I don’t actually watch How I Met Your Mother, but I’ve been assuming that the fictional situation you described was plausible enough to have a good chance of occurring in real life—though it’s possible I was wrong.
I’ve been assuming that the fictional situation you described was plausible enough to have a good chance of occurring in real life
People getting their way to the unfair detriment of others through arse-licking does happen a lot where I am, and not always in sexualized ways. (And it’s not the “sexualized ways” part that bothers me,¹ it’s the “unfair detriment of others” part.)
Ten hours before writing the grandparent, I was getting free beer and free cake after dancing with a group of women (none of whom I had ever met until a few hours prior) and letting them take my shirt off. And I can see no good reason to feel bad about that, at least in the situation I was in.
Ten hours before writing the grandparent, I was getting free beer and free cake after dancing with a group of women (none of whom I had ever met until a few hours prior) and letting them take my shirt off. And I can see no good reason to feel bad about that, at least in the situation I was in.
Hmm… Yeah; my intuition says the people involved would be frowned upon a lot more in that case. But then again, before the first time I did something like that, my intuition had said I would be frowned upon a lot more than actually happened; so I don’t trust it so much anymore, IOW I’m not sure I should have updated my intuition about the male stripper case but not also that about the female stripper case in the same direction. (When someone does something that makes me update my model of humans, it usually doesn’t occur to me to only update my model of their gender and not that of the other gender—but in situations like this one there are potential confounders aplenty.)
Yep — human reproduction is not an equal deal for the participants. In the most basic sense possible, it is not fair. Nobody promised humanity that our alien-god-given bodies would perfectly implement the rules of morality that we might later derive — such as reciprocity; or for that matter not using another person merely as a means to your ends.
This bug has been acknowledged many times before, and various technical and social workarounds have been proposed and deployed. The underlying bug still needs work, though it may not be fully fixed before humans are ported to a new platform.
It does bother me in Real Life, what I’m not sure of is whether it should bother me in fiction.
I don’t actually watch How I Met Your Mother, but I’ve been assuming that the fictional situation you described was plausible enough to have a good chance of occurring in real life—though it’s possible I was wrong.
People getting their way to the unfair detriment of others through arse-licking does happen a lot where I am, and not always in sexualized ways. (And it’s not the “sexualized ways” part that bothers me,¹ it’s the “unfair detriment of others” part.)
Ten hours before writing the grandparent, I was getting free beer and free cake after dancing with a group of women (none of whom I had ever met until a few hours prior) and letting them take my shirt off. And I can see no good reason to feel bad about that, at least in the situation I was in.
Picture that situation gender-swapped.
Hmm… Yeah; my intuition says the people involved would be frowned upon a lot more in that case. But then again, before the first time I did something like that, my intuition had said I would be frowned upon a lot more than actually happened; so I don’t trust it so much anymore, IOW I’m not sure I should have updated my intuition about the male stripper case but not also that about the female stripper case in the same direction. (When someone does something that makes me update my model of humans, it usually doesn’t occur to me to only update my model of their gender and not that of the other gender—but in situations like this one there are potential confounders aplenty.)
… in a world where men get pregnant?
Really, I’m impressed it took this long for someone to point out one of the fundamental problems of the gender-swap test.
Yep — human reproduction is not an equal deal for the participants. In the most basic sense possible, it is not fair. Nobody promised humanity that our alien-god-given bodies would perfectly implement the rules of morality that we might later derive — such as reciprocity; or for that matter not using another person merely as a means to your ends.
This bug has been acknowledged many times before, and various technical and social workarounds have been proposed and deployed. The underlying bug still needs work, though it may not be fully fixed before humans are ported to a new platform.