Slaughter, Reproduction, and Surrogacy in Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh

Poulomi Choudhury

“Carcass. Cut in half. Stunner. Slaughter line. Spray wash.” With these staccato words and unrelenting images of splicing and splatter, Agustina Bazterrica in Tender is the Flesh (2020, translated from the Spanish, Cadáver Exquisito by Sarah Moses) begins a narrative in which institutionalised cannibalism has become the norm. The novel depicts a dystopian society in which a virus has purportedly rendered all animal flesh toxic to humans, leading to the mass extermination of nonhumans and the breeding of human beings as livestock, known as “heads.” The visceral description of blood, gore, and splatter in these opening lines sets a grisly tone, making Tender an exemplary work of Argentinian body horror. It stands alongside the incendiary works of authors such as Samanta Schweblin (Fever Dream) and Mariana Enriquez (Things We Lost in the Fire). Bazterrica in Tender, like her counterparts, repurposes the horror conventions to tackle the entangled forces of environmental desecration, exploitation of reproductive labour, and extraction (Stuelke 2019).

Given the broad range of issues explored in Tender and the limitations of fully addressing them in this article, I will concentrate on a few key narrative vignettes that urge readers to confront the pervasive violence embedded in the animal industrial complex. As I will demonstrate throughout, the production of meat requires splatter. It encompasses a deeply incisive violence that often goes unseen. The horror genre, with its emphasis on gore and bodily disintegration, serves as an effective medium for exposing the “absent referents”[i] of splatter and bloodshed intrinsic to slaughter, value production, and the consumption of nonhuman animals. By depicting humans as stand-ins for livestock, Tender critiques the condition of animals within capitalism. It draws parallels between the exploitation of their gestational labour and the entrenchment of heteropatriarchy ingrained in Argentinian society.

Before delving into the meat of my discussion, it is essential to clarify how body horror operates in the text and to extend its traditional definition. Xavier Aldana Reyes describes body horror as involving “the inscription of horror onto the human body by virtue of a change, or series of them, that transforms the perceived “normal” body into a negatively exceptional and/or painful version of itself” (“Abjection” 393; emphasis mine). Typically driven by acts of mutilation, dismemberment, and deformation, body horror turns the familiar body into a site of terror. This transformation is central to the genre’s ability to evoke visceral reactions; once a locus of identity, the body becomes grotesque or unrecognisable, thus engaging the reader on an affective level. This provokes what Aldana Reyes terms “empathetic corporeality” — the ability of horror fiction to create a sense of “transferability of pain” — allowing the reader (or viewer) to emotionally align themselves with the victim and thus “fictionally partake of their vulnerability” (“Abjection” 393).

While conventional interpretations of body horror focus primarily on the human body as the primary locus of horror, Tender expands the concept to nonhuman bodies. Although the novel centres upon the breeding and exploitation of humans within the slaughter industry, its more profound concern lies in revealing the violent practices inherent to the animal industrial complex, while also drawing connections between the oppression of animals and the subjugation of women in patriarchal societies (Adams). The narrative device of substituting farmed animals with human “heads” reminds the reader of the somewhat mundane fact that although it is “rarely” framed “as a horrible and despicable violent act,” the procurement of meat requires a “high level of physical subjugation” of animals (Piatti-Farnell 136). Tender carves open this latent violence within meat culture through what Liza Bauer terms the “deindustrializing [of] the imagination,”[ii] allowing readers to viscerally engage with the suffering endured by creatures subjected to the abattoir’s brutality.

The novel’s engagement with a society that has legitimised cannibalism interrogates the privileged status of humans as sovereign biopolitical subjects. Sean McCorry makes this argument in his analysis of the 1973 film Soylent Green, where the protagonist discovers that the food they have been consuming is, in fact, made from humans. As everyone now knows today, “Soylent Green is people!” McCorry’s analysis of the film can very well extend to Tender, where conceiving the “end of meat”— or, more accurately, the end of flesh derived from nonhumans — leads us, the readers to “forfeit our narcissistic self-identification as apex predators and as carnivorous sovereign subjects” (120). Here, cannibalism destabilises the human-animal boundary and challenges the constructed nature of these divisions. By addressing the “discursive processes through which certain humans are being rendered “edible” whereas others are not” (Bauer 134), the narrative in Tender underscores that “in the end, meat is meat, it doesn’t matter where it is from” (Bazterrica, Tender 14). Indeed, as Aph Ko asserts, the animal is a “social construct the dominant class created to mark certain bodies as disposable…Animal as a term does not exist on its own… it’s relational…Animal is a signifier that is always convenient and changing” (37).

