The "Turn On" Homosexuality Button

[Crossroads Inc.]

Sure, we can debate what it would be like to eliminate Homosexuality, but what of the reverse? What if everyone suddenly found the idea of sex with the oppiside sex repugnant. How would the world cope? Could it with such a massive change? How much would it affect population growth? And could the world actually live with such a change?

[Darth Wong]

It seems rather obvious that there would be an enormous decrease in the world population.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Two words: Bad Idea™.

[Lord Zentei]

Cultures that could afford large scale artificial insemination would survive. Those that could not afford this would not. There would be massive tension between the two as the latter sought aid in order to survive.

Lots of money would be spent on reasearch in an effort to reverse the effects of the button.

[Solauren]

No one has the right to change anothers sexuality as it related to gender prefence within there own species.

Now, age preference, and preferrence outside species, is another matter..


so I agree BAD IDEA

And Men would become obsolete except for sperm donars, and since it might be possible to harvest the cells needed and put them in another species, we'd be rather... screwed.

Men need woman to have kids, woman only need men for there DNA

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Yes. Stupid. Idea. This sort of button would only be pressed by someone looking to irrevocably commit the human species to extinction. What might be a more interesting question is a "Turn On Bisexuality" Button, which makes everybody want sex with both the opposite and the same sex.

[drachefly]

Artificial insemination with all the bells and whistles is expensive. The turkey-baster approach is not.

[Lord Woodlouse]

I think you'd be surprised by the amount of people that would just swallow their inate desires and form sexually reproductive relationships just out of what they consider their duty.

[RedImperator]

How many happily married couples would suddenly find their partners physically repulsive? This would be an unmitigated social disaster.

[Darth Wong]

It would, in fact, be the single greatest catastrophe in all of human history, making all of our wars seem insignificant by comparison.

As for the inevitable idea of a bisexuality button, no fucking thanks. Bisexuals can live their lives as they want, but I personally like the idea that I have no sexual attraction to half the population. I don't need sexual tension all the time.

[Crossroads Inc.]

wow...

I can hounestly say I didn't think this one through all the way. After reading the other thread, I figured this would make for an equally interesting discussion. In truth it woul be the single most socially devastating act in History much as Wong said. Really I don't know what else could be said

[skotos]

How many happily married couples would suddenly find their partners physically repulsive? This would be an unmitigated social disaster.

Although we'd obviously see a lot of divorces as a result of this button, I don't think it would be an unmitigated disaster. First, the OP specified that people would find sex with the opposite sex repugnant, not that they'd find their partner physically repulsive. This is an important distinction: I can think that a guy is handsome, or pretty, or even hot, without having any desire to shove my dick into his ass. This applies to non-human things as well: I think that sunsets are pretty, but I don't want to fuck a sunset.

In addition, desireable sex is not necessary for a successful marriage. How many people shudder at the thought of sex with their spouse? Quite a few, in my experience. Hell, my parents haven't had sex in five years (admittedly, they could by lying about that), and they are very happily married.

As for mass extinction, although I agree with Darth Wong that we'd see a sharp decline in world population, we would not go extinct. Lots of people out there want to have kids, and would be willing to undertake a repugnant act in order to do so. This has been proven throughout history as well: plenty of gay people have had kids, either out of a basic desire to have children, or out of a sense of duty (yes, Edward II, I am looking in your direction!).

One thing I'm sure of is that this change would result in a huge increase in the demand for lesbian porn.

[Darth Wong]

In addition, desireable sex is not necessary for a successful marriage.

Many marriage counsellors would say otherwise.

As for mass extinction, although I agree with Darth Wong that we'd see a sharp decline in world population, we would not go extinct.

Once the population base plummeted so drastically, we'd be well on our way. Our genetic diversity, already much narrower than it would ideally be, would be reduced even more.

[RedImperator]

How many happily married couples would suddenly find their partners physically repulsive? This would be an unmitigated social disaster.

Although we'd obviously see a lot of divorces as a result of this button, I don't think it would be an unmitigated disaster. First, the OP specified that people would find sex with the opposite sex repugnant, not that they'd find their partner physically repulsive. This is an important distinction: I can think that a guy is handsome, or pretty, or even hot, without having any desire to shove my dick into his ass. This applies to non-human things as well: I think that sunsets are pretty, but I don't want to fuck a sunset.

Are you some kind of idiot? Are you seriously arguing that sexual attraction is not an important component of marriage?

In addition, desireable sex is not necessary for a successful marriage. How many people shudder at the thought of sex with their spouse? Quite a few, in my experience. Hell, my parents haven't had sex in five years (admittedly, they could by lying about that), and they are very happily married.

By all means, please, provide evidence for this great number of perfectly happy marriages where the partners find the thought of sex with each other repugnant.

As for mass extinction, although I agree with Darth Wong that we'd see a sharp decline in world population, we would not go extinct. Lots of people out there want to have kids, and would be willing to undertake a repugnant act in order to do so. This has been proven throughout history as well: plenty of gay people have had kids, either out of a basic desire to have children, or out of a sense of duty (yes, Edward II, I am looking in your direction!).

Population growth is already below the replacement rate in Western Europe and Japan, and would be in the United States and Canada were it not for immigration, and that's with 90% of the population, at minimum, heterosexual. You're telling me you think a world in which the entire population is homosexual would produce children at a rate necessary to sustain the species out of a sense of duty?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Oh Geeze, I finally conceed what a silly idea this was and someone actually defends it! The points about Japan and Europe alone should be enough to make one realize why this would be disastrous.

