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Our new IEET reader poll asks whether the exercise of human sexuality someday could become obsolete.
The human libido plays an obvious role in supporting reproduction, in pushing us to fulfill the biological imperative to pass on our DNA. Beyond that, it plays a secondary role in creating close bonds between humans and, clearly, its exercise is seen by many as one of the great pleasures of life.
But if we totally remove the reproductive role of the libido, will some — perhaps most — posthumans decide that it is an obsolete drive?
That’s the question we’re posing in our latest poll for IEET readers.
Speaking as a representative of the Caltech undergraduates, I can say that many of us did use antidepressants, which have the side effect of depressing libido. Given that the number one reason for antidepressants was to compensate for the absence of love and the obliteration of free time due to the crushing workload, I think its fair to say that some of us were essentially suppressing our libido in order to become better robots. The combination of libido suppression and cognitive enhancers is a must if you want to perform at these top engineering schools without risking suicide.
I guess it depends. If we can engineer the pleasure it brings to be associated with other actions such as learning and helping others than I don't see a problem. On the other hand if you are saying that we should give up the pleasure completely without a substitute then in that case i don't agree. You don't need libido to bond with people so it's not like we wouldn't be able to form deep relationships if we remove it.
A joining of minds simulated in a virtual environment where two entities physically and mentally become one and share everything they are while at the same time experiencing pleasures beyond current physical sex would be a kind of sex 2.0 so that would definitely be a nice alternative.
You could experience your wildest fantasies, become a different gender, multiple genders at the same time, alter you appearance, have orgies with 4 copies of yourself. I have no idea whether this is ethically just but personally I don't see much harm in it. In the end i think we will come to see physical sex as some ancient ritual. Not bad or wrong but just not on the same level as mental "sex". As a nice bonus STDs would become a thing of the past although a whole slew of new problems would probably rear it's head. Mental rape for example if this would be possible would be cruel to the extreme. Not to mention that if you lower your firewall and allow someone in your core he or she or whatever we might be in that time could just alter your thoughts, which brings us to inception maybe it would even be possible to delete your mind or take over your physical self in the real world.
This is too far off to think about in a meaningful way. We can speculate but I don't think sex will be going away in the foreseeable future and as long as we don't have a substitute it better not :p
Sex is already posthuman. Since the advent of reliable contraceptives, sex has been increasingly dissociated from the aim of reproduction. Like many products of biology, the libido is functionally indeterminate and always susceptible to new 'apparatuses of capture' like cyber-sex or the invention of courtly love.
(if this posts without paragraph breaks blame the server, I put them in)
No, sorry. Even asking the question is ridiculous.
We've spent most of our existence seeking to escape the consequences of sex, while trying to find more and more ways to increase the frequency of the sex act.
With the ability to finally completely divorce sex from procreation under all circumstances, the ability to enable every person to become "sexually desirable" and the freedom to have sex WITH ABSOLUTELY NO NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES (like disease) do you REALLY think we're going to have LESS SEX???
We've never in our entire history made ANY EFFORT to reduce the pleasure of sex, and made endless efforts to enhance it. Our "taboos" about sex have done nothing but cause endless misery. Our entertainment industry revolves around little more than sex and violence.
Every single trend points to a future in which the libido is going to be given almost free reign, if not enhanced even further through "sexbots" "VR surrogates" and if SL is any indication, endless "enhancements" to improve sex.
I voted "Are You Crazy?" because this question goes against the entirety of human history, and human nature. I doubt we will EVER voluntarily "give up our libidos" as a species, though there are always individuals who might chose differently.
To be honest, I would say that the majority of those I have met who claim to "not be interested in sex" have primarily been those who were never very successful at attracting their chosen "mates" and have generally sublimated their "libido" into some other focus, or they have been SO successful that they've become temporarily bored, or they have one of several different chemical imbalances which "inhibit" their libidos. I can't speak for anyone else, but that has been MY personal experience.
