Modest Proposal For A New Human Sexual System

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Just on the level of good design, did Nature or [insert Chosen Deity here] cut corners or make a mistake when doubling up the human reproductive and urinary organs? Pissing and making love with the same equipment -- the use of a single organ for the contradictory functions of passing genetic information and expelling liquid waste -- is a bit like running a car radio antenna up the inside of the exhaust pipe.

Would it really have been so 'expensive' to equip humans with separate pathways for urine and sperm? How would having a sex separate from your piss tap change your attitude to humping? And how do you think the status of sex would be different in culture if there were one organ for sex alone? Would sex still be (to some) 'dirty'?

What about, even better, a three organ system?

Organ 1: Liquid waste

Organ 2: Reproductive sex (pleasure rewards removed)

Organ 3: Non-reproductive sex (pure pleasure)

(I see them arranged somewhat like a cow's udders.)

Would the human population die out as everyone dithered endlessly with the pointless pleasure of Organ 3 and only missionaries, colonists and breeders resorted to Organ 2? Would a small society of dilattante libertinism emerge? Would the world be better or worse for what began as a mere design decision?

― Momus, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I belive the human body evolved for efficency. We have a switch that works perfectly.

― anthony, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And why is the anus so close to the vagina? It slike seeing heaven and hell! Is it to discourage kunilingus?

― Mike Hanle y, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

See the vagina horrifys me but the ass is a holy eye. Rosy and single to the glory of G-d.

― anthony, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's already confusing enough, when girls say 'You saucy devil, that's the wrong hole!' But in my system, they'd be saying 'You saucy devil, that's organ number 3, not organ number 2 you're slipping in! I know your game! You want pleasure without responsibility.' Or 'Pervert! Get organ 1 out of there at once, that's for pissing with! Men like you disgust me with your unnatural practices!'

― Momus, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dear heavens. This thread means we have hit not rock bottom, but simply bottom, surely. ;-)

Uh...I cannot answer or even think about this question without much sniggering. This is perhaps the point. But I guess a vaguely serious consideration is, are there any species in existence arranged the way Momus describes it?

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, it's a funny question, of course. But there is a very serious theme behind this. My agenda, if you like, is 'does Nature have an agenda'? (This is related in a complicated way with some of my other questions about whether texture might contain worldview, formalism might offer the satisfactions of storytelling, etc.)

Design is not value-neutral. Every designed product comes with a User's Manual, which doubles as an etiquette book or even a system of product- use morality. (Your guarantee is voided if you use the equipment in ways not recommended in the manual.) (Also cf. Eno's injunction to musicians to throw away the manual and abuse technology. We have that choice.)

The human body (designer unknown, possibly copyright Nature -5m BC to 2001 AD) is a designed product. We void our 'guarantee' of good health if we drink and smoke to excess, for instance. So what interests me with something like orgasm is, how obviously it's just sugar on the sometimes bitter pill of reproduction. It's saying to us 'You selfish gits probably won't reproduce at all if we don't give you a little electro-chemical reward, so here it comes.' Decoupling orgasm from any reproductive function (which we've already half done with contraception) is a very radical gesture. But maybe a futile one, considering that we only have orgasms in the first place to make reproduction (a long and expensive and selfless business involving 15 years of child rearing) seem more attractive to our selfish natures.

― Momus, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Related question: would you get intimate with the nether regions of strangers if there were no pleasure attached, no reproductive function, and it wasn't even dirty or perverse? What on earth would be your motivation?

― Momus, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what if said organs were shaped differently, where you basically couldn't fit the square peg into the round hole, so to speak. this would create opportunities for pleasure w/o responsibility, selective mating, and could possibly keep "dirty sex" in action, if you're a saucy devil.

― mike j, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think that the bodies purpose is to use its resources as efficently as possible. That is why rejecting the cunt is such a radical act. It says we realize natures design and choose to work past it. We wil lfuck for closeness and communion and fun . We wont have to worry about Baby.

― anthony, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That answer was not meant to be misogynyst though it may seem that way.

― anthony, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what if someone gets attracted to organ one.

― Geoff, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Fetish would be alot more exciting !

― anthony, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nature = sex for reproduction, one hole is good enough. It's simple and effective that way.

Somewhere along the way humans got pleasure from sex...maybe in a million years time people (though I doubt there will be any people) will develop a set of momus extension organs (he he!)...it would take a lot of re-wiring. Do other animals have sex for pleasure?

