Regarding the Holodeck (Mature Content)

[Captain Zog]

1. Would there by any procedures to prevent 15 year-olds from accessing pornographic holo-fantasies like Vulcan Love Slave Part 2?

and

2. The doors to that thing never seem to be locked. Do you suppose it ever happens that anyone ever walks in (unintentionally or not) on someone engaging in some very saucy pursuits with a hologram? Is the holodeck the Internet of the late 24th century, with all the problems that go along with it?

 

[Good Will Riker]

If it can be done, it will be done.

 

[sbk1234]

IMHO, the holodeck was one of those things that just wasn't well thought out. I see the use of the holodeck as the 24th century equivalent to the inflatable woman. I'd like to think that anyone who decides to use such a product would have the good sense to use it where he won't be walked in on. However, people keep having their holodeck fantasies walked in on. Barkley is a prime example. His programs are embarrasing to say the least, but there are no attempts to protect his privacy.


SInce my daughter is crying now, I'll try to complete the rest of this thought later.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Obviously, the producers of DS9 had the right idea with the dabo girls and the holosuites.

 

[Trekker4747]

1. Would there by any procedures to prevent 15 year-olds from accessing pornographic holo-fantasies like Vulcan Love Slave Part 2?

Only if we assume that the enlightened humans of the 24c have the same narrow-minded and over-protective of sex values parents in the Western World have today -primarily Americans.

I suspect they don't.

It's more likely they way their children are raised -in an open minded enviroment that isn't overly protective- their children would have no interest in such programs as their parents haven't created a mistique about sex.

Teenagers today are interested in porn in its various form simply because their parents hide such things from their kids. What happens? Kids being kids rebel against their parents and seek out porn to see what all the fuss is about.

No mystique, no drive to seek it out.

And even IF a child in the 24c wanted to seek out and use holographic porn we can probably also assume that the 24c parents would be Ok with it in an, "Well, it disapoints me, but do what you want." kind of way. Also recall that Worf allowed Alexander to attend something dangerously close to a strip-tease in that absurd Lwanana episode, granted that was a Klingon child rearing situation, but it may be an example of how such matters are looked at int he 24c.

2. The doors to that thing never seem to be locked. Do you suppose it ever happens that anyone ever walks in (unintentionally or not) on someone engaging in some very saucy pursuits with a hologram? Is the holodeck the Internet of the late 24th century, with all the problems that go along with it?

This always bugged be, but the Holodeck's purpose was really more for training and education it just seemed to be more used for entertainment. It's also aboard a military vessel where in such a situation maybe you do not have a reasonable expectaion of privacy in the thing? (Quark's holodecks had locks, but his were owned by him and rented by customers, a different situation entirely.)

But, all and all, yeah you'd think it'd be just curteousy to ring the bell first, but in Barclay's case Riker sought him out because of insubordination/not showing up for duty. So Riker proably had a "right" to barge in there.

Now, when Picard cock-blocked him by barging in on him and Minuet, that was another matter.

 

[Timo]

1) Wesley in "Justice" is approached cautiously by the local swingers, because they "don't know [his] custom regarding love". He personally acts shy about it, but none of the adults around (including Wesley's semi-official guardian, Riker) try to intervene nor claim that 15-year-olds where they come from aren't supposed to do orgies. That's the closest that TNG ever gets to describing the sexual taboos of teenagers or for that matter preteens in the 24th century.

Also, Ben Sisko has a tiny bit of a problem with his son dating a more mature Dabo girl at first (and Avery Brooks had something of a problem with a guest chick of that caliber going to Cirroc Lofton rather than himself!), but the issue of sex never really enters that discussion, either.

So things could go either way, and even a potentially conservative organization like Starfleet could encourage sexperimentation at the earliest possible age.

2) OTOH, a military organization typically frowns on privacy and modesty, as such things are detrimental to overall morale - especially when duties can be expected to eventually take the personnel to locations and situations where privacy and modesty are impossible in practice. So the holodecks aboard starships might be unlockable, or at least every senior officer would have the ability to override the locks without even needing a password. Although yes, it also makes sense that Riker and/or LaForge would have special access into locked programs, while the locks would still be effective against lower officers.

Usually, people using the holodecks would probably welcome other players. That may be a big part of the fun. And holodeck social mores may have developed so that it is very bad manners to lock up: if you're doing something you don't want others to see, you are automatically a social outcast.

After all, let's also remember that the soundproofing of Quark's suites wasn't up to the usual motel standards ("Blood Oath" et al.)... Noisy holosex might be socially perfectly acceptable, and might typically be practiced with doors open: if you disapprove, you don't enter, but if you approve, there's no reason you couldn't enter and join. If you do lock up, then you are probably doing something really sick in there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Borg Queen]

1. Would there by any procedures to prevent 15 year-olds from accessing pornographic holo-fantasies like Vulcan Love Slave Part 2?

Why would it be a problem?

Also, what about the non-human holodeck users?

 

[Gary Sebben]

I would think younger people would be locked out of holosex to prevent them from learning that sex is something you can just do with a robot whenever as opposed to seeking emotional bondage with other real people. Or to prevent confused children from forming bonds with the inanimate. I dunno. I can just see bad anti-socialism growing in a young mind that can't tell the difference between sex and love yet.

 

[Hermiod]

I tend to agree with Ron Moore on this. What an adult does in a holodeck/holosuite is their own business and their privacy must be respected.

The only limitation on this is that those programmes must not violate the privacy of others, so recreations of real people, especially people you know, should be restricted. We saw the trouble Quark had to go through to get ahold of Kira's personality profile. That's where Reg went wrong, in my opinion, and continued going wrong in his appearances on Voyager.