Simply put, that you can even ask the question is a sad statement of the psychological disaster that has occurred in our culture because of the mish mash of religious, cultural, and social taboos we've inflicted on ourselves by refusing to accept that sex is a natural function of being human, and not a "sin" or a "shameful act" or a "dirty deed". If we were more willing to let our children see "Debbie does Dallas" and less willing to let them see "Friday the 13th, Gorefest!" or "Superstud mass murders hundreds" then maybe we wouldn't have a "problem" with pornography, or thousands of "sex criminals"
OK.. had to vote "Are you crazy!" - sorry just too tempting
One day folks will be able to reproduce simply by sitting on selective toilet seats, (at least this is what mama used to say).
Here are two rationales for sex sticking around. Short term, sex is mixed up in a lot of what people are about, and if transhumanity is an incremental path, it will take a while for the different functions to sort out.
Long term, sex has a rationale as abstract as combining information from different sources, and the game theory and complicated business of chunks of information trying to get themselves combined with other information. Evolution in no way stops just because one form of technology called "biology" is superseded by other forms of biology called "technology."
With all the things to do in the cosmos, why would a posthuman want to have sex? in fact, if an anti-libido pill with no side effects existed today, it would be a benefit to humanity-- as the social wreckage wrought by irresponsible sex is disproportionate to any degree of pleasure.
The existence of various, purely recreational drugs, of various degrees of legality and danger (and without even bothering to consider what ED medications say about us), suggests to me that a pill that will *take away* a pleasure that's an integral part of most of us, will (outside of criminal behavior restraint) have a use and success rate of approximately...zero.
Talk about orphan drugs...
Even in a religious celibacy context, I suspect the capacity to resist one's urges, would be considered more important than the ability to merely remove them.
I'm a little surprised by the wide range of opinions on this subject, though I probably shouldn't be. Uncharacteristically, I take a middle position here. I find both deification and denigration of sexuality harmful. Valkyrie, your post serves as an example of the former. Suggesting that asexuality doesn't really exist is contrary to the evidence and downright offensive. Criticizing folks for lack of sexual desire and/or action causes as much as damage as the reverse.
"a pill that will *take away* a pleasure that's an integral part of most of us, will ... have a use and success rate of approximately...zero."
However even "approximately zero" might mean , say, .09 percent, which in a population of several billions is a big number. As for posthumans, they'd be deanimalized beings-- why would deanimalized beings want animal sex? I'm not advocating Julia's anti-sex League; this is to write that sex is only natural for humans & transhumans; for posthumans such IMO will not be the case.
@ Summer
I'm a succubus, Summer. I spend a great deal of time talking to people about sex, and I stated quite clearly that my statements were based on the personal experiences I have had in doing so.
I never said asexuality doesn't exist, I said that in my experience that the majority of cases I had encountered tended to be people who fell under the various categories I listed. At no point did I claim that EVERYONE did. Exceptions DO exist, but they are uncommon.
And at what point did I "criticize" anyone for their "lack of sexual desire?" My criticism was directed against the bipolar way we deal with sex in our culture, from our refusals to teach children about sexual reality, depending on them to learn about it from strangers in the lockerrooms of our schools, and the overwhelming mixed messages we give them daily with our media culture that shows them "Sex is good" while constantly telling them "sex is bad". With such a psychotic message pouring into our minds non stop is it really an wonder we can't recognize our sex drives in action?
You must recall how many times I have pointed out how much of human behavior is a sublimation of the reproductive instinct. We are drive to "status" seeking behavior, which includes every form of "Social Climbing" be it seeking the approval of your peers, seeking to "get ahead" at your job, and "Keeping up with the Joneses" as well as the typical gamut of peacocking behavior from both males and females. We've mastered sublimating our sex drives. So when I point out how often asexuality is merely a frustrated sex drive, it's simply a statement of what I have seen in nearly 20 years of observation and discussion, not a claim that asexuality doesn't exist.
Feel free to disagree as much as you wish, but please try to limit your disagreements to things I actually say. (Now, can someone who's a mod tell me why the website has suddenly stopped recognizinf paragraph breaks? This is getting really annoying)
Agreed there might be some fraction out there. Indeed I chose the conditional 'most of us,' because I know someone who considers themselves asexual, even today. I can't identify with it, but I don't doubt it exists...
