newsweek.com/2010/08/16/life … ?gt1=43002
And why not? The internet feeds into this. On the net, you can be male, female, neither, both… Reproduction is at the point that it no longer needs males and only females for the gestation and delivery time. Why do we need either?
Reminds me of this article I read in USA today:
usatoday.com/life/people/201 … rris_N.htm
insert gagging smiley here
Ah yes, the lines do indeed get blurry. But isn’t it interesting that the article is presented as no big deal? Can you imagine this 20 years ago?
THEY don’t need either (for their society). But YOU still do (most likely).
Isn’t that the guy who plays the ultra-bro woman-gaming character from “how I met your mother”…? Jesus C. now I’m disillusioned and depressed.
Genderlessness. Great. Another milestone in the great group scramble for an ‘authentic’ self. But I think for the individuals involved it is quite the opposite - symptomatic of a pursuit of self through outward confirmation rather than inner conviction. Personally I’m a subscriber to the “I am what I am and I don’t care what labels you wanna throw at me, cos they won’t stick…” perspective. These guys are lost, and in attempting vainly to aquire individuality by proxy of mass-acceptance, only become moreso.
THEY don’t have anything but an enclave inside the larger society of male-female identification. But the lines are being blurred. That was the point of the OP. I don’t need any label, thank you. I’m quite comfortable in my own identity as a male and find no particular need to give a rat’s ass how others feel about theirs…
I don’t know, Tab. You and I and probably most others are comfortable in their own skin, but looking forward just a bit, the avatar games and the anonimnity of the net makes cross-gender role playing extremely easy - so easy that ambiguity in sexual identification is likely to grow. Like you, I can’t wrap my head around what “genderless” really means, but I suspect we’re likely to see a lot more of it.
There are plenty of countries that allow for a genderless/third-gendered option on passports (usually labeled “E” instead of “M” or “F”.) This is hardly a “first”. I mean, one of those countries is loving Pakistan!
Time for a batch of canceraids.
I agree with you about the ground that the internet is breaking on the issue of gender, though equating this to real life remains to be seen. Also, I doubt that avenue of reproduction will become exclusive or even prevalent due to the dynamic of our current cultural systems.
This is post represents my perspective also. A person who endeavors to be recognised as different from what they are currently recognised as, will never be satisfied.
From a poem of mine, just used it to illustrate the point.
A very interesting point, I agree. The lack of any real focus or point to western culture, as opposed to the mode of other cultures, aside from consumerism tinted with conveniently stabilising, residual morality, does and is leading to confusion amongst many people as to their identities or, indeed, their purpose. Any future social landscape is possible under these conditions.
I guess I’m seeing farfetched things, but the first of the week there was a blurb about the first 3D porn flick being produced in Hong Kong. Today I watched a TED presentation on an interactive avatar program that utilizes a camera that translates your body movements onto the screen. There is also voice recognition so that the avatar reacts to your movements and your voice. Perhaps I’m allow my imagination to run away with itself, but it looks to me as if full interactive “internet realities” are coming - and coming fast. Soon, we won’t have “invisible friends”, they’ll be on the screen in front of us. Looking us in the eye, talking to us, and if the porn industry grabs hold of this, doing a lot of other things as well (with appropriate accesories). The avatar sites now in existence will look like crude cartoons in a few more years. Granted, the majority of the folks will have to be content with RL, but a good number of people will have the option of virtual reality replacing RL. The games are about to cease being games… What all this means to sexual identification remains to be seen, but I think we might be ready to find out.
Tent,
The question at this point in the discussion is one of acceptance.
We have already discussed, somewhat, the eventualties of a culture without a traditional focus. Whether every permutation of a human that is created, will be accepted, or indeed, which of those will be accepted is now what I think is important to the point you now raise. It is not exclusively important, because I think the fact that the internet creates social groups that otherwise would not from is also important.
The technology that you reference would, predominately yet not exclusively, be availed of by those whose personality is found to be obnoxious, or at the very least not mirrored, by those around them and thus they use the internet to truly engage socially on their own terms with those to whom their personalities relate.
Yes, I can see that. But I think it goes much further. The appeal of such technology is really no different than the appeal of drugs, alcohol, or any of the other myriad ways people run away from life.
No small part of “growing up” is going through a period of social alienation. It’s a rather common attribute in young people. There are plenty of examples here in ILP. Typically, most people work through this alienation and come to terms with socialization and society at large. But what happens when an alternative life (virtual) is as convenient as the click of a mouse? How many will become “hooked” when they don’t even have to leave the house to find a dealer?
I certainly have no answers, I’m even less sure what are the questions, but I’m intrigued by the almost Matrix-like possibilities of these technologies and how they will shape coming generations.
Definately, and course this raises the issue of what, exactly, is the impact on society of such dependancies on such forms of escapism. I’m not going to digress into the other forms of escapism there are, nor am I going to talk about ideal situations, don’t worry. There are always going to be behaviors like these, and it what amount of people choose to escape in these ways is determined by the condition of the people, not the chosen behavior, in other words, if it wasn’t one, then it would be the other, this is evident. There are always going to be some who take them to extremes, while the majority of people are moderate, we know this, also. My question is, is this new developement such a bad thing in, and of, itself?
Certainly, I agree with you, that this advancement proposes many fascinating possibilities for the future.
Yes, among those possibilities will be some positive therapy tools as well. I was thinking about one of my favorite books by R.D. Laing called “Knots” that explores many of the seemingly paradoxical issues inside of malignant relationships and how an interactive avatar program could be used to help people work through their insoluable knots. So there is the potential of good and bad in these emerging technologies… It’s sort of like an appraisal of the invention of dynamite. 
Yes, fascinating in respect to these specific advances, and basically the whole, ‘‘Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People’’, idea, and the folly of anthropomorphism. Though despite that changes and technological advances, such as these, are ancilliary to the elements human experience, it never ceases that their impact would continue to be astounding, nor that the possibilities might elicit curiosity, regardless of their form.
Insert rib poker here: Men and women speak differently. You just can’t remove the gender even on the net.
As I said to a man who admitted to talking to my chest on Thursday night, that “men are men and women are women and nothing can/will ever change that”.
Since you finally posted a pic of yourself, it gave everyone a chance to “check you out”. Very nice! While I’m sure that I would talk to your face, I did notice… 
But the issue here isn’t those capable of knowing who they are, it is about those who are confused and the powerul new technologies that will will amplify and prolong (perpetuate?) that confusion. As Oran pointed out, this is just one of the potential uses/abuses of this emerging technology just as is always the case with all new technologies. We’re an inventive species and we’ll find ways to mess with EVERYTHING. But what struck me was the potential of this technology to make possible the changing of the most basic human attributes. Granted, it will be a relatively small number of people who end up “genderless”, but the fact that a man-made technology can effect this is both exciting and chilling. One does not have to think very far to see a clockwork orange scenario becoming readily available in the near future. The difference is that it won’t be brainwashing, it will be brain changing. Not what is thought, but how it is thought. How this is intertwined with all of our other mass media technologies is almost lala land stuff. We’re living in interesting times…
Yes, it’s the idea that these developements will create an environment for many more of the behavioral and psychological permutations that make a human to not only be realised, but that they will not nessecarily be accepted by society, but can at least survive in the nooks and crannies of the internet. This applies to the general socio-economic structure, but more specifically to the subculture landscape, and the survivability of more subcultures relative to popular culture, though the nature of pop culture itself does lend a hand.
The tag genderless is just one idea in this scenario.