I’d say recognizably a possible improvement. If the weirdness was just an improvement, in no uncertain terms, it’d be just a utopia.
That having been said, the grandparent post needs justify what’s the society’s reasoning regarding these “tragic” couples not being able to petition their celibacy cycles to synch. Otherwise it’s just a dystopia.
And also to explain whether the celibacy is enforced by custom, law, or biological modification.
My understanding of love, as distinct from lust, is that it involves wanting the other person to be happy even when their preferences are otherwise different from your own.
As such, I imagine an out-of-sync couple would have a single set of sex toys, passed back and forth as perennial birthday presents. Whoever was using them this year would fantasize about the other partner’s activities of the previous year, which seemed uninteresting at the time.
Alternatively, and especially if the lusty/celibate cycle ratio was different, the ideal marriage could be a ring rather than a pair: spend the first half with someone who activated before you, the second half with someone who activated after, maybe loneliness or three-ways in between depending on the timing, and then pass the passion on down the line.
I’d say recognizably a possible improvement. If the weirdness was just an improvement, in no uncertain terms, it’d be just a utopia.
That having been said, the grandparent post needs justify what’s the society’s reasoning regarding these “tragic” couples not being able to petition their celibacy cycles to synch. Otherwise it’s just a dystopia.
And also to explain whether the celibacy is enforced by custom, law, or biological modification.
My understanding of love, as distinct from lust, is that it involves wanting the other person to be happy even when their preferences are otherwise different from your own.
As such, I imagine an out-of-sync couple would have a single set of sex toys, passed back and forth as perennial birthday presents. Whoever was using them this year would fantasize about the other partner’s activities of the previous year, which seemed uninteresting at the time.
Alternatively, and especially if the lusty/celibate cycle ratio was different, the ideal marriage could be a ring rather than a pair: spend the first half with someone who activated before you, the second half with someone who activated after, maybe loneliness or three-ways in between depending on the timing, and then pass the passion on down the line.
I’d distinguish between “possible improvement” and “definite improvement, but only perceived as such after you’ve worked through your initial squick”.
Eliezer in the original post talked about arguable improvements, not definite ones.