Its scifi but in the Culture series by Iain M Banks, this is basically the case. Genetic engineering has come so far that people’s bodies produce drugs just by thinking about them. Gender transition is so complete that pregnancy is possible - one male character transitions every so often just because he likes being pregnant, then goes back to male. You’re considered odd if you haven’t transitioned at least once out of curiosity.
Ok if someone that plays videogames 24 hours a day told me in their 35 years of gaming they haven’t picked a character of the opposite gender once I would consider that odd too.
That’s a ridiculous assertion. It’s much more likely that such a person simply always want to self-insert as much as possible, and so they choose characters as close to them as they can when given the choice, each time.
In my defense I was also imagining someone physically say “In my 35 years of gaming I have not picked a female character once!” in a conversation instead of them just not thinking much about it lmao.
It’s interesting to look at the Culture series with a modern eye. Many of the ideas he had about what humans would choose to do in those circumstances were interesting, but he was also kind of comically unimaginative with how people would choose to change themselves. The humans of the Culture seem to be incapable of transitioning to a more androgynous or nonbinary gender, at least for the long term, and are also incapable of altering their own sexual preferences. At one point a character expresses disappointment at not becoming attracted to men when they transition to a woman, which seems like an odd lapse of imagination for a society that would bother to give all their members full conscious control of their genital function and the ability to change genders at will by default. No big dick goth futas or furries in the culture, even though there are people living today who would do almost anything to be that in real life. All of the humans depicted appear to remain approximately human shaped, which in itself isn’t necessarily unexpected, but with the kind of biological engineering they’re capable of you would imagine some people would want to be some other shape. No one decides to be a space whale that can swim between the stars under their own power. No one decides, or perhaps are unable, to expand their minds to significantly increase their intelligence or alter their consciousness. Everything he imagined they would do to themselves was essentially a refinement of some feature already present in humanity. Even more strangely he imagines that, to the Culture, remaining young forever is seen as a social faux pas, that they would value aging and death from age for some reason, despite creating immortal true AGI so advanced none of them even need to do anything anymore. To be sure some of this is practical for the sake of storytelling, but it’s interesting to see the statement that “science fiction isn’t about the future, it’s about the present” played out in the Culture like this. What might current science fiction writers imagine post scarcity people would do? How comically unimaginative will that seem to future humans doing things we couldn’t have even imagined today?
No, but isn’t there a guy who’s just covered in dicks? I’m fairly sure there are folk described who choose to take weirder and wackier shapes, but they kinda live on the fringe of things,
Charles Stross’ Glasshouse gets into more of those themes. You can tell he’s writing from a masculine point of view, but I appreciate his attempts to explore more ideas of dysphoria, and the crazier body mods people would try.
Its scifi but in the Culture series by Iain M Banks, this is basically the case. Genetic engineering has come so far that people’s bodies produce drugs just by thinking about them. Gender transition is so complete that pregnancy is possible - one male character transitions every so often just because he likes being pregnant, then goes back to male. You’re considered odd if you haven’t transitioned at least once out of curiosity.
Ok if someone that plays videogames 24 hours a day told me in their 35 years of gaming they haven’t picked a character of the opposite gender once I would consider that odd too.
Like it heavily implies sexism at this point.
That’s a ridiculous assertion. It’s much more likely that such a person simply always want to self-insert as much as possible, and so they choose characters as close to them as they can when given the choice, each time.
Yeah that’s fair.
In my defense I was also imagining someone physically say “In my 35 years of gaming I have not picked a female character once!” in a conversation instead of them just not thinking much about it lmao.
Or being afraid of the feelings they might feel if they do.
It’s interesting to look at the Culture series with a modern eye. Many of the ideas he had about what humans would choose to do in those circumstances were interesting, but he was also kind of comically unimaginative with how people would choose to change themselves. The humans of the Culture seem to be incapable of transitioning to a more androgynous or nonbinary gender, at least for the long term, and are also incapable of altering their own sexual preferences. At one point a character expresses disappointment at not becoming attracted to men when they transition to a woman, which seems like an odd lapse of imagination for a society that would bother to give all their members full conscious control of their genital function and the ability to change genders at will by default. No big dick goth futas or furries in the culture, even though there are people living today who would do almost anything to be that in real life. All of the humans depicted appear to remain approximately human shaped, which in itself isn’t necessarily unexpected, but with the kind of biological engineering they’re capable of you would imagine some people would want to be some other shape. No one decides to be a space whale that can swim between the stars under their own power. No one decides, or perhaps are unable, to expand their minds to significantly increase their intelligence or alter their consciousness. Everything he imagined they would do to themselves was essentially a refinement of some feature already present in humanity. Even more strangely he imagines that, to the Culture, remaining young forever is seen as a social faux pas, that they would value aging and death from age for some reason, despite creating immortal true AGI so advanced none of them even need to do anything anymore. To be sure some of this is practical for the sake of storytelling, but it’s interesting to see the statement that “science fiction isn’t about the future, it’s about the present” played out in the Culture like this. What might current science fiction writers imagine post scarcity people would do? How comically unimaginative will that seem to future humans doing things we couldn’t have even imagined today?
No, but isn’t there a guy who’s just covered in dicks? I’m fairly sure there are folk described who choose to take weirder and wackier shapes, but they kinda live on the fringe of things,
Charles Stross’ Glasshouse gets into more of those themes. You can tell he’s writing from a masculine point of view, but I appreciate his attempts to explore more ideas of dysphoria, and the crazier body mods people would try.
Highly recommended title
“Saturn’s Children” less so.