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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong
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Why doesn't it make sense? If there were a pill to turn me bisexual, I'd take it, modulo the fact that in general I take almost no pills (it'd have to be really really safe, but I hold all mind-affecting substances to that standard, don't drink etcetera, it's not a special case for the bisexuality pill).
I'm somewhat sympathetic to that idea (I haven't felt guilty about being straightish, but I've wished I were more bisexual once in a while, and succeeded in pushing myself in that direction in some cases), but I'm curious now: is gender the only dimension you'd apply that to? Would you also take a pill (again assuming it's really really safe) that would make all outward physical attributes irrelevant to how attractive you find someone? Would you take a pill that would make you enjoy every non-harmful sexual practice/fetish (not necessarily seeking them out, but able to enjoy it if a partner initiated it)?
(I originally started writing this comment thinking something like "hmm, I'd take the bi-pill, but let's take that reasoning to its vaguely-logical conclusion and see if it's still palatable", but now I'm actually thinking I'd probably take both of those pills too.)
There is a well-established mechanism within the transformation fetish subculture making use of devices which work a bit like temporary tattoos, altering the subject's body and/or personality in ways both profound and fully reversible. Like most magic intended to make a story possible rather than to make it interesting, the patches in question are entirely without negative side effects.
As demonstrated with Clippy, I would be willing to provide further information even if doing so does not serve my long-term interests in any obvious way.
Well, to ask the non-mainstream-relative-to-this-community version of the question, ask "Would I take the loli pill?"
How about the anti-Westermark effect pill? ;)
I can't believe I had never heard of that before. Fascinating.
A question if you can answer it. Wikipedia says:
The addition of "highly" seems to suggest that separated brothers and sisters find themselves especially or unusually attracted to one another. Is that the case or is Wikipedia just adding unnecessary adjectives?
There are clearer language and relevant citations at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_sexual_attraction)
There is a hypothesis that claims that, but the evidence is dubious.
Does "loli" mean non-persons and emotionally mature persons who look like a child, or are actual children (of average or below average emotional maturity) included by the effect?
If it meant the former, I would take the loli pill if the (unlikely) circumstances called for it. Why not? If it meant the latter, then you would have to tell your libido "no" a lot, but it wouldn't necessarily lead to doing bad things. I doubt it would be worth the hassle, though, except in very special circumstances.
Actually, the biggest drawback to either version of the loli pill would probably be how society would react if they ever found out. It probably wouldn't matter if the one you're sleeping with is really 700 years old; you'd still get put on every sex offender registry out there, and shunned vigorously, at the very least. People are damn tense on this subject. Just look at how much trouble Christopher Handley got in for his manga collection.
Edit: I felt pretty uncomfortable writing this post, even though I know I shouldn't be. Looks like this really is a good question.
Upvoted for noticing discomfort
upvoted for citing tvtropes :)
Downvoted for encouraging such irresponsible behavior as citing TV Tropes!
You just say that because your karma is over nine thousand!
Loli means actual preteen girls.
If I understand correctly, loli only refers to cartoon depictions of preteen girls (and maybe roleplaying with that theme). Being attracted to actual preteen girls is just pedophilia.
(At least that's what loli fans say. I've always been a bit confused by the distinction — I've known people into loli and shota who seemed to find actual children as unappealing as any normal person does, but I can't quite figure out why a person would be turned on only by a cartoon and not the real thing.)
This is a really a frustrating exchange given the number of terms that need googling and the fact that I am in a public library.
The TV Tropes page is work-safe and pretty illuminating. No guarantees if you click on any of the links, though.
Google define:'s loli as -
Google define:'s lolita as -
Because they're lying
The two pills I proposed are mainstream relative to this community?
I'm surprised yet not surprised. Good to know, anyway.
(So, alright, would you take the loli pill?)
Would it be reversible?
You can just answer it for each case. Would you take either pill if they were irreversible? If they were reversible?
Yes in all cases, but absolutely only if reversible.
I am asexual and thus have not experienced any of the romantic/sexual emotions. I feel as if doing so would almost certainly help my understanding of others, as well as broaden my emotional range. However, I seem to do quite fine without these emotions, and they seem to cause more problems than they are worth in many of the people around me. Therefore I would only take such pills if they were reversible, as my present state is quite happy and the alternative could certainly be worse.
No kidding.
Do people remember that guy who was here at the very beginning and wouldn't shut up about how the key to being rational was castration? I doubt that troll would have had much to say would have been helpful but the position has a certain intuitive plausibility to me. To begin with, I'm pretty sure the ebb and flow of sexual arousal would be really easy to money pump.
Buying and selling bulk cupons for the service of prostitutes?
I was actually thinking pornographic website subscriptions. That works too, though.
Easy enough to find by searching. ;)
Those contributions were... interesting. I'm somewhat tempted to doubt the disclosure. While researching permanent forms of contraception, in particular vasectomy, I learned that the procedure was illegal in France up until a few years ago: it was considered "self-mutilation". I'd be rather surprised to learn about someone getting elective castration, unless some plausible details substantiated that story.
