Suppose today everyone’s nature to sexual desire disappeared-pooffftttttt, gone. What would be the consequences and would the world be better off for it? There would still be love and kids (because most kids born today at least in the First World are because the parents want them) so we will not all be emotionless robots. And on the plus side many problems like murders over jealousy, STDs and prostitution will be gone and even problems such as rape (yes its true a lot of rape is over power) will be dented significantly. People will also act more logically and morally and focus on practical matters such as civic duties, intellectual discovery, and so on.
Without libidinal energy, I believe all creative processes would slow down tremendously. Not just the reproductive ones.
I also believe that sexuality is as necessary to our humanity as are emotion and intellect, and as necessary as air, water, food, and shelter to our survival.
Without sexual desire population would crash hard, it might be unsustainable unless the govt. encouraged it with tax cuts. “Doing your bit for the party.”
On the up side, no reason to go to the gym.
A population crash, possibly leading to the end of the species. Increasing hostility and possibly eventually literal war between the sexes. Ever hear the joke about how “the problem with the war between the sexes is all the fraternization with the enemy”? Well, no one would be interested in fraternization anymore. Men and women don’t really like each other all that much, and they’d no longer have sexual attraction to balance that.
I question that assumption. Studies have shown that, not counting miscarriages, 49% of pregnancies are unplanned, and nearly 30% of women have had at least one infant born from an unplanned pregnancy. Frankly, for some socioeconomic groups, those numbers are way too low. I think we’d see a huge drop in childbirth, and soon negative population growth, which is not a good thing.
Freudian! 
Though I don’t know that I disagree.
Less reason. Anybody who actually does go to the gym because they want to be in better health and live longer would presumably still go for those reasons.
An interesting question, actually, is: Would many people still find it unpleasant and/or funny to see other people who are seriously overweight in this world? There wouldn’t be a concept that carrying extra pounds is not a ‘sexually desirable’ characteristic, but is looking down on the obese more a function of sexuality or aesthetics, or neither?
Despite the cliche, people do not fall in love at first sight. What you get at first sight is physical attraction. Love may be what holds relationships together but sex is what gets relationships started. So a lack of sexual desire would probably lead to a general decline of our entire family system.
Sounds like a terrible idea. If anything, I think sexual desire should be amplified, since I haven’t a malthusian bone in my body.
I don’t accept for a second that having sex with people is any less practical than recycling or studying calculus.
Ted Chiang, an undeservedly underrated SF author, wrote a story, Liking What You See, based on this idea. The premise was that it was possible to undergo a procedure that made it impossible to judge physical attractiveness. You could still recognize people by their appearance but you couldn’t tell if they were good or bad looking and, by default, you had to judge them by their personalities.
Without sexual desire, the sex act would be work for people. Somewhat repugnant, icky, messy work. If there was no awesome sensation, (the result of sexual attraction attained), who would want to?
Without sexual desire, same sex cohabitation might well become the norm. Where would be the incentive to shack up with the opposite sex? Sure you might still feel love, but why take the extra step to marry without sexual attraction?
I think we’d be at zero population growth, pretty damn fast. Followed immediately by negative growth. Followed by extinction, not long after.
I’m not buying the more logical, moral, civic thing.
In some ways. On the grandest scale I doubt there’d be as many wars or crimes because men would have less incentive to become the ‘alpha male’.
But supposedly another way men make themselves sexually desirable is by being creative. So the world would lose a lot of male generated music, businesses and technological advances.
But we’d be far far less neurotic and self-absorbed as a species. Women wouldn’t have to obsess over their looks and men wouldn’t have to obsess over power/respect/money. Who knows what good could come from that.
So I don’t know.
Human beings without sexual desire would be so utterly different from what they are now that it’s frankly impossible to tell what would happen. Sexual desire is one of the defining parts of being human.
What is quite certain is that if we don’t screw, we don’t have babies, which is bad. We also lose much of life’s happiness and joy, also bad.
Oh man I have to jack off constantly now, for fear that that “day of no sexual desire” could come into effect at any time, ANY TIME!!!
Well, Curtis, if God wanted us to be asexual beings, why did he make us with sexual desire?
Cite?
Without sexual desire, there would be no reproduction. What does the parents “wanting” the kids have to do with anything? Even if they want them, sexual desire is still required to make them. Even if the guy jacks off in a cup, he still needs sexual desire to complete that act.
Without any sex drive, humans (eventually) would cease to exist on earth, so I guess the answer your question is yes, the world would be better off.
Mother Nature (i.e. evolutionary programming) put sex near the top of the list of animal motivations (and humans are included in this group). Primary motivations are the four “f’s”:
- Food
- Flight
- Fuck
- Fight
Food is primary since you need to live to do anything else.
Flight is next since fighting could damage you. Better to avoid a fight unless it is really important (see last item).
Fuck is the ultimate goal. Reproduce. Mother Nature (or evolution if you prefer) wants that.
Flight means live to fuck. Mother Nature (or evolution) likes the ones who survive. They have more opportunity to get laid which is good for the species.
I’d invest all my money in companies that perform in vitro fertilization. Even if they wanted kids, how many men could get an erection without any kind of sexual desire. Or let me put it this way: I am a gay man without any desire toward women. I could not impregnate a woman without at least something present to give me an erection. In effect, that’s exactly how straight men would be (in fact the terms gay/straight, etc. would become meaningless). Without an alternate method of insemination, we’d become instinct.
The world would be a sad, sad place.
Not to be crass, without sexual desire of any kind, how exactly does the plumbing work? Men need sexual desire in order to copulate; women can of course be passive, but sex without any kind of desire is going to be extremely painful.