It’s a pretty typical Sunday evening for me: staring down through the double-barreled eyepieces of a microscope, my foot pushing a pedal up and down, up and down, blue lights flickering on and off, on and off, staring at the vulva of a worm. I pick up a small plate, consider a few of the worms carefully, then move them from one plate to another. Labeling the plate, I move it to the side and repeat the process.

It’s strange what happens when you stare at subtle variations of the same body again and again. Ever so slowly, a sort of idealization is revealed. As I work my way through worms found in the wild, mutant worms and transgenic worms I find a certain pleasure in considering the worm I move. It must be a certain type of slender, move with a certain sinuous grace and, most importantly, have a perfect crescent vulva — only one, mind you. With certain strains of mutated worms, I’ll get the task over with as quickly as possible. But with some of them, a quick glance at their bodies reveals a beauty, pleasure, contentment.