Let’s say that during one of my many cross-time adventures I acquire a device which can entirely and successfully rewire a person’s sexual orientation and preferences without affecting any other part of the subject’s personality. In the United States of Earth analogue 1994924-q, this device is used as a cure for pedophilia; persons convicted of child molestation are put into the gizmo and, after an hour of neural zapping, come out uninterested in children sexually. Before undergoing the process, the subject can choose whether to be asexual, bisexual, heterosexual, or homosexual as well. The device can also re-orient persons who suffer from compulsions to commit sexual violence, whether on adults or children. America 1994924-q also alllows persons who wish to undergo the procedure to do so voluntarily, in which case their doing so is kept confidential rather than being a matter of public record as in the case of condemned criminals.
But there’s one little hitch. One tenth of one percent of the persons who undergo this process come out dead.
In an uncharacteristic fit of magnaminity (or perhaps an entirely characteristic bit of mischief), I make this device publicly available. After the nation’s scientists and doctors are persuaded to the device’s efficacy, it’s decided that the public must decide whether its use to be sanction, in a simple majority vote.
Four questions:
What do you think the results of this election will be?
How would you vote?
If you vote to allow the use of the device, what restrictions would you place on it?
If you vote against allowing use of the device, why?
What do you think the results of this election will be?
In favor or the device.
How would you vote?
In favor of the device.
If you vote to allow the use of the device, what restrictions would you place on it?
Mandatory for those convicted of sexual offenses, including attempted stranger abduction, against minors under 14 (dependent on outcome of court appointed examination); available upon request for those who pass a series of psychological exams proving they have pedophilic compulsions, regardless of criminal history.
If you vote against allowing use of the device, why?
n/a
Think I’d vote no, and attempt to destroy the device.
N/A
People are sheep, easily swayed by idiots. According to the late “Admiral” Bob, the villain Nehemiah Scudder, or a functional equivalent thereof, perhaps presently known as Fred Phelps, is due to rise to power in the near future. Such a device has enormous potential to be misused to remove all manner of “deviant” sexual practices as defined by whichever nutcase is the current leader of said sheep. Any sexual practice between consenting adults is fine with me. I’d deal with convicted child molestors by the time honored and 100% effective treatment of two high speed lead injections to the cranium.
What do you think the results of this election will be?
It’ll probably pass. Kids are involved.
How would you vote?
If it were a yes/no ballot like most are, I’d vote no; I think the potential for abuse is too great.
If you vote to allow the use of the device, what restrictions would you place on it?
I think it should be an entirely voluntary procedure. But good luck with that.
If you vote against allowing use of the device, why?
The 10% death rate is irrelevant.
I think laws should be limited to actions and not thoughts or feelings. Rape is and should be a crime, but sexual fantasy – however twisted and against a community’s standards – should not be. Attraction to children is not a crime in my book, but hurting children, whether by acting out those fantasies or simply kidnapping them for fun and profit, should be.
I don’t want to live in a society where my thoughts and desires can be dictated by popular whim*. I go through my life attracted to many people and never abduct or otherwise enact violence upon them; if pedophiles can exercise the same level of self-restraint and limit themselves to fantasies, I don’t see why they need to be forcibly reprogrammed while I get to retain the little sanctuary in my head.
*But this only applies while a power differential between individuals exists. If we could cure a population of all desire and turn everyone into selfless, cooperating sheep, I’d be ok with that.
Why is the death rate irrelevant? Bear in mind that the proposal on the table is only for forcing the magic whammy on persons convicted of child molestation.
But your assumption is that this device will be used for evil and should be done away with. Fair enough. I disagree that in first world nations this would occur, but I’m willing to at least say it’s possible and that it is a concern.
But then I get to the end and I see you saying, in effect “screw the .1% mortality rate. I vote for 100%.” How in the world is a viewpoint wherein you advocate killing every person with child abuse inclinations superior to allowing them to undergo a proven opportunity to cure themselves?
Irrelevant to me, I should’ve said. Any medical, or even judicial, procedure is bound to cause some degree of collateral damage.
Were it a voluntary procedure, I would gladly accept a 90% success rate. Were it involuntary, as you suggested, I’d have more of a problem with the 90% of convicts (yes, even child molesters) that we’d be brainwashing than the 10% that died. Assuming people have free will, I think losing that would be a fate worse than death. Of course, if someone disagrees, I’d be all for them undergoing the procedure voluntarily.
At 0.01%, that number becomes even more irrelevant. I object on a philosophical basis, with or without accidental deaths.