[skotos]

Are you some kind of idiot? Are you seriously arguing that sexual attraction is not an important component of marriage?

Jesus. Where the fuck did I say this? In the section you quoted, I merely said that not being sexually attracted to somebody does not mean that you find them physically repulsive.

By all means, please, provide evidence for this great number of perfectly happy marriages where the partners find the thought of sex with each other repugnant.

Looking for evidence on it, the best I could find is a blog that quotes an NYT article claiming that 1.6% of married men are gay. The blog entry is quite suspect however, since it also quotes the number of married men in America at 27 million, whereas a look at census data seems to show the number at closer to 40 million, besides which, that doesn't answer the question of how many of those marriages are happy. So, I concede the point.

Population growth is already below the replacement rate in Western Europe and Japan, and would be in the United States and Canada were it not for immigration, and that's with 90% of the population, at minimum, heterosexual.

I'm not sure what your point is. I agree that the population of the world would decline, I simply don't agree that the human species would become extinct as a result.

You're telling me you think a world in which the entire population is homosexual would produce children at a rate necessary to sustain the species out of a sense of duty?

No, I am not saying that anybody would have children out of a sense of duty. I am saying that there are people want to have children badly enough to be willing to perform a repugnant act to do so.

Do you care to provide some numbers on the number of human beings needed to sustain the species? This is necessary to determine whether or not the human species would become extinct as a result of sex becoming repugnant, although I suspect that finding the other number ("number of people who would have children despite sex being physically repugnant") will be difficult to locate.

A potential proxy for the second number is the number of children with at least one homosexual parent. Even this number has proven difficult for me to find. This site claims that the number of lesbian mothers is between 1 - 5 million in the US, which would mean that roughly a third of the lesbian population wants to have children, despite not wanting to have sex with the children's fathers. Could the human species survive with only 1/3 of the number of potential parents that it has now?

Once the population base plummeted so drastically, we'd be well on our way. Our genetic diversity, already much narrower than it would ideally be, would be reduced even more.

Well, we'd certainly be at risk for going extinct, which is why I'm curious to know what size the population needs to be to prevent extinction.

Oh Geeze, I finally conceed what a silly idea this was and someone actually defends it! The points about Japan and Europe alone should be enough to make one realize why this would be disastrous.

I'm not defending the idea, merely contesting whether or not it would lead to the extinction of the human species (I was also claiming that it would not lead to a massive number of divorces, but I've conceded that point). It is, obviously, a terrible idea, no good can come of it and there would be some nasty consequences. As for Western Europe and Japan, their low birthrates are irrelevant. Of course this scenario would result in a population decline, but there are certainly people who would be willing to have sex in order to have children - the question is, are there enough of them to sustain the population?

[Rye]

As for the inevitable idea of a bisexuality button, no fucking thanks. Bisexuals can live their lives as they want, but I personally like the idea that I have no sexual attraction to half the population. I don't need sexual tension all the time.

The bonobo chimps and greeks seemed to do okay. A change that would presumably follow then, would be a devaluation/change in the social values connected to sex. In the best case scenario, maybe if all humanity was bi, in the long term society could change, possibly something in line with the bonoboes where instead of violence resolving an issue, it could instead be resolved with a quick bit of genital stimulation.

This "what if" brings up some more questions: If everyone suddenly felt bisexual feelings, would society at large still suppress them because they don't know that there was a mass shift, because nobody was saying anything? Well, presumably, the young would be saying it, but middle aged and old people would presumably find it harder to deal and just suppress it.

[The Guid]

The bonobo chimps and greeks seemed to do okay

Whilst I don't disagree with the rest of your post I can't help but suggest that your examples do not support your theory.

Bonobos sit around, rub each others genitals and eat fruit. In terms of architecture, art, culture & philosophy I can't help but feel they're a little behind us.

As for the greeks I think it may well be an exaggeration to ascribe them as totally bisexual if not an exaggeration to say they were mostly bisexual. What I would suggest was that due to some of the limits of hetreosexual marriage they had "younger" friends. And I don't believe that is something we want to get into.

[Rye]

The bonobo chimps and greeks seemed to do okay

Whilst I don't disagree with the rest of your post I can't help but suggest that your examples do not support your theory.

Bonobos sit around, rub each others genitals and eat fruit. In terms of architecture, art, culture & philosophy I can't help but feel they're a little behind us.

That's not why I was comparing us to them, I compared to show a society can survive fine with highly sexualised social interaction and less violence, much like we could look at chimps and see that our more violent type of behaviour can work, too, but I don't think that'd be the ethical choice between the two. Ordinary chimps don't have architecture or whatever, that doesn't mean we can't look at their society and see something analoguous to our own development.

If human society had more free sex, maybe we'd be less inclined to violence is what I was saying. Might be a bit harder to beat the shit out of some guy that cut you up on the motorway if he'll give you a handjob in apology.

As for the greeks I think it may well be an exaggeration to ascribe them as totally bisexual if not an exaggeration to say they were mostly bisexual. What I would suggest was that due to some of the limits of hetreosexual marriage they had "younger" friends. And I don't believe that is something we want to get into.

True enough, though, pederasty seems to appear rather frequently in most cultures, as an affront to modern values and personal taste as that might be. I'll concede that.