In reading Axolotl Roadkill, the protagonist, Mifti, instantly reminds me of Woltersdorff’s definitions of precarious sexualities, however, in my opinion Mifti also lies outside of the demographics that Woltersdorff discusses.  As a sixteen year old product of child abuse, Mifti’s sexual exploits cannot be considered as a means to regain her sexual independence or her emancipation because of the passiveness with which she pursues them.  Although Mifti’s existence is definitely one of incertainty–her copious drug use and erroneous mental state prohibit her from being certain or truly desirous of any of her actions–I would certainly not consider her sexual escapades as a means of her self-identification or emancipation.  I would, however, agree with Woltersdorff’s attestation that “…sexuality is…simultaneously an agent and a resource of precarity…” in Mifti’s life (Woltersdorff 167).   Her sexual endeavors with the taxi driver, with her male friends, and with random men at parties are remarkably frequent and yet Mifti hardly remarks on them at all and, for the most part, maintains a position of disinterest or even distaste towards them.  I would argue that Mifti’s incessant drug use coupled with her difficult upbringing and limited social interaction with her father has led to a life of denial and desperation.  Her mentally-ill mother abuses and neglects her as a child, leaving her locked out of their house for days on end and leading Mifti to the conclusion that she is dead.  Furthermore, her father, who is mentally stable and financially capable, continues the pattern of neglect towards Mifti as, rather than raising her and taking care of her himself, he leaves her care to his older children, Annika and Edmond who form a sort of neo-family that fails to meet Mifti’s needs as a depressed adolescent. Instead of acknowledging her mental illness and drug addiction, Mifti’s father just throws money at her.  We see references throughout the book to the luxury in which these children live–countless MacBook Pros scattered around the house, a housekeeper, etc. which evidences the presence of their father’s money, however, his physical presence appears on less than five pages throughout the novel.

Despite her father’s belief that “…there’s really no reason to explain to a fifteen-year-old semi-adult how to peel a bloody orange,”–or to pay attention to her at all–it is clear throughout the novel that Mifti still embodies the needs and desires of this abandoned, neglected child and therefore necessitates parental intervention (Woltersdorff 137).  Since her mother is deceased and her father refuses to acknowledge his parental obligations beyond financing her expensive lifestyle, she searches throughout the book for someone to take care of her.  This caretaker takes many forms throughout the novel from Mifti’s disheveled, drug-addict twenty-eight year old friend, Ophelia to the various men with whom she partakes in various sexual exchanges.  Mifti’s agency is extremely questionable as, throughout the book, she is high on ecstasy and other drugs which problematizes the emancipatory qualities that Woltersdorff attributes to Mifti’s so-called neo-liberalistic sexuality.  Although Mifti certainly fits within Woltersdorff’s constraints–her sexuality is deregulated, she sleeps with all types of partners, it is impossible to suggest that Mifti’s sexual identity “…unfolds [its] appealing authority precisely by taking pleasure in uncertainty and insecurity…” nor does her sexuality exist as a “…deployment of power that produces and mutually relates embodied subjects…” but rather as an escape mechanism, like drugs, to help convince herself that she is a liberated adult and not a trapped, helpless child (Woltersdorff 167).

Although I do think that this novel presents a political discourse for the existence of neoliberal sexualities in Berlin through the various casual and non-heteronormative exchanges seen throughout the book–particularly those of male characters: Edmond’s bisexuality and his relationship with Smoothio–I do not correlate Mifti’s sexuality with one of neoliberal emancipation.  While Edmond seems to possess a great deal of agency in his sexual exchanges–he cognitively decides to sleep with Smoothio and whoever else he chooses–but Mifti’s precarious mental state and her drug-addled mind strip her of the agency that sexual liberation requires by definition.  Mifti’s descriptions of her sexuality are extremely problematic as they often contain motifs of pain, rape, and her lack of desire.  Although the drugs make it challenging to determine Mifti’s exact feelings, such statements as “…men want to rape me, of course, certain parts of my body are constantly swollen, this world is paradise, pain doesn’t exist…” reveal her deeply entrenched lack of self-esteem, her jaded outlook of her own body, and her resolution to give herself as a human sexual sacrifice to random men which, in no way, resonate with the ideologies of neoliberal sexuality (Hegemann 31).  Her overall desperation presents itself again when she admits, in a rare moment of mental clarity, that “…I’m sixteen years old and presently capable of nothing but wanting to establish myself–despite colossal exhaustion–in contexts that have nothing to do with the society in which I got o school and suffer from depression.  I’m in Berlin.  It’s all about my delusions” which reinforces her lack of agency and desire to adhere to societal pressures–including the sexual liberation that is emphasized as such an integral part of her society in Berlin (16).  Finally in a moment of complete honesty, Mifti admits to a classmate that she “…[has] issues with sex, because sex counteracts unconditional love, and that’s what [she] want[s].  Sex is nothing but a selfish, bestial urge that unmasks the people [she] love[s] as remote-controlled conglomerations of reflexes…” (Hegemann 92).  In these rare moments of clarity and sobriety I believe we really see Mifti as an individual.  Not only does Mifti counter the empowered epitome of Woltersdorff’s neoliberal sexuality, she denounces sexuality altogether.  The only sexual version of Mifti that we see in the book–the girl who has indifferent sex with a taxi driver and is taken advantage of by her male friends at parties, is the version of Mifti that is heavily drugged.  These drugs strip her of all agency and empowerment and we cannot, therefore, consider her fluid, relentless sexual advances as components of a a neoliberal sexual discourse.  I see Mifti, rather, as a child trying desperately to regain the care and love she lacked so greatly in childhood and, who, in order to avoid the reality that no one will ever care for her, turns to drugs and meaningless sexual encounters to numb herself from the painful acceptance of this realization.