I also agree with the apparently Bajoran regulation that entering someone else's private Holosuite programme without permission is a serious issue.

Wesley, however, was not an adult and so his choice of programmes should have been restricted by his mother. He's as trustworthy a kid as any 15-year-old, so I'd imagine Beverly wasn't too strict in that regard. Jake Sisko was generally trustworthy too, and most of his holosuite time was spent playing Baseball with his dad. I can't think of anything more wholesome than that.

Jake had no trouble getting real girls during the course of the show, so I don't think he'd waste his time in holosuites.

 

[Triskelion]

Ok, maybe...just maybe...there are more important things for people to do in the 24th century than acting like sprung chimps in a viagara lab. Self-control is one of the earmarks of the culture. Hence no lockouts on the com panels (TNG's "The Neutral Zone"). Or physical locks on the cupboards (as in Neelix's mess). If you watch the episodes when the children are in school, you can already see the self-control in evidence. Add pubescent hormones, but by then the kids will have known how to understand and handle the changes. Heck, even some kids in the 20th century were able to keep it in their pants even when no one was around. Without being forced, but by personal choice. Certainly use of a public facility like a holodeck would increase the odds of inhibitory behavior, rather than the opposite.

There is probably less of a culture of youthful rebellion than today. Today's youthful rebellion is exacerbated by markets that promote young people's products and encourages them to identify themselves as independent consumers (but with parents' money, right). Just as these days metrosexuals are being groomed to be nice vain little consumers for new markets of male beauty products. It's not culture, it's marketing. Presumably the 24th century is free of such ill-intended social influences, in favor of a society produced by enlightened thought.

If we started educating our children, we could actually get there some day. But as long as they are undereducated, they will be conforming consumers first.

 

[Hermiod]

^That's true, Neelix was absolutely horrified in "Infinite Regress" when he discovered that someone was stealing food from the mess hall.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Also, Ben Sisko has a tiny bit of a problem with his son dating a more mature Dabo girl at first (and Avery Brooks had something of a problem with a guest chick of that caliber going to Cirroc Lofton rather than himself!), but the issue of sex never really enters that discussion, either.

The actress who played the dabo girl "Marta" was only 18 years old at the time of filming (I thought she was 23 when I first viewed the episode originally in 1994.).

Due to her "physical maturity" at the time, I was surprised by her young age.

I was 19 at the time, but I thought she was older than me at the time because of that. Then I look up her birthday recently, and it turns out that she is 4 months younger than me!

 

[Timo]

Yeah, well, I used "mature" largely in the sense of an euphemism anyway. Although generally speaking, one would expect girls of Jake's age to be more mature than him, physically and mentally. Even ones traumatized by a recent occupation, vs. Jake's more distant ordeals.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^That said, Jake might have gotten in to a few scrapes with Nog, but he didn't exactly struggle with girls.

He even taught his Dad a thing or two.

 

[Anticitizen]

I would think younger people would be locked out of holosex to prevent them from learning that sex is something you can just do with a robot whenever as opposed to seeking emotional bondage with other real people. Or to prevent confused children from forming bonds with the inanimate. I dunno. I can just see bad anti-socialism growing in a young mind that can't tell the difference between sex and love yet.

That's a good point. Another concern would be the danger of addiction. A magic box that grants you fantasy wish fulfillment would sure discourage *me* from caring as much about The Real World. Remember Cypher from The Matrix?

 

[Timo]

However, VOY shows us that letting children get immersed in holoworlds is in fact a preferred mode of upbringing, at least in the Wildman family. And we don't really have any onscreen indication that these future folks would worry about emotional bondage much: the children in TNG are being raised to care for themselves from tender preteen years on already, are often left alone for extended periods of time (especially when they have personal crises to sort out), and don't seem to be examples of exceptional neglect when thus treated - to the contrary, professionals like Troi support or recommend this treatment.

Perhaps 24th century ideas of the role and development of children are a bit different from ours, and steer away from nurturing and more towards self-exploration, or even weeding out the weak?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Borg Queen]

However, VOY shows us that letting children get immersed in holoworlds is in fact a preferred mode of upbringing, at least in the Wildman family. And we don't really have any onscreen indication that these future folks would worry about emotional bondage much: the children in TNG are being raised to care for themselves from tender preteen years on already, are often left alone for extended periods of time (especially when they have personal crises to sort out), and don't seem to be examples of exceptional neglect when thus treated - to the contrary, professionals like Troi support or recommend this treatment.

Perhaps 24th century ideas of the role and development of children are a bit different from ours, and steer away from nurturing and more towards self-exploration, or even weeding out the weak?

Timo Saloniemi

In that situation it's probably no more than letting your child get lost and engrossed in a good book for an hour or so. Or just going "outside" to play.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

and Avery Brooks had something of a problem with a guest chick of that caliber going to Cirroc Lofton rather than himself!

Really? Any evidence to back that up?

 

[Timo]

Back up a juicy rumor? What are you thinking?

(That bit is from the DS9 Companion description of that particular episode, FWIW. And of course Brooks wasn't completely serious about being jealous - but supposedly he did say out loud that Chase Masterson, who was originally auditioning for the role of Mardah, was too good for Lofton, and should be reserved for the show's main star. I can only imagine Brooks' reaction when Masterson went to the show's main comic relief instead. )

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^Brooks never struck me as the scene stealing, prima donna type so I'm guessing he was joking.

Everything I've read suggested that Brooks and Lofton had a really good relationship while working on the show.