Agreed. And I obviously wouldn't volunteer. But sexuality does appear to generate some serious bias. I imagine straight men might be unreliable rebutters and evaluators of arguments made by attractive females, for example.
I'd definitely take all three of the above pills. In fact, I wonder how much harm such pills would have to do for me not to take them.
Why would you take such a pill? So that you can have more fun, or for some other reason?
So I wouldn't miss out on half the fun.
How do you distinguish the sort of fun it's worth changing your values to enjoy from the sort of fun (like wireheading) it's worth not having access to?
Of course, it's nothing like half the fun you're missing. Adding a gender would increase your fun by less than 100% since it's not that different in many ways. Adding all the sexual variation in the world would be a humongous amount of fun, but you'd start to hit diminishing returns after a while.
Technically, given that most people are heterosexual, Woody Allen's quote - "The good thing about being bisexual is that it doubles your chance of a date on a Saturday night." - is inaccurate. It only increases your chances by the percentage of people of your gender who are open to same-sex encounters.
I think I have enough evidence to say this confidently without unfairly stereotyping: On balance, gay men are so much more promiscuous than straight women that being bisexual really might double or triple the opportunities for a man to have sex. But your point is well taken and certainly applies to chances for a monogamous relationship.
Point of curiosity if anyone knows the answer: How promiscuous are bisexual men and do they tend to have more m-m than m-f sex because the m-m sex is much easier to obtain? If not, why not?
I'm a 1 on the Kinsey scale but I have only had sex with women, not men. I don't identify as bisexual.
I suspect that the median bisexual man has more m-m sex because the median person willing to identify as bisexual is not a 3 on the Kinsey scale but leans towards the homosexual side of the scale. Also, especially for young people just coming to terms with their sexuality, identifying as bisexual is often a path towards identifying as gay, and such people are likely to have more sex with their true preferred type of partners.
There is a negative perception in the gay community that bisexual people are more promiscuous, but this probably isn't true. I'm pretty sure the reason bisexual men tend to have sex with men more often than women is not because getting gay sex is as easy as posting a "Hey, who wants to come over, blow me, and leave right away without talking?" on Craigslist, but because most people that identify as bisexual are just more gay than straight.
Btw, if anyone was intrigued by the possibility of making such a Craigslist post, if you say you're straight you'll get at least twice as many replies! :D
This is of course controversial but I've had a number of gay friends and acquaintances deny that there even are true bisexual men. The position they take it is that homosexuality is a binary, pre-natal development characteristic and that bisexual males are pretty much just gay men holding out hope for a normal marriage/family life.
No offense to those men here who identify as bisexual, obviously. This all may just be in group posturing and what not.
I don't exist -_-;;
So there is actually new evidence since we had this conversation. Bisexual men do exist! Past studies found that the men they studied who identified as bisexual weren't.
The different results are likely due to the different procedures used to determine the participant pool. The 2005 study took it's sample of bisexual men mainly from college campus LGBTQ student associations while the more recent study advertised on craigslist M/F for M and, on top of that, refused to include anyone whose claim to bisexuality they didn't believe.
Neither do I, apparently, even after meeting with LWers in person!
I, meanwhile, am not entirely sure that there are straight women.
(Every woman I have met has fallen into one of the following categories: 1) She would not know if she were non-straight, due to inadequate self-examination or understanding of the concept of orientation. 2) I would not know if she were not straight, due to not having a close enough relationship with her or due to social constraints on her end preventing her from being out or due to the topic never having come up. 3) I know her to be bisexual, gay, asexual, or some other non-straight sexuality.)
Counterexamples are welcome to present themselves, of course.
The thread seems to be resurrected, so I'll present myself. :)
I am a cissexual slightly genderqueer exclusively androsexual monogamously married woman. I think about sexuality and orientation a lot. Including my own. I don't recall ever being sexually or romantically attracted to a woman. Intellectually, monosexuality seems a little weird to me, but nevertheless it seems to describe me. In fact I think of my monosexuality as a gender fetish, but I hesitate to apply that paradigm to other people's monosexuality.
Reminds me of a study I read about. They basically showed men and women different types of porn and measured genital arousal. The results were straightforward for men: if they identified as straight, girl-on-girl porn caused the greatest arousal, girl-on-guy was ok, and guy-on-guy caused almost no arousal. For gay men, the results were reversed. For girls, there were no simple categories, and their identification as straight or gay didn't predict which images would be the biggest turn-on.
My impression from attending a women's college was that by the fourth year, most women who came in identifying as straight had experienced some attraction to other women. And those who came in saying "My life would be so much easier if I liked girls" were more likely to be dating women by the end (though no data on whether their lives were actually easier!)
Which category do you yourself fall into? (Or would you prefer not to answer that question?)
I'm around 90% confident my girlfriend is straight.
