Well, if nothing else, because only people who have issues would want it. It's not humanly healthy to be insecure about your sexuality. You can argue it's not a bad thing, but it comes from bad places and isn't a good sign.If someone wants a straight pill they're probably depressed and have had bad experiences with homophobes. That's not a good mindset for making life-changing decisions. People who are ashamed of their sexuality are the ones who commit suicide. That's not the people you want to be encouraging. They're people who need help. They need to have positive experiences around their orientation. And in many cases they could be bullied into taking a straight pill. It's just not necessary. I don't particularly like those other procedures either. The only one that is worth it is fat-reduction, because of the health benefits, but people just use that one when they're insecure. And many of them abuse lyposuction because only rich indulgent celebrities can afford it anyway. Not a convincing comparison.
(i'm only doing this because i'm drunk, and i'm a bit obnoxious when i drink, just an FYI ) Deciding what people 'should' want and not want is very presumptuous. The question here is, 'is a straight pill amoral' and it is not. If the ability is within reach, people should have the option of being whatever they desire to be (that might just be my American 'pursuit of happiness' showing through) One thing you're assuming is shame, that the only reason someone would what to change what they are is because they're ashamed of it. It's entirely possible what someone wants to be has nothing to do with what they are. I want to be a Jedi, doesn't mean i'm ashamed of being in the wrong galaxy. Culture has gotten to the point where people are afraid to admit what they want to be because they'll be accused of being 'ashamed' of what they are. to make up a new story, with an unreal person, in a situation that might not even exist; "No, you need to be what you are no matter what. If you even try and change who you are, everyone on the internet will yell at you for being a coward."
But homosexuality is only a scarey unknown if it's mostly hidden--it manifests with a pretty high frequency, a higher frequency than, for example, red hair. People don't usually have survival fear about red hair.
There are two reasons why I said that. One, no examples of people wanting to change their orientation other than the perception it is morally wrong or looked down upon greatly have existed, as far as I know. And two, those people have high rates of depression and suicide and other such mental health issues.
Other reasons exist. I want to be gay. This want is in no way, shape, or form, connected to any shame of being straight. It mostly has to do with getting along better with other guys, and us having a lot more in common. Sadly i'm not, my biology attracts me sexually to the opposite sex. Them's the breaks. As for your second point, one persons mental health issues should not effect another unrelated person. Just because Joe has a drinking problem, doesn't mean alcohol should be illegal. Not having a straight pill will won't change this persons depression, only addressing the issue will, so it doesn't really have a place in this argument. I Think maybe you're too close to this subject, which makes it hard to think about objectivly. Asking someone of the LGBT persuation this question is akin to asking a holocaust survivor if the government should issue every citizen a social security number (don't know what its called down under) to 'keep track' of them. They're going to say no.
People do sometimes have survival paranoia about red hair. Haven't you ever heard of people being bullied for being a "ranga" and a "ginger" and such? And anyway, it's less because it's more normalized. Survival paranoia misfires when it there is either great pressure (the immigrant crisis) or social separation (homophobic teachings). People get survival paranoia because the religious right taps into it, pretty much unaware but they are tapping, and so the reaction is stimulated in far less logical ways that say, I don't know this person, they could be a serial killer. I'd better not give them my home address. It is also true that many results says homophobic men are more likely to be gay or bisexual than other men claiming to be straight. Similar results have been shown for women, though less so. (Women register lower populations of homophobes even in heavily homophobic countries like Uganda). So there's an element of fear of the self. Of insecurity about becoming the victim. There's also a connection with the desire for children to continue the birthing of the new population. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/natural-homophobes-evolutionary-psychology-and-antigay-attitudes/.
Wait, are you saying you actually do want to become gay? That's interesting. (Tempt me why don't you sir. )
Absolutely, the culture in America is split between teaching females as they grow up that -beauty is the most important -don't be very intelligent, men hate that -men need to be this perfect gentlemen and treat you like a queen at their expense Basically every part of this is extremely unattractive and annoying to me. The other half is taught -you don't need a man for anything. -If a man doesn't like every part of you, you deserve better -men aren't the enemy, but they get paid more, get better jobs and... actually yeah, fuck those guys. Most women who grew up under the influence of this one scare me. Like a lot. Now i know this isn't their fault, but when huge portions of the population grow up with these beliefs, I'd rather just date a dude.
