Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
What is Bubbles' sexual orientation?
sniktchtherat:
--- Quote from: Mad Cat on 20 May 2018, 08:49 ---I think sniktchtherat is confusing sex and gender. Sex is physical. gender is psychological. The only outward appearance on bubbles' chassis of sex is a larger chest, all the better to install larger, stronger myomer synthetic muscles into to give her superhuman upper body strength as, clearly, Ofc. Basilisk does not have, and a distinct lack of male genitalia. There would be no physical evidence of gender, as that is a trait solely of the software that runs on said hardware, i.e. of the AI personality that got installed into it, i.e. the essence of Bubbles.
As has been mentioned, Bubbles' gender would be Bubbles' gender regardless of what chassis she inhabits. If something were to happen to Bubbles' combat chassis and she had to be installed in a chassis that looked more like Momo, Bubbles' gender, and sexual orientation most likely, would remain unchanged in the transfer. I only say most likely because with a completely new chassis may come new sex organs and thus new possibilities for sexual expression that may resonate with her gender identity in a complementary way, or a destructive way, which may itself affect her sexual orientation.
Sex is about what you have, bodily. Gender identity is about who you are and how you think. Sexual orientation is about who you're attracted to and what you want to do with who you're attracted to. This is why people like me are called, most specificly, transsexuals. We don't want to change our genders. We want to change the physical sex of our bodies, a task that is quite difficult for a biologicly embodied entity, but almost trivial for embodied AI in the QC-verse.
--- End quote ---
A reasonable reading - my use of 'gender', 'gender identity', and 'sexuality' is most likely rooted in a different perception of language. Basically, one of the terms has to be re-used during the triad, and to my personal way of thinking, divorcing physical capacity from sexuality makes more sense, as humanity has proven to be endlessly inventive in its uses of sexuality regardless of physical capacities. And the psychological identity of our individual species-members is also infinitely variable - but at present, our purely biological forms are, as you note, very, very hard to change.
...thinking about it, it's very possible my usage of 'gender' and 'gender identity' as the physical and psychological components of the point of contention is rooted in my brain saying 'they don't want their sexuality to match their sex, they want their gender to match their gender identity'. Focusing on the person's psyche, not their physicality. Make sense?
Either way, gotta love the English language's infinite capacity for unintentional obfuscation and accidental bewildering confusion.
Morituri:
So what happens when bodies are easy to change? In QC, AI have the option of changing chassis. But at some point in the not-too-distant future (probably in time for our greatgrandkids anyway) body modification for humans will become indistinguishable from being born that way.
Imagine that a man can decide in January that he wants to try being a woman, start taking some pills, and by the end of February, be a woman - physically, hormonally, and in every other way, six inches shorter, fifty pounds lighter, with whatever bustline/etc she decided on. So she stops taking the pills, acquires a nice wardrobe, and makes her way from there. Maybe a few years later, when she has a husband and a couple of kids, she and her husband decide to swap, so they both start taking pills, and a couple of months later they change their designations from "husband" to "wife" and "wife" to "husband" and the kids take a few weeks to get used to it and the oldest decides maybe he ought to be a daughter instead of a son and does that, and life goes on.
What happens to identities like transgender etc, if physical transition is easy, complete, permanent, reasonably quick, and works both directions so you can try it and if you decide it was a mistake you can just go back? Is the identity defined by the difficulty and acceptance issues associated with presenting an unexpected gender for your sex? If the difficulties of presenting completely go away, if there's nothing for people to base any non-acceptance on, does it still exist?
For extra-crunchy self-concept questioning, we have identified the specific bit of brain morphology that determines whether someone is primarily disposed to be androsexual or gynosexual or both (turns out that 'gay' and 'straight' are non-categories in the brain). People who have that kind of body mod tech, can likely change that at will, as well.
sniktchtherat:
--- Quote from: Morituri on 20 May 2018, 09:55 ---So what happens when bodies are easy to change? In QC, AI have the option of changing chassis. But at some point in the not-too-distant future (probably in time for our greatgrandkids anyway) body modification for humans will become indistinguishable from being born that way.
Imagine that a man can decide in January that he wants to try being a woman, start taking some pills, and by the end of February, be a woman - physically, hormonally, and in every other way, six inches shorter, fifty pounds lighter, with whatever bustline/etc she decided on. So she stops taking the pills, acquires a nice wardrobe, and makes her way from there. Maybe a few years later, when she has a husband and a couple of kids, she and her husband decide to swap, so they both start taking pills, and a couple of months later they change their designations from "husband" to "wife" and "wife" to "husband" and the kids take a few weeks to get used to it and the oldest decides maybe he ought to be a daughter instead of a son and does that, and life goes on.
