Thursday, July 03, 2008

Deep Thoughts for Thursday: Clone Sex Edition


You're at work today, you need something fun to read, and here you are. Hi! Well, I've got nothing. Nada.

Oh, you're still here. Fine, here's a deep philosophical question for y'all to hash out in the comments:

You clone yourself. Then you have sex with your clone. Is it incest? Masturbation? Both? Neither? Something else entirely?

Follow up questions: Do clones have souls? Is a clone your identical twin, and therefore family, or merely an extension of yourself? Or does family mean more than genetic similarity? Deep, man. Deep.

OK. Go forth and debate.
Point of Clarification: your clone is totally into having sex with you. And you're into it, too. Remember this is all hypothetical, and nobody really expects you to clone yourself and do the nasty with your clone...after all, science isn't there just yet. So doing your clone doesn't make you gay.

26 comments:

Gilahi said...

Oooh. What if there was a transporter thingy a la "Star Trek", where you disassemble a person's molecules here and then reassemble a complete different but identical set of molecules somewhere else? Is it the same person, or have you murdered a person and created an exact duplicate?

J said...

I once said to an ex-girlfriend "You remind me of me, and I find that really attractive".

She said it was the most arrogant thing she'd ever heard anyone say.

Shannon said...

Gilahi, depends on whether molecules have souls.

Justin - so you're saying sex with your clone is garden-variety narcissism, vs. incest or masturbation?

J said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
J said...

Argh. Anyway, my clone would never have sex with me. He likes girls too much :)

And even if in this hypothetical world, an anatomically correct female me did exist, that would just be creepy.

Maybe we're just drawn to people we have things in common with... (not that opposites don't attract, too, sometimes)

Jamie said...

Do clones have souls? No more than the original does. But definitely family.

Shannon said...

Justin - I agree, but I'm always amused by those couples that look and act alike - always struck me as a dose of narcissism.

Jamie - so your clone has a soul equal in value to yours? And is considered family due to genetic background? But if you didn't grow up with your clone, or share a history, like identical twins, then I'm not sure a clone is family as such.

Lemmonex said...

Hmmm...I am going to go with masturbation with a healthy dash of narcissism. Just my pace...

I-66 said...

You're forgetting to question whether it's homosexual.

Shannon said...

Lemmonex - we have a vote for masturbation.

I-66 - good point, I've added a clarification.

Anonymous said...

another question. If you cloned your wife/husand/SO and had sex with him or her, would that be cheating?

Ibid said...

I'm with Justin. Neither me nor my clone are particularly into guys.

Ok, I crack open a window to a parallel dimension where I grew up as a woman. If she's based on the same gene pool she's not fat. Not sure if she's attractive or not. But if she thinks like me, is of at least average appearance, and isn't obese... yeah, I'd have sex with her.

Being derived from identical parental gene pools I'd say it's incest.

Clones don't have souls, but neither do people.

A clone is nearly genetically identical. All family really means is a greater genetic similarity than with the general population. A clone is family. That doesn't mean you have to like it.

J said...

I guess the most important criterion for deciding whether or not you should have sex with yourself is how good you are in bed :)

Socrates? Aristotle? Plato?
Morons!

Shannon said...

Anon - I'd vote that it counts as cheating.

Ibid - your incest vote is duly noted.

Justin - ah, but is "good in bed" genetic, or something that can be taught? Would your clone have the same "bed personality"?

J said...

It's taught, but I thought we were talking the kind of clone who was a carbon copy of myself, not some kid with my genetic material who grew up in a different environment?

Plus, it's a compatibility question in general. Even if I'm good in bed, I may not be compatible with myself. I might work better for someone with different tastes. There are other people who might be better at tickling my pickle.

Oh. Now I understand the masturbation thing.

Jamie said...

If your mother has another child, it's family. Why is a clone any different? They are both new to the world, you have no history together, and you share genes with them.

I guess it really depends on your definition of "family". If you have an adopted sibling, it's family even though you share no biology. If you have a biological sibling that you've never met, not so much.

As for the soul... what I meant was, the question is only relevant if ANYONE has a soul. Personally, I don't believe in a god.

Shannon said...

Justin - would a clone share your memories?

Jamie - religion, souls, the nature of family...clone sex. The great philosophical dilemmas of our time.

Dave B. said...

Throwing away these various questions, I really just want to say this: I've always wanted an army of cloned mes to terrorize the general populace.

Aren't we all thankful for a lack of cloning technology that would allow this?

Anonymous said...

Instead of clones, what if you hopped in a time machine and went back and had sex with a younger version of yourself. What would that be?

Shannon said...

Dave B. - getting to the heart of the matter.

Anonymous - Masturbation. For sure.

Dave B. said...

To answer your question more philosophically, Shan, I suppose it's best to look at it this way:

An exact physical clone would, theoretically, not have any actual memories of the original person. So even if in a physical sense you'd be dealing with an exact copy, the experiences of the clone - whether they be implanted memories or actual events - would most likely shape the clone into something that is NOT the original.

So in the physical sense, yeah, it's masturbation. Clear cut, really, unless you splice some chromosomes here and there and make a gender-opposite clone. Then it's both masturbation and incest.

As for the follow ups: Why wouldn't a clone have a soul? The clone would only be your twin in a physical sense. And as far as family, my guess would be cloners wouldn't have family, seeing as we're cloning someone for emotional fulfillment purposes.

Velvet said...

I think that it would be the act of an extreme narcissist. I can think of a few extreme narcissists who would probably do something like this. I think they call themselves PUA bloggers.

lacochran's evil twin said...

Didn't I see that in a Robert Palmer video?

Rob West said...

I fantasize about this often. No, really.

I haven't given much thought about whether it's incest, mastturbation, etc. All I know is that it is the witties possible comeback for when someone says "Go fuck yourself."

That'll teach 'em.

Shannon said...

Dave B. - interesting analysis.

Velvet - *rimshot* Snort.

La Evil Twin - not sure, were the clone chicks making out or anything?

Rob - finally, someone admits they'd totally do their clone. I'd been waiting to hear that.

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