Kant Gave Me Chlamydia (and Other Universal Laws)

By Sophia Sharkey

I let him fuck me after a lecture on metaphysics.

He smelled like printer ink

and the kind of sweat that thinks it’s intelligent.

He kept whispering categorical imperative

into my ear like dirty talk.

I moaned back: treat me as an end in myself, daddy.

We went raw.

Of course we did.

Kant doesn’t believe in pleasure,

only in universality.

And apparently in taking my pussy

like it was a thought experiment.

Three days later—

my piss lit up like a neon nightclub.

I was Heidegger,

being and time and antibiotics.

The nurse asked, “partner’s name?”

I said, “Immanuel Kant.”

She said, “spell it.”

I said, “no one ever has.”

Philosophy left me dripping

like a broken seminar clock.

And still, I texted him after:

“Do you think this is love?”

He replied:

“It’s not love.

It’s duty.”

So yeah.

Kant gave me chlamydia.

And I still wrote his name

in the margins of my cunt

like extra credit.