For what it's worth, I know a few women (2 certainly, 1 arguably) who strike me as reasonably self-aware, are at least as familiar with the concept of orientation in the abstract as I am, whose sex lives I'm reasonably well acquainted with, who have expressed sexual attraction to and initiated/accepted sexual intercourse with a number of men, and who have expressed (sometimes with regret) their lack of sexual attraction to and have never initiated/accepted sexual intercourse with any women.
Calling them straight seems reasonable to me... certainly I would call myself gay were all of that true of me.
That said, I can certainly imagine all of them having sex with another woman were the circumstances perfectly aligned (at least, I suppose I can imagine it; I've never actually done so and it seems vaguely impolite to do so now, especially since I'm at work).
There are also "David Bowie bisexuals", straight men willing to identify as bisexual in solidarity with the gay rights movement, or as an acknowledgement of the general fluidity of sexuality and gender.
Interesting. I'm pretty sure my gay friends would find this offensive and patronizing.
I understand that you're describing another's position not your own, but can you describe how that position's predictions differ from the predictions from "true bisexuality"?
I suppose it predicts a likelihood that any given male bisexual will more and more exclusively have sexual relationships with males, a higher probability of eventually identifying as gay (relative to the probabilities of those of other orientations changing their identifications) and a low probability of a successful and happy relationship with a female.
ETA: The number of people who still identify as bisexual and lead bisexual lifestyles late into adulthood should be negligible modulo some kind of continued denial.
I dunno... I talked to a couple of (male, straight) friends of mine about this once. We all agreed that although we were straight, 100% would be an exaggeration. I think it's probably a continuum, although dominance/submission factors muddy the waters a bit too.
EDIT: I have now officially heard of the Kinsey scale.
I don't think the fact that most straight men wouldn't say 100% is particularly strong evidence against the original thesis. It is consistent with the claim that sexual orientation for men is very heavily clustered at the poles of the Kinsey scale.
On the other hand, I think I've read claims that everyone is actually bisexual, and people who claim they're heterosexual are just suppressing their homosexual tendencies and vice versa.
Well, the claims are certainly made. I find them about as absurd as the claims that everyone is actually monosexual, myself, though I'd certainly agree that there are a whole lot of people asserting a far greater degree of monosexuality than they actually possess.
Whenever this subject comes up I'm reminded of a woman at a party who was trotting out the "there are no bisexual men, they're just gay men in denial" chestnut, to which I replied "Right! I mean, consider me and my husband. We've been in a monogamous same-sex relationship for the last twenty years, but we claim to be bisexual solely to preserve our heterosexual privilege. Um. No, wait, how does that work again?"
She was annoyed with me.
My understanding is that bisexuality rarely endures past one's twenties, and that bisexuals of both genders tend to end up choosing men. Of course, that may stem from the fact that publicly displayed bicuriousity is far less ostracized when it occurs amongst women, so more straight-leaning women are tempted to fool around than straight-leaning men, resulting in most bisexuals settling with men.
Of course, there are people who remain bisexual past that, and my data is not exactly rigorously gathered - I have some friends who study psychology and sexuality, and I've heard it from them.
Bisexual males often don't identify as 50-50 which complicates the matter.
Is someone who is what might be called "prison gay" bisexual? (That is, someone who will engage in homosexual acts as a substitute for masturbation, but is not physically attracted to members of the same sex. Yes, it's probably a bad/loaded term, but I don't know what a better one is.)
As I understand it, it's a standard human response to being trapped with substandard mates to have increasingly-greater estimates of their attractiveness. This has no relevance to sexual orientation.
There don't seem to be any findable sources that present an unbiased view on the matter (say, relevant statistics), and I suspect that the categories are sufficiently fluid at the moment that the question would be difficult to pin down.
But what if you're female?
I think I have enough evidence to say this confidently without unfairly stereotyping: On balance, straight men are so turned on by the idea of girl on girl sex that being bisexual really might double or triple the opportunities for a woman to have sex.
Well, not really. The having enough evidence part at least.
I think "opportunities for a woman to have sex" must mean something entirely different from "opportunities for a man to have sex", given the facts on the ground w.r.t. the market.
I think I have enough evidence to say this confidently without unfairly stereotyping: On balance, straight men are so much more promiscuous than gay women that being bisexual really might double or triple the opportunities for a woman to have sex.
:-)
Edit: On reflection, this might not be right. But yeah, my point doesn't exactly apply to straight women.
Funny!
We'll have to make enough bi-pills for everyone, then.
Actually, what you really need is the sexchange pill, but that's a lot harder than it sounds.
I'll settle for the bisexuality pill, an attractive female-shaped body (including the "vagina-shaped penis"), some time to get used to moving around in it, and the capacity for having multiple orgasms. "Gay man in a woman's body" is close enough for my purposes. ;)
But the other people of your gender are also restricted to this smaller pool in their search for a pairing, giving you a better chance of being accepted/selected by a particular individual that you're attracted to (assuming you spend significant time around people in this pool). So this factor may not have a big effect.
(See also)