Everyone is celebate every other year. Because these periods go between birthdays, people arrange relationships on this basis, and there are tragic couples born on the same day but a year apart.
Why would this be an improvement?
Weirdtopia is not just weird customs, it’s weird customs that are still recognisably an improvement. Let’s be careful not to dilute the meaning.
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.
It could have many of the benefits of serial monogamy, while making coordination a lot easier. During the celibate periods people wouldn’t get distracted by sex at all. It’ll encourage people to plan their lives, rather than just drifting. It would allow people to get any benefit from asceticism, whilst also benefitting from sexual relations; possibly even becoming Millean Competent Judges...
I don’t actually think it would be an improvement. But it doesn’t seem to be more obviously worse than many of the previously mentioned wierdtopias.
You could spend even-numbered year being a good little worker-bee and saving up, with considerably less relationship-drama to distract you from maximum productivity, and odd-numbered years blowing it all on booze and hookers, for a net increase in sexual activity and net decrease in sexual frustration.
Sexual Weirdtopia:
Everyone is celebate every other year. Because these periods go between birthdays, people arrange relationships on this basis, and there are tragic couples born on the same day but a year apart.
Why would this be an improvement? Weirdtopia is not just weird customs, it’s weird customs that are still recognisably an improvement. Let’s be careful not to dilute the meaning.
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.
Only people who don’t want children can have children. As a way to reduce the population.
Of course this wouldn’t be required in a post-scarcity environment but as a plausible wierdtopia..
It could have many of the benefits of serial monogamy, while making coordination a lot easier. During the celibate periods people wouldn’t get distracted by sex at all. It’ll encourage people to plan their lives, rather than just drifting. It would allow people to get any benefit from asceticism, whilst also benefitting from sexual relations; possibly even becoming Millean Competent Judges...
I don’t actually think it would be an improvement. But it doesn’t seem to be more obviously worse than many of the previously mentioned wierdtopias.
It’s 50% less sex!
Actually, it’s 50% less aggregate demand for sex.
You could spend even-numbered year being a good little worker-bee and saving up, with considerably less relationship-drama to distract you from maximum productivity, and odd-numbered years blowing it all on booze and hookers, for a net increase in sexual activity and net decrease in sexual frustration.
Yes, in the same way that being half-asleep for 24 hours a day won’t necessarily make you better rested.
Ah, now I take your meaning. Perhaps “asexual” would have been a better term than “celibate”.
I still think there’s some confusion here, though it might be me. If you don’t think it’s an improvement on reflection, it’s not a weirdtopia.