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News & ArtsTuesday, August 11, 2009
Savage Love Savage Love Letter of the Day
Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 2:31 PM
I'm listening to the intro to the newest podcast, and I really, really have to disagree with you here. I'm all for people being free to explore their kinks, and I hope centaur fetishists and the like get all the half people/half horse/all robot sexbots they want. But I'm going to have to draw the line at bioengineering half human hybrids. Not so much because I'm against bioengineering (I want to get me one of them glowpuppies they're making in the labs these days), but because it sounds way, way too much like sex slavery. When we get the technology that lets people transform themselves into half animals, that'll be different, but what we're talking about here is half-people who would be bred for sex. Which, to me, seems completely indefensible and pretty fucking vile.I'm all for sexbots, but when you're bioengineering, you're talking about people, not sex toys. Anyway, I'm just hoping you didn't think to think this through from the animal/person hybrid's point of view...
Anyway, thank for the podcast!
Bill
You're welcome for the podcast, Bill, and my comments about bioengineered centaurs were meant to be tongue-in-cheek. For the record: I am against the creation of half-human/half-animal hybrids for all the same and very sound reasons you are. Plus, I saw the still-thoroughly dreamy Michael York transformed into a "humanimal" in The Island of Dr. Moreau at an impressionable age and was thoroughly traumatized by the experience.
Enjoy the trailer—a shirtless Michael York in a cage!—by clicking here.
2
Dear Michael York. Sigh. He narrated "Chris and Don. A Love Story," which is about the wonderfullest thing ever filmed. I love that Don whiles away his dotage riding his bike around Santa Monica and painting the lovely young men who come to pose for him naked every day. I hope you had a chance to pop in and say hello when you were biking around down there recently.
5
I remember Dan bringing up the sexbots before as well as this fun bit:
When sexbots become available, how will people react to those who want sexbots in the form of children?
When sexbots become available, how will people react to those who want sexbots in the form of children?
7
Wait... Dan... you're saying that the experience of watching Michael York as a humanimal traumatized you rather than fetishized you? What does that singular anecdote say about your old-spice/centaur-fetish theory? Is fetishized even a word?
8
I still haven't recovered from Michael York's pronounciation of "lingerie" in those bra ads from a few (many) years back...
11
For the record, the creation of hybrid cells has nothing to do with creating centaur sex-slaves. Think more along the lines of, say, breeding pigs with hearts suitable for transplantation.
PZ Myers wrote about this legislation last month, explaining just how asinine Brownback's position is.
PZ Myers wrote about this legislation last month, explaining just how asinine Brownback's position is.
12
@11 - nah, mostly it's glow in the dark gerbils and planaria and so on.
Saves us on cutting them open.
Saves us on cutting them open.
13
"When sexbots become available, how will people react to those who want sexbots in the form of children?"
You can currently buy Real Dolls, yet I don't believe anyone is making any Real Doll children (except the infants, which are designed for women who want to play mommy and not for sexual purposes). I imagine it would be the same with child sexbots; they wouldn't get built.
You can currently buy Real Dolls, yet I don't believe anyone is making any Real Doll children (except the infants, which are designed for women who want to play mommy and not for sexual purposes). I imagine it would be the same with child sexbots; they wouldn't get built.
14
Why would it be alright to have sex-bots? If they're made to be in any way sentient, doesn't that give them the same rights as us non-robotic sentient beings?
15
Oh dear God, Michael York. I used to have such a lech for him. I blame Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet - he damned near stole that movie. And oh, be still my heart - when Liza tries to taunt him with "I sleep with Maximilian!" in Cabaret, and he looks at her and says, "So do I" ... oh my. *fanning myself*
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