― jel, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What Momus says upthread is very serious and stimulating. Good questions.

BUT I think I have to take issue with his idea that nature designs / has an agenda. This is an understandable continuation of theistic language which we should maybe try to think ourselves out of if we are in some real sense post-Darwinians.

Nature as process: action without agency: patterns without design?

― the pinefox, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I would say 'Ownerless process' -- besides, don't Mollusks have them in their mouths? I think that would be near perfection...

― BB, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, we now know where Mel Lyman ended up. Is Aum Shinrikyo connected too?

― dave q, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sorry, that last post was really nasty. Apologies.

― dave q, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The thing that complicates this question is the amount of body modification that people are doing already. Is nature working through transexuals, body dysmorphics, even film stars getting silicone? Also modification of body consciousness - is the orgasm even real? One often hears about how the vaginal orgasm is entirely a fabrication of patriarchy and the clitoral orgasm is where it's at. Although I personally have never heard of a 'clitoris', have any other guys heard of it? I think it's a conspiracy.

Seriously - Anthony, could you get attracted to a 'cunt' on its own and still not feel anything for its' owner?

― dave q, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tying into the 'modification of body consciousness' idea - orgasm may be 'a sweetener' in return for 15 years of child rearing - however, a large percentage of parents don't stick around for that length of time, or they just abort the thing altogether - is this nature working through the mind through the body, or through the body through the mind, or is it nature working at all?

― dave q, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Although evolutionary process has, since consciousness first emerged, involved pleasurable activities tending to perpetuate self and species, the fact that it feels good to fuck shouldn't be seen as any indication of design. Pleasure in procreation isn't a reward for the passing on of genetic code. It's just that those types whose pleasures didn't coincide with survival haven't survived to tell us about it. The subjective sense of value is an unintended consequence of an inherently valueless biological process – on the level of which there is no more merit in persistence than there is in becoming extinct - and to imagine that our actions or behaviour, or our pleasures - wherever we find them - are merely serving an ulterior genetic purpose or are aberrant in their deviation from said purpose downgrades experiences whose irreducible character should be judged purely on its own terms.

― scott, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Cough, cough, splutter. Factual and Continuity Department in the area...

Women already have Organ 3, it's called...the clitoris. As ever, it takes those of us with a full complement of XX Chromosomes to point this out.

Nick, clitoral reminders aside (imagine how I am struggling here with Smart Remark Temptation), I'm not sure whether you've invented a humanoid No Solids Crew (ou est le poop chute?) or something which has a *cloaca*, as with birds. Hmmmm?

Tell me where the shit is or from whence it comes and then I'll be able to answer about sex and dirt.

― suzy, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Do other animals have sex for pleasure?"

These three words may jg yr mind: leg, dog, hump...

The chimps they sent into space had to be specially strapped and clothed to stop em masturbating the entire time. I think they had problems with the animals that went up before human space-flight also har har...

Male praying mantises only have sex after their hedz haf been bitten off... I do not know how to interpret this fact w/o incurring handbag swingage heh.

― mark s, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

PLUS PLUS PLUS search and read Biological Exuberance by Bruce Bagemihl, vast detailed tome abt homosexuality among non-humans, from birds and mammals via reptiles down to inseXoR and spidaZoR. Two cute queer (male) giraffes cuddlin on the back cover...

Most interesting cuz of range of "cultural" variation between species eg [note: following examples made up as book is giant and hard to skip around in] moorhens can be lesbian but never gay male, Right Whales are likely actively physically bisex, but Blue Whales, tho they pair gay, never effect penile conact blah blah. (Obv part of BB's pt is that observer prejudice was coloured the interpretations, plus some species are just damn hard to actually catch at it, or tell whose what is doing what to who if ya do catch em... Plus is that stick insect a bender or just none too bright?)

Anyway, animals have sex for pleasure not eggs ALL THE TIME. Among some apes and some birds, homophobia exists too.

― mark s, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hedgehog girl-on-girl cunnilingus: p471. I am totally not LYING!! (St Martin's Press, $40.oo)

― mark s, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

As dave q. eloquently said elsewhere, men don't have casual sex in order to get 'pleasure'. There are much less messy and more reliable ways of getting that. It's to boast about to their mates / boost their ego. So there's your other motivation.

