Here are PB.com, we don't bog about sex much, but the sci fi geek in me can't help commenting on Jane Galt's criticism of Naomi Wolf:
Naomi Wolf continues giving feminism a bad name by confusing offhand conversations with data:
The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.
Here is what young women tell me on college campuses when the subject comes up: They can’t compete, and they know it. For how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own (let alone with speech that goes beyond “More, more, you big stud!”)—possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification?
I would venture to say that all of us have, from time to time, been a little disappointed when comparing our fantasy partners--whether they be from film, television, or novel--with what is actually available in the real world. Why, those people don't always have something snappy and/or wise to say. They generally have fat in at least a few unsightly spots. Their clothes don't send a coherent statement carefully managed by the wardrobe people. Sometimes they don't pay attention to you, and worse, sometimes you don't really feel like paying attention to them. Few of them can fell an army of rogue ninjas with a series of well-placed kicks. And most annoying of all, you have no idea how it's all going to end.
But I can't say that this has ever stopped me, or anyone I know who is not actually mentally ill, from dating. ... This indicates that actual women have benefits that pornography can't offer, just as actual men are in most ways preferable to Rhett Butler. Online pornography has been pretty freely available for ten years now, and yet marriage and dating still seem to be pretty much de rigeur for most of the country. ...
I have no dog in that argument. Instead, I want to use it a springboard for mentioning an interesting hypothesis I ran across a while back while browsing SF Site.com (on my off time, of course, and definitely not at work):
... actions have consequences, and I think we need to consider the consequences of sex with holograms. Who could resist the temptation? And yet, not to put too fine a point on it, what is going to happen to the human race? Who will risk the ups and downs of a real relationship when they can be in complete control and act out their every fantasy on the holodeck? Also, sex isn't the only thing you can use the holodeck for. You want children? I bet holo-children are a lot better behaved than real children. Computer, delete dirty diapers. Once you accept holo-sex, you open the door to a lot of other holo-options.
Maybe this explains why the Federation is so peaceful, rich, and uncrowded. I've never seen a slum on a Federation planet. Maybe all the work is done by holo-slaves, who don't eat or sleep, and the entire real human population has decreased to just a few million, as fewer and fewer people have children. That would explain all those empty parklands we see on the future Earth. Instead of overpopulation, we have underpopulation. It also explains why, in seven years, only one child has been born aboard Voyager.
Almost every negative Megan mentions about real partners would not exist in a holodeck partner:
- "something snappy and/or wise to say" - so write a program with Churchillian wit
- "They generally have fat in at least a few unsightly spots" -- Lara Croft doesn't and I bet Minuet didn't either
- "Their clothes don't send a coherent statement carefully managed by the wardrobe people" -- Minuet's did
- "Sometimes they don't pay attention to you, and worse, sometimes you don't really feel like paying attention to them." You can always turn off a holodeck (unless you've created another Moriarty)
- "Few of them can fell an army of rogue ninjas with a series of well-placed kicks" -- Worf's holodeck opponents could. So turn one to, shall we say, peaceful pursuits.
- "And most annoying of all, you have no idea how it's all going to end." Sure you do, you wrote the holodeck program.
Megan is undoubtedly correct that "actual women have benefits that pornography can't offer, just as actual men are in most ways preferable to Rhett Butler," but is that merely conditional on our current state of technology?
We now return you to your usual non-salacious programming.