And the women would probably be glad to be rid of you! In terms of the OP - what other socially disadvantaged groups could also have pills to change them? Could black people take a pill to make themselves white? If this pill existed, would there be any reason to take it, other than to escape from racism? I don't think morality can be determined in a vacuum. If a future society has evolved to the point that there's no racism, then maybe having a pill to turn someone white would be amoral rather than immoral. But I'd expect there also to be a pill to turn people black or anything else, because it's our contemporary racism that would make us assume people would only want to move one way. If the future world does have racism, and that racism is similar to our own, then to me a pill to change black people to white seems highly problematic. We wouldn't be talking about meeting an innate need to be different, but rather meeting a societally constructed need - and I think it'd make a lot more sense to make a pill to keep people from being racist assholes rather than making a pill to change the victims of their assholery. Similar reasoning applies, for me, to the straight pill. If there's no homophobia I would assume that there'd be demand for pills to move in all directions - I'd certainly consider taking a "bi" pill, if I were confident in the absence of side effects like other personality changes (are we really confident that our sexual orientations have no other impact on the way we've developed as individuals?). If there are no side effects, why not open up the field of potential partners? But if there IS homophobia, and we have the technology to change an intrinsic part of a human's personality/psyche/whatever, then I think it would make a lot more sense to use the technology to get rid of homophobia. I sincerely believe that homophobia is less ingrained in a person than sexual orientation is, so it should be easier to change. I guess at some point you may need to look at whether "transhumanism" is best applied at an individual or a societal level. Collective rights vs. individual rights - always interesting!
Fixed it for you. On a serious note I apologize for what i said above; I should know better than to discuses sensitive topics with a less than clear mind. Also, to sum up my thoughts on the matter (now that I can gather more than two or three of them) I 'straight pill' would be entirely ethical, but could easily be used in ways that are not. Also, it is not wrong to have a straight pill without its counterpart, but it is really suspicious.
I'm not sure how scientists could test for genetic prejudice to isolate the genes responsible for it. Sexual attraction seems more apparent for the purposes of systematic testing. Regardless of the <x>phobia behind its development, I still think that simply having the option to control your own genetics is a step in the right direction. It's no more unfair than letting random chance decide everything.
I don't think the evidence on sexual orientation being genetic is completely firm, yet. At the very most I think most science suggests male sexual orientation is "influenced" by genetics. So I'm not sure I accept the idea that you could change orientation because it's genetic but not change prejudice because it's not genetic. And I think it's simplistic to look at "fairness" as a completely individual decision. That's what I meant when I mentioned individual vs. collective rights. If a black person living in a racist world has the ability to turn him or herself white, what implications would that have for other members of the same society? I would think there would be stronger arguments against any efforts to end racism, based on bullshit like "It can't be that bad to be black, because they aren't all changing over. So why should we waste any energy on trying to to make things better for them?" So the racism would stay bad or get even worse, and more and more black people would be pressured into changing their race, making it even more difficult for those who resisted and tried to hang onto something they felt was a huge part of their identity. By increasing the freedom of the individual, you've decreased the freedom of the collective. Obvious parallels to homosexuality. (It just feels like maybe using a different example will highlight some of the issues more clearly)
Racism will definitely become a huge thing as a result of cloning and human augmentation (for physical performance), but I think that these options for genetic control would have the opposite effect on societal pressures. Racism usually comes from the arbitrary association of skin color with other traits such as poverty or violence. When things like skin color and sexual attraction become dynamic, they become nothing more than cosmetic - like dyeing your hair red.
The way I see it, the change would be more fundamental than e.g. losing weight. Weight is also easier to quantify and define. Sexual orientation? To me, it'd be convincing to consider it a spectrum and I'm not sure if one can be 100 % straight, so what would the pill do? Make you less attracted to the same sex? And on what level (sexual, romantic)? What about a person who has male genitals, would most likely be described as man by outsiders, but identifies as woman? Would a cis-man who just took a hetero pill be attracted to her? Would seem quite unlikely the doctors/scientists who prescribe the pill could guarantee 100 % or even 99 % of straight-ness.
This might not be the answer most people want to hear, but my attraction to someone has nothing to do with what they identify as, it has to do with my feelings towards them. Just being designated a female doesn't grant my affection as much as not being female doesn't disqualify it (I saw a beautiful lawnmower at Home depot once that i wanted to do horrible things to... I was going through a weird phase where i was obsessed with my lawn.) I think the straight pill would work on a level where the subject then becomes attracted to traits that are biologically female. Of course we have the ability to mimic these traits onto a male, and if done correctly, I believe that a straight pill recipient could be attracted to a biological male with female traits. Then again i'm the guy who just admittedly wanted to have sex with a lawnmower, so take my opinion with a sea of salt.
I know what you mean, I wrote about something similar in another thread, as despite identifying as straight, I'm not attracted to a person with boobs, a va-jay-jay etc. even if s/he/ze/xe claimed they're actually a man on the inside. I'm attracted to traditionally (?) male/manly qualities in a man. I'm also not very attracted to short, round-ish men, or men with huge beards, or hipsters, or men who can't mow a lawn. It doesn't mean I couldn't, in another life where I'm not happily hitched, fall in love with a short, plump, bearded man in skinny jeans who's mortally afraid of lawnmowers because I think, in the end, personality rises above everything else. As I believe in that, it may even be possible I could've dated a woman if she had turned out to be my soul mate, so the personality transcends sex/gender. In this sense, I'm not sure "how" straight I can claim to be in the end. Which made me wonder how would this hypothetical pill affect a person's brain/body exactly, how straight are you going to be after taking it, and does the change happen only on a sexual attraction level, meaning it does nothing to those who have no interest in sex. Only the OP will know the answers when he eventually writes his book.