Other slaughter narratives like Don LePan’s Animals (2009) and Joseph D’Lacey’s Meat (2008)[iii] create similar dystopian worlds to that of Tender, envisioning how “intensive slaughter technologies could exceed the bounds of the animal industry and violate human bodies alongside those of nonhumans” (Bauer 135). What sets Tender apart, however, is the ways in which it highlights the intersectional potential of the human-animal violence embedded within these systems. The novel draws an explicit connection between the consumption of animal flesh and the exploitation of female bodies. It is, therefore, unsurprising that some of the most painfully visceral depictions of slaughter in Tender are focalised through female bodies. In a scene reminiscent of the unsettling footage often found in exposés of contemporary abattoirs as well as the voyeuristic lens of smut films, readers are offered a harrowing glimpse into the inner workings of the processing plant: “A guillotine door opens, and a naked female barely twenty years of age walks in. She’s wet and her hands are held behind with a cable tie” (Bazterrica, Tender 69). Here, the descriptions are relentless: the stunner raises his club, and the reader follows each sickening detail as the female collapses, the floor “splattered with excrement,” her skin soon coated in the blood of those slaughtered before her. The narrative does not flinch from depicting the process in its entirety—she is bled dry, dunked into a “scalding tank where other corpses are floating in boiling water,” and dismembered with cold precision. By the end, she is “unrecognizable, without skin and extremities, becoming a carcass” (Bazterrica, Tender 78). Finally, the “process of turning the living animal into homogeneous raw materials” (Pachirat 67), evident in the contemporary slaughter industry, is complete.

The visceral rendering of the female’s death is not merely gratuitous; it invites reflection on the intersectional nature of violence, where the subjugation of nonhuman and human bodies are intertwined. It not only highlights the brutality of the slaughtering process but also evokes a commentary on how patriarchal structures perpetuate violence against both human women and nonhuman animals, revealing the deeply ingrained connections between gender, power, and consumption. The Argentine state’s historical neglect and complicity in addressing gender-based violence underscore how female bodies are treated as sites of control and subjugation. Rita Segato’s concept of a “pedagogy of cruelty” describes how societal structures normalise violence against women, reinforcing their objectification and dehumanisation (Segato and McGlazer). In this context, the novel’s depiction of slaughter becomes a powerful metaphor, inviting parallels between the systemic violence inflicted on women and the exploitation within other oppressive systems.

The intense management of animal lives, steeped in capitalist and patriarchal frameworks, also resonates profoundly with the commodification of female reproduction. The heteropatriarchal “habit of taking for granted free access to and the consumption of the bodies of others, animals included” (Braidotti 68), becomes starkly apparent again in Tender through the treatment of females and their reproductive capacities. In this context, Marcos, the emotionally desensitised protagonist who oversees the meat processing plant, visits a breeding farm to  arrange for the next shipment of “heads.” His visit facilitates the narration of the breeding process and exposes the harrowing conditions under which these female human-as-animals exist. The pregnant females in the “dairy-head section” have milking machines attached to their “udders.” They have “a short productive life,” and “when they’re no longer of use, their meat has to be sent to the processing plant that supplies the fast food industry; that way, he [the owner] can maximise profits” (Bazterrica, Tender 29–30). As they pass the barn, Marcos observes that “they have no arms or legs”:

He knows that at many breeding centres it’s common practice to maim the impregnated females who otherwise kill their fetuses by ramming their stomachs against the bars of their cage, or by not eating, by doing whatever it takes to prevent their babies from being born and dying in a processing plant. (Bazterrica, Tender 30)

The reproductive labour performed by these beings takes on a layered significance in this context. Beyond becoming food commodities themselves, they are subjected to what Wadiwel describes as “metabolic labour” of production. Their gestational processes yield feminised proteins (Adams), such as dairy, while their reproductive capabilities are tightly controlled to ensure a “continual supply of new animals to meat production” (Wadiwel, Animals and Capital 101). This relentless exploitation mirrors the lives of dairy animals in real-world agricultural systems, where cows are subjected to cycles of forced impregnation and excessive milking. This cycle repeats for several years until the cow is considered “spent.” At this point, the “cull dairy cows” are sent to the slaughterhouse, often ending up as pet food or low-quality meat products such as burgers (Gillespie).

