A Relationship is Not an Economy
In The Gift, which Margaret Atwood succinctly summarizes as a “classic study of gift giving and its relationship to art,” Lewis Hyde describes the principles of gifts, primarily that the gift must transfer, and “the feeling that if a gift is not treated as such, if one form of property is converted into another, something horrible will happen.” Aimee Bender’s “The Red Ribbon” is that what-if story—quiet, subtle, horrific, and sad—a cautionary tale about what happens when you treat a relationship as an economy and trade the gifts of love for the tit-for-tat of commodity exchange. The story has a simple enough set-up: a long-married couple try their hands and other parts at a prostitution fantasy. It centers on Janet,...