eftychia: Photo of clouds shaped like an eye and arched eyebrow (sky-eye)
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[... and a wee bit of experimenting with mirror-related layout]

Alrighty then, my body can stop playing this "crash hard only to be wide awake again an hour later not feeling rested" game, any time now, please. :-(

A thought I had earlier but didn't muster the energy to post at the time: Let's say we have an individual of an "uplifted" species -- genetically engineered by another species to produce sentience ... uh, sapience ... er, "human-like intelligence". (For example, Tayler's elephants, Stanley's Bowman's Wolves, Brin's dolphins.) And furthermore, let us suppose that members of the uplifted race are able to breed with their pre-uplift cousins. Would such a coupling constitute bestiality? Does it make a difference whether the offspring from such a mating would be sterile (like a mule, hinny, or zorse) or fertile (like mutts/mongrels, or like female ligers and tigons), or is sapience where the line is? Does it matter whether the normal mating signals -- pheremones, mating dances, calls -- are the same for the uplifted and non-uplifted races?

A related thought, that I thought it might be in poor taste to post while so many of my friends were in dire straits dealing with the recent trouble (but may be in even poorer taste now that some of them have been turned into zombies themselves): do zombies have sex, and if so, does it count as necrophilia if two zombies have sex with each other? Or is it only necrophilia if one of the parties is alive? And for that matter, what about vampires? Should there be a corresponding term for an obsession or interest in sex with the quick on the part of the (un)dead? (Uh ... 'biophilia'?)

[And how many of you stumbled a bit at my choice of the word 'quick' there? Although http://www.m-w.com lists that as the first definition and doesn't mark it obsolete or archaic, about the only time I hear anyone but me use the word that way is in the specific phrase "the quick and the dead". Is it used elsewise often and I just haven't noticed, or should I be more choosy about when I use it because it comes across as an affectation (or both)?]

Finally, what's that sloshing sound?

There are 5 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 
posted by [identity profile] gclectic [typekey.com] at 09:01am on 2007-06-14
Well, if nothing else, relations with non-uplifted cousins would be akin to statutory rape or animal cruelty: they are incapable of giving informed consent.

As for biophilia, and other interactions between sapient species, no problem: it's all just rishathra. Again, informed consent is the key.
 
posted by [identity profile] keith-m043.livejournal.com at 09:28am on 2007-06-14
 
posted by [identity profile] keith-m043.livejournal.com at 09:38am on 2007-06-14
You are becoming transjournaled?
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
posted by [personal profile] redbird at 12:03pm on 2007-06-14
Informed consent is a tricky one: if the less-intelligent participant is enthusiastically participating in, even initiating, sex with an uplifted person of very similar morphology and sexual signals, I have trouble coming up with reasoning under which that isn't informed consent in which an animal of that species can consent to sex with another non-sapient member of its own species.

There might be a profound "ick" factor, either stopping the uplifted people from consenting to sex with non-uplifted members of their own genus, or causing them to be scorned or worse by other people: "what kind of a weirdo is he, he has sex with the ones who can't talk?" "Can't zie get a real partner, someone who knows zir family?" "The only people who have sex with wild wolves are so inept that no actual person would even give them the time of day" "It's wrong to sleep with the soul-less, throw her in jail before she corrupts the young!"

And, of course, the possible creation of half-sapient offspring would probably affect opinions.
 
posted by [identity profile] starmalachite.livejournal.com at 02:19pm on 2007-06-14
about the only time I hear anyone but me use the word that way is in the specific phrase "the quick and the dead"

Pregnant women and the medical professionals who care for them still refer to the quickening of a fetus, i.e., its first independent movements in the womb.

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