But at the very least, one would now have to ask what other kinds of 'animal' behaviors, whatever we define that to be, might posthumans divest themselves of (presumably sexual libido isn't the only possible one)...and why?
Would they know pleasure at all? Or even want to?
Exactly, no need for posthuman nutrition, either; hopefully a posthuman might be nourished by solar energy-- nothing more.
@ Valkyrie: "the overwhelming mixed messages we give them daily with our media culture that shows them 'Sex is good' while constantly telling them 'sex is bad'". Yes... however what makes sex exciting IMO is that it is widely considered bad-- or shall we say it is not discussed openly. For instance in a 3rd grade Elementary School class the students can openly talk of food but not of sex. Why would sex being out in the open be bad? it wouldn't be wicked but it would become boring, as tasteless people would make it duller than it already is. Porn is tasteless because the pornocracy and its consumers are so empty and boring. IMO such is to the good because if erotica were interesting it would be too distracting; "erotica" today is tantamount to a soporific, its consumers drink beer, watch a porno, and then go to sleep. Those at a site like IEET have somewhat higher standards, but most people are dullards-- and no one goes broke underestimating the taste of dullards. Sometimes a pro can sum things up more cogently: in 1964 a reviewer of 'Last Exit To Brooklyn' (the book, not the later film) wrote "this book shouldn't be censored, it is so disgusting it will cause its readers to lose interest in sex". The reviewer might have been on to something.
Valkyrie, your statements align with a long history of dismissal of asexuality and constructions of sexual desire as an essential part of being human. They don't exist in a vacuum. The notion that everyone should be obsessed with sex all the time (and in the established fashion) is quite pernicious. Various folks have described me as asexual, which I am not, because I don't conform to this narrative. I guess I should be thankful they didn't call me frigid.
gosh people !
Transhumanism recognizes a continuum of valid states of existence.
If I have no sex drive due to a particular configuration of neurotransmitters, and just sit in my room all the time doing math, that is a valid mode of existence.
If I have an unstoppable sex drive and spend all my time in virtual orgies or something, thats fine too.
If I want to reconfigure my state to add/remove sex drive/change up orientation/whatever, I can do that too.
To give preference to any particular state of being as more or less desirable than others seems to contradict the fundamental values of transhumanism.
Now, there is a practical curiosity. If we end up with an ecosystem of post-human entities that are resource constrained, and can reproduce, you might get some evolutionary selection for various sexual or asexual modes of reproduction.
Note that many organisms that are incredibly successful have been reproducing without sex since the dawn of time. That is to say, not all microbes engage in anything we would call sex. Sure, they can pick up modifications from the environment, and duplicate themselves, and a post-human would be able to add and remove modules and make clones of itself. If the post-human entity survives and reproduces without sex, then maybe it will have extra resources that sexually reproducing systems don't, maybe it will expand faster.
Its a whole ecosystem, and I think all modes will be present.
I gave the obvious answer to the poll: "Maybe not disappear, but obviously it will become both adjustable and optional."
Libido can be lots of fun, but it should be something that you can switch on and off at will. We already have drugs to switch it on or off, but they are not very precise. I am sure posthumans will have very precise means to control it and put themselves in any state, including both extremes.
Whatever Summer. You still chose to read into my statements what you want to hear, so there's no point pointing out again that you're making an argument against things I did not say. But for everyone else who's not already made up their minds to only hear what they want, I never said that asexual behavior doesn't exist. It's a Effing Bell Curve. That means that asexuality is indeed part and parcel of the human effing race. BUT IT IS AN EXTREME, Just like NYMPHOMANIA IS AN EXTREME. Most people will fall in the middle of the curve. However, that curve also intersects the curve of "Status seeking behavior" with High status people in any given situation being far more successful at mate attraction, and low status people having far less. When you cross these two curves, you end up WITH A LOT OF UNSUCCESSFUL FRUSTRATED PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO BE ASEXUAL BECAUSE THEY ARE UNSUCCESSFUL AND HAVE GIVEN UP TRYING. Now, will the future change that? Sure as hell will. Will we give up sex? I sincerely doubt it. Will we control our libidos? I'm sure we will, but there is no evidence in history that mankind will voluntarily abandon sex. Individuals may, but AS A SPECIES, it is EXTREMELY unlikely.
