Upset over a bad breakup with her boyfriend, a young technomage here at Evil Enterprises recently burned through $759,485,331 in R&D funds developing the Long Range Sexual Dysfunction Ray, intending to use it for revenge on her ex-lover and his new wife. Once exposed to the LRSDR, any victim–male or female, gay or straight–loses all capacity for sexual pleasure or arousal. Women lose the ability to have an orgasm entirely, and while men can still ejaculate, it happens only as a reflex after a great deal of stimulation and is as painful as a kick in the nads. The effect lasts for a period of time set by the user.
This project was unauthorized, so naturally I was incensed when I found out about it. Thus I suspended the technomage’s dessert privileges for one month, docked her pay for a similar period, and had all her adult male relatives and friends murdered. But on further reflection I decided that, while the LRSDRs money-making potential was minimal, it would work just fine to spread suffering and misery. Thus I’ve had several hundred of the rays constructed and mounted on orbital platforms, sufficient to blanket the entire Earth with their beams. The rays are set to make sexual pleasure impossible for one year, and will go off – well, never mind, you’ll figure that part out for themselves.
Anyway, here’s the question. Is there any potential for GOOD in the use of these rays? Any possibility that humanity might ultimate benefit from a year of forced abstinence? If so, I’ll have to hit the abort button, rather than simply providing myself and certain selected persons with shielding.
The biggest benefit from this would be if you could just aim it at every high school in the world. So many hi-jinx and shenanigans happen as a result of budding testosterone and other hormones.
Got to go with Enright here. You could make billions by renting it out to schools. Since it’s set to the user’s specs as to duration, we could just zap the little darlings whenever they are on school grounds or at a school function. Win-win.
Not to mention how much China would give to lease the sucker for a bit.
As long as the people of earth know with certainty that the effects will last exactly one year and no more, I could see this being greatly beneficial to the human race.
Rapists and child molesters would would have the time to see themselves outside of the blinding haze of lust and maybe get some psychological help. If not, at least they wouldn’t be raping and molesting for a year.
Sex trafficking would immediately cease.
Men and women who use sex for nefarious purposes would find themselves powerless, and the people who were formerly in their thrall would be released.
Enright3’s thing.
Brilliant but horny people all over the world would be able to focus on academic/scientific/artistic pursuits until their eyes bleed. It would be a 21st century renaissance, except all in one year.
Male politicians would become model statesmen, creating no less than 20,000 new laws in the US and ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity.
I’m sure there are more. Again, I’m assuming everyone is certain they’re going to get their sex on in a year. If they think it’s all over, well, that wouldn’t turn out so well
Also, after the year, it’s Worldwide Orgy 2014 featuring… EVERYBODY!
Hmm. Well, while your ideas have merit, and while in theory I do support tyrants and despots, I must point out that I was talking about depriving EVERYONE (except for me & mine) of sexual pleasure for one year, not just small parts of the population. Nor have I any intention of leasing the rays. I doubt that China can reverse-engineer our technomagic devices but there’s no point in taking chances.
This may be nitpicking the question, but I think it’s an important nit: do we lose the *desire *for desire?
'Cause I live and love with someone with ED, and it ain’t a box of chocolates. He *wants *to have the capacity for sexual pleasure and arousal, and that makes it frustrating as hell, and not quite as easy to just go work on that research paper as one might assume.
Now, if we lost the desire for desire, then I think the other posters have some good predictions. But if we all come down with a planetary case of ED, I think I’m going to take out stock in Pfizer, 'cause there’s gonna be a run on Viagra…even if it doesn’t work.
Good temporary effects: drastic drop in new STD infections, drastic drop in unwanted pregnancies, drastic drop in the birth rate.
Good permanent effects: all the above, but now children are only created by people determined to have them. No such thing as an unwanted/unplanned pregnancy.
But we’re going to be really, really anxious, if you know what I mean.
As I thought. Then I predict a whole bunch of murdered and battered partners as panicked drunk people blame each other for the problem. Not everyone, of course, but in those that are already predisposed to the issue, this will be a lighted match in a tinder keg.
I also predict several billion dollars dumped into development of a solution for the male problem, and maybe even a few thousand for the female.
I think it’s probably the most nefarious weapon to come out of your workshop, and truly the product of a deranged imagination. Congratulations!
Imagine people with sexual addictions, including the criminal types, suddenly being forced to go cold turkey for a year because they cannot achieve any pleasure from their addiction.
It might be a good thing to use this in certain prisons or hospitals where people can be forced to face the world outside of their obsessions.
Yeah, I’m not making that announcement. Thank you for pointing out the flaw in the plan, and I will be resetting the thingie on the widget.
That’s sweet.
Assuming you are restricting your meaning to involuntary sexual slavery (call a spade a spade, man!) rather than voluntary prostitution, I think you wrote immediately cease when you meant slowly morph into something far more disturbing and violent.
I’ll give you that one–well, the first half, at least. The second half would be trickier.
I think you’ve mistaken me for Reed Richards.
As the inestimable **WhyNot **has observed, the inability to feel sexual pleasure or reach sexual climax does not mean the end of sexual desire. And I also think that one can be a statesman without being temperate. I’d bet money that George W. Bush never cheated on his wife while in office, and we all know that Bill Clinton did; nonetheless I’d say Clinton was the superior president.
A feature of sexual addiction is that the person indulging in the compulsive behavior often does not enjoy what she or he is doing, but is doing it to degrade or punish himself.
I assumed “loses all capacity for sexual pleasure or arousal” in the OP meant the end of sexual desire as well. My mistake. I also based all of my points on the assumption that Evil Enterprises would issue a press release to make certain that they received proper credit and to increase despair.
Due to these misunderstandings, please ignore the entirety of post #5. Nothing good can come of this.
I wish I had that ten minutes back. Friggin’ evil corporation not issuing a press release… Reed Richards or Batman would figure it out anyway.
Whoops…I can see where ‘lack of arousal’ would mean ‘lack of erect penis’.
I still think it’d be a super-frustrating mess for everyone, and for those sexually aggressive folk, it would be an even bigger mess.
Neither you nor WhyNot is exactly right, I think. The OP says men can still come, but they find no pleasure either in the process nor the conclusion; in fact, it’s physically painful for them. “Like a kick in the nads,” I think I wrote, though I’m too lazy to scroll down & check.
That said, WhyNot’s basic point remains valid. While I’m not persuaded that there are no rapes committed out of sexual desire (and those would swiftly dwindle to nothing), I’m happy to concede that many, perhaps most, rapes are committed from a desire to degrade, humiliate, and control the victim. I think such rapists would just move to less complicated varieties of assault.
One definitely good thing is that I wouldn’t waste time by looking at porn. That means more time burn, pillage, slaughter, and generally run rampant.
One bad thing is that people who make their livings with porn would be out of work. It’s not good for the economy to put more people out of work.
One indeterminate thing is that we would be able to see what the internet would look like if no one was using it for porn. I’m not sure if it would look good or bad, but it would be different.