Reflecting on this horrific cycle of labour and production, Wadiwel notes:

This work of gestation, accompanied by forced insemination prior and removal of progeny after, is routine and necessary to production, despite its horror. And this horror betrays no apparent trace in the finished item on a supermarket shelf…nothing in the commodity reveals the violence of its production. (Animals and Capital 102)

The slaughtered female’s desperate attempts to free herself, alluded to in the previous vignette, along with the pregnant females’ desperate efforts to resist procreation, makes visible the oft-hidden potential of so-called food animals to revolt and resist their condition.[iv] By utilising body horror, Tender not only evokes revulsion but also compels reflection on the cultural and ethical implications of commodifying living beings. The human livestock in the novel, who mirror their nonhuman counterparts, take on a new layer of significance when examined against Argentina’s historical and political backdrop, especially in relation to the feminist struggle for reproductive rights.

The original Spanish edition of Cadáver Exquisito was published in 2017, a pivotal time for Argentina’s feminist movement, which galvanised people across the nation under a sea of green handkerchiefs symbolising the collective fight for legal, safe, and free abortion. This movement, rooted in decades of activism, reached a crescendo in 2021 when the Argentine Senate passed a bill legalising abortion up to the fourteenth week of pregnancy. This legislative victory comes at a time when femicides in Argentina are at a record high, with 322 femicides in 2023 alone, a marked 33% per cent increase from 2022 (Barber). These statistics only hint at the pervasive violence and dehumanisation that reduce women’s bodies to “a series of cadavers surrounded by horror, always in anonymity” (Gago 31).

Agustina Bazterrica herself draws connections between the various axes of violence in society. In The Irish Times, she reflects on how the same indifference shown toward animal cruelty extends to other marginalised groups:

I am part of a society that eats meat and unflinchingly accepts animal cruelty with the same brutal indifference shown towards vulnerable groups such as the poor, indigenous populations and women. We are a country that also murders its women. There is one femicide every 18 hours[v] and there are no statistics for deaths related to clandestine abortions since in Argentina it is a crime.[vi] (Bazterrica, “I Have Always Believed”)

The state’s intense control over human reproduction finds a grim parallel in its management of animals bred for consumption, especially within Argentina’s sprawling beef-and-grazer economy. While the “heads” purpose-bred for slaughter have no agency over their reproductive fate, the human characters in Tender retain the right to create progeny. Bazterrica starkly illustrates this contrast in a disturbing scene in which the birth of a worker’s child is celebrated with a macabre twist on the traditional asado:

The smell of barbecue is in the air…where the farmhands are roasting a rack of meat on a cross. El Gringo [the owner] explains…that they’ve been preparing it since eight in the morning, “So it melts in your mouth,” and that the guys are actually about to eat a kid. “It’s the most tender kind of meat, there’s only just a little, because a kid doesn’t weigh as much as a calf. We’re celebrating because one of them became a father.” (Bazterrica, Tender 33)

The play on the word kid, which could mean a baby goat or a baby human, challenges the constructed ontology of food traditions in which distinctions between human and nonhuman animals have been historically maintained. In this case, what was once deemed inedible can become edible under specific circumstances or even demand consumption to uphold traditional values. This dynamic of eating an infant to celebrate the birth of another desirable infant also serves to highlight a veiled yet ever-present pronatalist impetus found in most patriarchal societies.

In Bazterrica’s slaughter novel, body horror serves as a powerful mechanism for challenging distinctions between human and nonhuman, civilised and barbaric. The graphic descriptions of bodily exploitation and mutilation evoke revulsion while raising fundamental questions about the ethical boundaries of consumption and reproduction. By depicting the bodies of women and animals alike as sites of extreme violence and control, the narrative underscores the interconnectedness of reproductive labour and broader systems of patriarchal and capitalist exploitation. When one group can be systematically objectified, mutilated, and consumed, the novel suggests, so too can the other, reflecting a continuum of violence that transcends species boundaries.