never say never though. The only constant is change so personally I would be surprised if we are still having sex a million years from now. The process is way too clumsy and random for reproduction so its main reason for having sex would become fun. For many people alive today this is already the case. At the moment the act of having sex lights up our brain's pleasure center like fireworks but what happens when you engineer other actions to be even more stimulating? The word sex is just a label that for many people now means nothing more than some form of fun or ecstasy. In a way this new action would become the new sex, the new ultimate ecstasy.
Then again, I am not sure that it's fun or ecstasy that we should be looking for in the first place.
What I attempted without success to express above concerning the tastelessness of 'erotica' would need far more comprehensiveness to be worthwhile. However it does appear as being illuminating that: porn is vulgarly commercialized, that it appears to be motivated by revenge, plus that many of the 'actors' aren't even attractive. Commercialized porn strikes me as being a crude commodity such as alcohol & tobacco, sans the direct health threats.
"WITH A LOT OF UNSUCCESSFUL FRUSTRATED PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO BE ASEXUAL BECAUSE THEY ARE UNSUCCESSFUL AND HAVE GIVEN UP"
With the graying of developed nations, you might want to qualify the above: grandparents and residents of assisted living & nursing homes are not frustrated. They were quite SUCCESSFUL at one time, or several billion persons would not be the case.
Grandparents, seemingly by definition, were 'sucessful' at some previous time, that's true. On the other hand, it's possible to be 'unsuccessful and frustrated' all the way into old age. Merely being in assisted living doesn't mean there are descendants visiting you. (Either because for whatever reasons, they will not, or that there simply are none.)
And having reached our current definition of old age, also doesn't prove absence of libido, it only means they may be less physically able to do anything about it. Assuming intact memory and recall, they'll know and remember what they're missing as the typical end-point of libido...
And while the meaning of those memories may be different to them, so might a posthuman.
Fair enough. What IMO is amusing is a certain sanctification of sexuality that began (bear with my pendaticism) say, Hugh Hefner selling magazines by proposing to help people Find-- and not limited to sex-- Themselves. Putting to one side the over-glorification of sex & sexuality, what happens when some men Find Themselves to be rapists? There are rapists in nature, aren't there? And the rapist of today can use carnitine, niacin, viagra, cialis, etc. I don't say Valkyrie or you are mistaken, however there are more shades of gray to this, and not the white of "sex good, Ah, divine", or "sex wicked, Amen".
...btw, frustration is unavoidable. Mostly I don't like it when the meaningless sanctification of religion is superseded by that of sexuality. Why is creating an aphrodite or venus in your mind any improvement whatsoever on Yahweh or Krsna? this isn't merely abstraction; you couldn't get away from sex in the '70s, however was it anywhere near as good as the hype often holds it to have been? Meat market is commodification like any other.
I would go even further with the criticism of mainstream pornography, postfuturist. It's bloody-minded male supremacist hate speech. The radical feminist positive is spot on.
If that is so then say if porn was interesting-- rather than mostly something for meatheads to watch while they drink beer-- would it be more prevalent?
That is, even more prevalent than at this time; if it wasn't mostly boring, commercialized, tasteless, then wouldn't too many of the susceptible be interested?
But you might very well be able to create your own substrate:
sex fans might live in Long Dong Silver's Tasteless Porn mansion; prudes might live in Joan d' Arc's Cold Shower Chastity Belt mansion. Why, there's no limit when you put your mind to it, Janonymous. Seek and Ye shall find.
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The human libido plays an obvious role in supporting reproduction, in pushing us to fulfill the biological imperative to pass on our DNA. Beyond that, it plays a secondary role in creating close bonds between humans and, clearly, its exercise is seen by many as one of the great pleasures of life. 
maybe it would even be possible to delete your mind or take over your physical self in the real world.
This is too far off to think about in a meaningful way. We can speculate but I don't think sex will be going away in the foreseeable future and as long as we don't have a substitute it better not :p
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