Besides, is sexual orientation really modular enough to be changed without affecting any other aspects of a person’s personality and/or behavior? The clothes I wear, the places I go, the activities I enjoy and the people I enjoy them with are at least weakly correlated to my sexual orientation, I believe, and I’m not sure that we can accurately predict the cascading butterfly effect from such a change.
1/1000 is a really small number…but it would depend on if the death was painful or unpleasant. If it was, then I would vote no, otherwise yes
Whatever restriction necessary to make sure that nobody finds out who’s using it. Some kind of privacy thing seems appropriate.
I wonder if a lot of gay people would vote against it because they dont want gay-hating gays to be able to eliminate their desires. Or, more frighteningly, a crazed fundie cult using it to “fix” gays
I read Oak’s last sentence as proposing (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) the death penaty for persons who have COMMITTED (and been convicted of) child rape, not merely those who have such inclinations. Like him, I think the device would, about a month after it started being used in the US, wind up brainwashing lesbians and gays in Saudi Arabia, and there’d be black ops types trying to reverse engineer it to use it for other purposes.
If it killed 1 in 5 I’d still advocate forcing convicted molesters to undergo the treatment. But then I also believe that crimes against children should be the only ones which qualify for the death penalty.
I don’t know about most, but many people would vote for it if it had a 100% mortality rate. At .1%, it would pass overwhelmingly. I haven’t researched it, but I think that there are a number of common medical procedures with worse rates than that.
I would vote in favor if it as a voluntary procedure. I would vote against the idea that someone could be sentenced by a court to undergo the procedure.
Restricted to adult use.
Could you do this multiple times? Let’s say I wanted to try out being gay, or bi, or I wanted to try horse-love. And gay horse-love. I realise my odds of death would increase, but still, only to 4 or 5 out of a thousand.
That would never pass constitutional muster; it’s exactlyt the same as lethal injection for child rape, which has already been forbidden by the lads & lassies in black.
I doubt that would be the case. It seems more likely that the magic whammy is lethal to that portion of the population who possess a certain genetic quirk, and the percentage that do is 0.1%. So if you survive the first time you’ll probably survive re-uses.
I don’t think you’ll get any useful information about yourself by undergoing it multiple times, though. Be easier to just get drunk and french another dude.
Hey, you asked what people would vote for, not if it would be legal.
As far as doing it multiple times, I could see a lot of utility in that, especially if you knew after the first try that you would survive future ones. Situational sexual orientation – how cool. Shepherds in isolated mountain pastures would be happier with their sheep. And if next year, you get a flock of goats… voila!
Might be usefule for groups of people who are going to be isolated from the larger society for a while… the long trip to Mars and back. Or prison… if I was about to spend a long stretch in prison, I may as well make myself gay and and enjoy it as best as I can.
Hmmm… I wonder how religions would line up for or against the use of this. Because as you describe it, it is not merely a cure for pedophilia, it’s a “cure” for being gay.
And it would change the whole nature of the issue of “gay by nature” vs “gay by choice”. In fact it could be agued that once this device is easily available, every gay person is gay by choice, because they can make themselves straight if they want.
And you can bet that it won’t bother most fundamentalist one bit if a certain amount of gay people die during the conversion. Afterall, they are “going straight” to get right with god, so if they die they will be like martyrs.
Sorry for the hijack, but your product has wider applications and moral implications than are first evident.
Yup. I don’t care about someone’s fantasies. I do care about actions. Once there’s a conviction and all appeals are exhausted, I think death is the appropriate sentence.
What do you think the results of this election will be? Fortunately I believe society will be rational and reasonable enough to vote yes on the use of this device.
How would you vote? YES, it’s the only moral choice for society.
If you vote to allow the use of the device, what restrictions would you place on it? To be used only on criminals obviously and offering them either this or life in prison.
If you vote against allowing use of the device, why? NA
Probably No, because of the aforementioned potential for abuse. If somehow I could be convinced that this can be avoided, and be guaranteed that “16 year old does it with 14 year old” will NOT count as “child rape” in your penal code, then see 3
The application would have to be for these two cases
(a) voluntary adult common citizens, with informed consent and, as Crown Prince of Irony posits, upon evaluation to make sure they are indeed thus affected, with total confidentiality of record.
(b) in convictions for predatory offenses against children, once the convict has served his required time, as a condition for being paroled and removed from the sex offender registry. Not as mandatory-for-everyone; the subject can opt out and submit to the full old-school punishment and registry/restriction regimen.
As mentioned, the potential for abuse and misuse, and unintended secondary uses of orientation-reassignment, gives me pause. If I CAN’T be guaranteed that this will be avoided (plus the other condition I mention in 2 above), I’d have to vote against.