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quote:Originally posted by D'Luscious Rosa:
Is this making sense? Sorry to attack your lovely utopia, Señor Haiku.
Yes, and no need to apologise. I'm not necessarily proposing this as a utopia though (I'm sure some people, like the christian right, would see this as a nighmarish scenario): I just believe that sooner or later this will happen, and will become possible, and that society's going to have to figure out what it all means.
quote:Originally posted by D'Luscious Rosa:
It sounds great and I'd be all for it. But there are a couple of conditional points that might want to be made....
Firstly, theoretically, if you could ask the nanobots in your system to configure gender exactly as you wanted it, there would be a far greater selection of genders and sexual pairings than four. If nanobots could be used to change organs/hormones between genders, wouldn't that also open the field for people to invent their own strange sex organs, which might or might not look anything like the kinds of sexual organs w're used to? Bring it on.....
But knowing a little about the physical/psychological/emotional/hormonal effects of 'bio'-transitioning through gender/sex as it stands at the moment, I'm not totally sure about the, uh, 'side effects' of constant genderflux. How would our bodies cope? How would our minds cope?
Secondly, if this biotechnology did become 'widely' available like computers and cars, it would still only be accessible by a mainly white elite who own the means of production. Which means it would never be a universal—reproducing the current situation, which is of course that sure, you can change your gender, as long as you can present the cash and live in a country where the practice is legal. And even then you'll have to see X number of therapists and doctors to be classified as gender 'dysphoric' enough to access the nanotech. Forgive me for reminding everyone, but a tiny percentage of the people in the world are actually able to do that right now—and most of them are white. So the technology would still be in the hand of the ruling elites, who are anyhow allowed to get away with whatever they can. This might also render nanotech genderbending a fringe culture/practice.
A third and related point is that such technology would be under constant scrutiny from various bodies with investments in the family, like fundamentalist christian groups (who I can see opposing any legislation that made this tech widely available), gender policing people, right-wing thinktanks. Makoing gender transitioning widely available through nanobots would almost certainly take away from the knowledge/technology of sex as reproductive (socially, culturally, biologically) — which I can't really see anyone in power actually falling for, given the discursive connection between the family and the state.
To your first point, yeah, sure, I just thought that for the sake of this discussion it would be easier to stick with current genital conventions. A guy called Prof. R.C.W. Ettringer, writing on approximately this subject, said:
quote:
...the sexual superwoman may be riddled with cleverly designed orifices of various kinds, something like a wriggly swiss cheese, but shaplier and more fragrant; and her supermate may sprout assorted protuberances, so the may intertwine and roll over each other in a million permutations of the Act, tireless as hydrolic pumps, a perpetual grapple, no holes barred, could produce a continuous state of multiple orgasm.
I'd have to disagree with your second point though. Nanotechnology will completely redefine the means of production. If we reach a level of nanotech whereby we have nanobots capable of self-replication, and capable of building any structure out of its raw atoms, then I'm not convinced that capitalism, or the concept of 'ruling elite' or even concepts of 'work' or 'money' will survive. Everybody will have access to the same amount of resources as a multi-millionaire. I also think that your comments about requiring therapists and doctors permission need not apply. The only reason that currently, changing gender is considered such a big deal, is because it's a very difficult procedure, very hard to reverse, and ultimately only cosmetic. Also, if having in-body nanobots became commonplace, then theres not much doctors and therapists could do to stop you. Its also possible that, with such technology, people won't really need doctors any more (although there may or may not still be a place for psychologists/psychiatrists.)
As regards your third point, although I disagree slightly about the connection between sex and reproduction (which arguably has been breaking down for decades, ever since the development of contraception). Although I can see restrictions being placed on nanotechnology, not just to 'maintain family values' but also to maintain the position of the aforementioned global power elite, and to 'protect the public from nanotech terrorists', i sincerely hope they don't. I'm tempted to argue, in fact that how much access the public has to nanotech could become THE big political issue of the future.... |
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) so they can build you whatever organs you care to have, in whatever combinations.