Through these two key vignettes involving slaughtered and pregnant beings Bazterrica’s use of body horror interrogates the complex interplay between reproductive rights, state control, and capitalist commodification. These narrative choices resonate with the provocative question posed on the book’s jacket: “If everyone was eating human meat, would you?” By blurring the lines between what is considered human and inhuman, consumable and inedible, Bazterrica encourages the readers to deindustrialise their imagination (Bauer) and re-examine the ethics of consumption and production.

Notes

[i] I am borrowing the term popularised by the ecofeminist writings of Carol Adams, which she deploys to consider the how women are the absent referents in the conception of masculinity and meat

[ii] Bauer suggests that “deindustrizing the imagination” liberates the reader’s mental perception so that they can stop reading nonhuman animals simply as exploitable resources or livestocks (45).

[iii] For more on this see Aldana Reyes’s Body Gothic (2016) and Borkfelt’s Reading Slaughter: Abattoir Fictions, Space, and Empathy in Late Modernity (2022).

[iv] For more on animal resistance, see Colling’s Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era (2020) and Hribal’s Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance (2011).

[v] A number that has only intensified since her interview in 2020.

[vi] Despite the decriminalization of abortion in Argentina, individuals seeking these services continue to encounter social stigma and discrimination.

---

Works Cited

Adams, Carol J. Neither Man nor Beast Feminism and the Defense of Animals. 1st ed., Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Adams, Carol J. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. Continuum, 2000.

Aldana Reyes, Xavier. “Abjection and Body Horror.” The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic, edited by Clive Bloom, Palgrave, 2020, pp. 393–410.

Aldana Reyes, Xavier. Body Gothic: Corporeal Transgression in Contemporary Literature and Horror Film. University of Wales Press, 2014.

Barber, Harriet. “‘I Can’t Face How Much She Suffered’: Argentina Femicides at Record High as Milei Dilutes Protections.” The Guardian, 30 Jan. 2024.

Bauer, Liza B. Livestock and Literature: Reimagining Postanimal Companion Species. Palgrave, 2024.

Bazterrica, Agustina. “‘I Have Always Believed That in Our Capitalist, Consumerist Society, We Devour Each Other.’” The Irish Times, 21 Feb. 2020.

Bazterrica, Agustina. Tender Is the Flesh. Translated by Sarah Moses, Pushkin Press, 2020.

Borkfelt, Sune. Reading Slaughter: Abattoir Fictions, Space, and Empathy in Late Modernity. Palgrave, 2022.

Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity Press, 2013.

Colling, Sarat. Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era. Michigan State University Press, 2020.

Gago, Verónica. Feminist International: How to Change Everything. Translated by Liz Mason-Deese, Verso, 2020.

Gago, Verónica. “On the Precipice of Decision: The Struggle for Abortion Rights in Argentina.” Verso, 29 Dec. 2020.

Gillespie, Kathryn. The Cow with Ear Tag #1389. University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Hribal, Jason. Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance. AK Press, 2011.

Joy, Melanie. Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. 10th anniversary edition, Red Wheel, 2020.

Ko, Aph. Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide for Getting Out. Lantern Books, 2019.

McCorry, Seán. “‘They’ll Be Breeding Us Like Cattle!’: Population Ecology and Human Exceptionalism in Soylent Green.” Literature and Meat Since 1900, edited by Seán McCorry and John Miller, Palgrave, 2019, pp. 111–23.

Pachirat, Timothy. Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight. Yale University Press, 2011.

Piatti-Farnell, Lorna. “A Taste for Butchery: Slaughterhouse Narratives and the Consumable Body.” Consuming Gothic: Food and Horror in Film, edited by Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Palgrave, 2017, pp. 133–77.

Segato, Rita Laura, and Ramsey McGlazer. “A Manifesto in Four Themes.*” Critical Times, vol. 1, no. 1, Apr. 2018, pp. 198–211. https://doi.org/10.1215/26410478-1.1.198.

Stuelke, Patricia. “Horror and the Arts of Feminist Assembly”. Post45, Apr. 2019, https://post45.org/2019/04/horror-and-the-arts-of-feminist-assembly/.

Wadiwel, Dinesh. Animals and Capital. Edinburgh University Press, 2023.

Wadiwel, Dinesh. The War Against Animals. Brill, 2015.