by ambiguity and
contradictions. Affection can soften dominance, making it gentler and more
acceptable. However, affection itself can only exist when the relationship is
unequal.Dogs
and cats can, and often do, demand a great deal from their owners—not
only in terms of time and money but also attention and personal care. In some
ways, it can be said that owners are domesticated and enslaved by their pets,
as they must do so much to keep them healthy and happy. While the owner's
service is self-sacrificing and praiseworthy, it also emphasizes the complete
dependence of the animals. The owner's dominance over the dependent creature is
unquestionable. This is a gesture of affection—given by
the superior to the dependent—something never exchanged
between equals.The
converse of dominance—dependence and obedience—can be seen in the
widespread and seemingly easy acceptance of the status of pethood. “There is sweetness in yielding and pleasure in being dominated,
especially if along with that domination come intimacy with power and tangible rewards,
not the least of which are power's gestures of affection.“In
conclusion, Tuan argues that the making and maintenance of pets is, in the end,
a fairly harmless enterprise. This endeavor often benefits the master, and to a
lesser, though more debated, extent, it benefits the pet as well.
1.“wherever
one chooses to spend intellectual energy, it is both personal and structural.
One interacts with one’s social, cultural and political environments: in the research
questions one looks for answers, in the analytical tools and assumptions that
shape one’s priorities, and in the political, human
dramas that capture the hearts and minds of generations.”- Helen F. Siu,
Tracing China: A Forty-Year Ethnographic Journey
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2.“The
investigator must bear in mind that he has a twofold responsibility—to
clear the innocent as well as to expose the guilty. He is seeking only facts—the Truth in a Nutshell.”- Frances Glessner Lee, cited from 18 Tiny
Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern
Forensics
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