What happens to identities like transgender etc, if physical transition is easy, complete, permanent, reasonably quick, and works both directions so you can try it and if you decide it was a mistake you can just go back? Is the identity defined by the difficulty and acceptance issues associated with presenting an unexpected gender for your sex? If the difficulties of presenting completely go away, if there's nothing for people to base any non-acceptance on, does it still exist?
For extra-crunchy self-concept questioning, we have identified the specific bit of brain morphology that determines whether someone is primarily disposed to be androsexual or gynosexual or both (turns out that 'gay' and 'straight' are non-categories in the brain). People who have that kind of body mod tech, can likely change that at will, as well.
--- End quote ---
In regards to the first thought, that's what the term 'gender-fluid' is for - and that's probably another reason I assign the physical to 'gender' as opposed to 'sex'. If such a day ever comes, those who can be girly today and manly tomorrow without head problems are gonna have an absolutely JOYOUS time, at least until the innate capacity for monstrousness in our species rears its ugly head once again and people start hating based on some OTHER fairly trivial and asinine difference. Sorry, is my cynicism showing? :roll:
Of course, it's theoretically possible that such magi-tech would finally break down enough barriers that we'll just treat people as PEOPLE, whether they're male, female, off-peach plains ape, bitter old rat-bastards, all of the above, none of the above, or any other wonderfully weird thing we can think of that harms no-one in the being. Not LIKELY, but possible. And there's that cynical snark again.
As to the second...I'd be immensely leery of monkeying with the brain, given how little we understand of it AND how little in general we understand most everything we THINK we do - as a perfect example of that, the mechanism by which aspirin reduces pain is STILL not understood, and yet people chomp it by the bucketloads every year. Messing with the interface between mind and body with the average level of human understanding of our creations sounds like a perfect way to screw ourselves crosseyed without even getting a kiss first. If we're assuming perfect knowledge...then I'd still have to say not a thing for me. While it's fun to play with the idea, I am me, and no matter how much trouble being me is, I'm gonna be me till I've got no more me to be.
Mad Cat:
Gender, gender identity, and gender role are all about who we are as a person and what role we play in our society. We are what we can do. We find identity in what benefits we offter those around us. In that, Bubbles' gender identity was the gender of a military AI, as a soldier and a medic, for those roles were her contribution to society, and though embodied as a humanoid, those roles did not (necessarily) have any sexual component. This is why I propose that Bubbles' human gender would have been agender and her sexual orientation have been asexual. The question of why Bubbles adopted a feminine human gender is one that only she could answer, but I would propose that from a wider perspective, without a sexuality to express, it made little to no difference in the context of her military AI role, outside of fitting in with her comrades socially. Getting sexually or romanticly involved with her comrades would not have been conducive to her fulfilling her role to the best of her abilities. This is not to say that she was incapable of having or developing these feelings, just that that part of her psychology went underdeveloped for a time. Human psychology has milestones, ages by which if certain levels of psychological developement have not occurred, the door is shut and they never will. There is no reason for this to be the case with AI. As long as an AI's mental dataset is tractable, meaning fits within the confines of the neural core of the chassis they are attempting to inhabit, they are free to learn, grow, and change in mental faculties forever.
Clearly, she has grown a fondness for the biological person of Faye Whitaker. In the taxonomy I developed above, Bubbles has grown to be biosexual, having a sexual preference for a human being, and as that human being is also of the feminine gender, in the context of human sexuality, this would make Bubbles homosexual, but within the context of AI gender, it would have no meaning whatsoever, especially since Bubbles has long since left her original role of military AI and a combat medic.I beleive the closest Bubbles could get to a new expression of her AI gender, it would be to become an EMT/paramedic on an ambulance crew.
[Discussion of how Bubbles and Faye may or may not be able to express their sexual attraction to one another in a physical sense DELETED.]
awgiedawgie:
Equating someone's gender with their physical appearance and capabilities is no different from equating one's gender with their biological sex.
Bubbles is a combat android. That is her physical appearance. Her gender is female.
May wants to be a fighter jet. That is a physical body. Her gender is female. If she ever gets her wish, she would be a female fighter jet.
Emily wants to be a toaster. If she ever gets her wish, she would be a female toaster.
Physical appearance, personality, or even societal role, are not the same thing as gender.
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