― Nick, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Most sex-obsessed animals in my (academic) experience are bonobos (or 'pygmy chimpanzees'). Anything goes: wanking, oral, incest. They're also among the most intelligent of the apes, being most amenable to attempts to teach language etc. Surely no coincidence. They're also almost extinct. Just as well - can't have them rising up and becoming our masters.

― Nivk, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They have "(academic)" incest with bonobos = They are Nivk Dastoor

― mark s, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This stuff might as well be on the Far Side thread now...

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I do not think i ever could be attracted to the cunt. Which makes me different then most of the creatures in Biological Exurbrance (which is a great choice). We have totally rejected reproduction as a nesscary part of pair bonding. Anyways what do you all make of the plesure center for males stuck in the back door ?

― anthony, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I find it very, very weird that I am the only female contributor to this thread so far. Could it be that the others are off messing with Organ 3?

― suzy, Monday, 20 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, Suzy, I think it's because the fascination with external sexual organs is a purely male thing, what with their external sexual organs flapping about in the breeze the way that they do. Female sexual organs are a far more economical package, with each function nicely separated and compartmentalised, and packed away safe and sound in a lovely minimalist design package.

I love the way that this thread has decreed that the default "human" design flaw is a problem which only really affects half the species.

Oh good god, I think I've been hanging around with the feminazis far too much on this tour, I'm starting to talk like them! Help! Quick! Cute boys! Penises! God, how I love penises, they're great!

― Kate the Saint, Monday, 20 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"a problem which only really affects half the species": yeah, right girls. Well from now on, we're keeping them to OUR HALF, OK! You had yr chance and you, er, blew it, no that's not what I meant is it...

― mark s, Monday, 20 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Chortle. You don't expect us to just sit there and swallow that, do you Mark? I'd say this problem affects all but 10 per cent of us.

― suzy, Monday, 20 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think Kinsey was Wrong . Maybe 3 percent,

― anthony, Monday, 20 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In a related moment of body talk, I recetly hearda theory that the reason people lik music is just that it stimulates our pleasure center for speech allot, so its like masturbating kind of, or eating sweets.

― Mike Hanle y, Tuesday, 21 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

seven months pass...

three organ to three organ sex is what i'm talking about. so much could go wrong, but its oh so right. hot steamy bowling ball sex

― bc, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I L Masturbating! - new board ideas

― Queen G, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(I see them arranged somewhat like a cow's udders.)

Every time I tried to write a response to this thread, I would remember this line and dissolve into giggles.

― Dan Perry, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wow, tell me more about the bowling balls....

― Say what??, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think we may have found the means to implement this new sexual system.

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 16 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Don't women already have "separate pathways for urine and sperm"?

― david h, Tuesday, 16 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This is brilliant: "Hedgehog girl-on-girl cunnilingus: p471. I am totally not LYING!! (St Martin's Press, $40.oo)"

This is, IMO, silly: "men don't have casual sex in order to get 'pleasure'".

― david h, Tuesday, 16 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

There is nothing wrong with the design of the female package that I can see although they tend to be rather parsimonious with regard to using it, at least for pleasure purposes! The male arrangements however could be improved considerably with a little bit of re-design, all well and good when actually "on the job" but the rest of the time it's a nuisance, hanging around doing nothing. I have a re-design in mind but invite suggestions first, maybe someone else will have better ideas. How about some thoughts from the female contributors?

― mike, Thursday, 16 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i wish our anuses were in a different place, so we didn't have to worry about all that which-direction-to-wipe-in thing.

― di, Thursday, 16 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

if you had a choice would you rather your ass or your mouth near your genitalia?

― Geoff, Friday, 17 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is it true that a small number of men can auto-penetrate?

― N., Friday, 17 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It might be but they obviously never leave their homes.

― Ronan, Friday, 17 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three months pass...

Has Momus got any further with this project?

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 8 September 2002 13:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Really, I mean 'modest'?

― david h (david h), Sunday, 8 September 2002 14:40 (twenty-three years ago)

"Related question: would you get intimate with the nether regions of strangers if there were no pleasure attached, no reproductive function, and it wasn't even dirty or perverse? What on earth would be your motivation?"
a bit like decaf coffee or non-alcoholic beer - no pleasure to be had, but people do it out of habit or to feel comfortable in cerain social situations.
seriously, "organ 2" sounds like the sugarless gum of sexual organs.

― freejeremy.diaryland.com, Monday, 9 September 2002 01:20 (twenty-three years ago)

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