Thoughts on Future Sexuality.

[swestrup]

Thanks to my friends list I was just watching TITLER, which is, essentially, Hitler with Tits, and I had a bit of an epiphany.

I recently read Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan and thouroughly enjoyed it, but something was bothering me about it, and I just figured it out. The story takes place in the far future and humanity is now unisexual. For the most part, people don't have genitals until they are in a relationship and then they grow a matched pair so that those two individuals can have sex if they desired.

At the time I noticed that this tended to make poly relationships, orgies, promiscuity (the organs take at least a month to grow), and masturbation impossible. It seemed to me to be awfully repressive of human sexuality to go that route, but something else was bothering me, and I couldn't put a finger on it until now.

Breasts. They also eliminated all secondary sexual characteristics. You know, I don't think I'd want to live in a world without boobs. I could survive the wierd pair-bonding thing, but I insist on there being boobs. Heck, if I had been desinging the unisex world, everyone would have breasts, because why not?

Comments

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

Did they have hands? Because there is not reason to have boobs if they have no hands.

[swestrup]

They had lips!

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

what good are lips if they had no penis?

[swestrup]

They could grow a penis on demand (given one-month's advance notice...) but they couldn't do boobs at all. That just seems wrong!

[wlach.livejournal.com]

What about tentacles?

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

we are talking sex here. Not food!

[swestrup]

Don't make me post more 'sex with octopi' images!

[wlach.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to say that sounds pretty lame. Maybe Greg Egan (I've never read any of his books) was doing something à la Thomas More's Utopia-- positing a rather ridiculous "ideal" society in order to critique the present one?

One idea I really liked about the Culture as depicted Iain Banks' novels was the ability of its members to switch sexes on a whim... although even that seems sort of limited given the technology one might assume a civilization of its level to have.

[swestrup]

If you like Iain Banks then I highly recommend Greg Egan.

I'm not really sure why he chose this particular strange sexual arrangement for this novel, but its not typical of his work.

In one of his 'diaspora' short stories, which takes place in a virtual world, sex is considered an interface preference and what sex you appear to yourself has no bearing on what sex you appear to be to others. In fact, you can be in a menage-a-trois with two individuals who each have divergent beliefs on what everyone else's sex is.

[helenkacan.livejournal.com]

Were the fiddly bits grown for sex with just the purpose of procreation? Because the whole thing sounds really repressive, not even being able to have fiddly bits you can enjoy having/having feelings (even if you're not being sexual with yourself or others).

Weirded out hugs,
Me.

[swestrup]

No, people still had 'casual' sex, they just had to date for a month first. Weird.

[sps.livejournal.com]

Do they have other parts by advance reservation?

[swestrup]

Not that they mentioned. There was a bit of a cultural clash with the pure virtual citizens, who seemed to think it was really strange not to be able to completely reconfigure yourself on a whim.