You Cheating Bastard!

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Sure, its only a holocharacter, but still...are you a cheating bastard???

Yes.

Just because it's a hologram, doesn't change the fact that you are fucking somebody who isn't your wife.

A hologram may only be a simulated human being, but it's still a human being. Doesn't matter that it isn't sentient - if it looks like one, walks, talks, fucks like one, then effectively it IS one. And even so, as we have all seen, some holograms *are* sentient, such as the EMH and Vic Fontaine.

The way I see it is, if your sweetie is in the holodeck fucking some random hologram, then obviously they don't want you, otherwise it'd be you in there with them and not the holo-skank.

 

[Myasishchev]

The way I see it is, if your sweetie is in the holodeck fucking some random hologram, then obviously they don't want you, otherwise it'd be you in there with them and not the holo-skank.

That does not follow at all. If I'm eating hamburger, does it mean I dislike pizza?

 

[Marie1]

^ I agree. If someone is married, then that's their responsibility to each other. The only way to learn, respect, appreciate, and satisfy each other's needs is if you know them very well, and if you maintain that loyal bond.

And if you really love them enough to go for marriage and all it entails... you don't need another person.

Precisely. If it's not another person, why be mad? There is no harm; why cry foul?

It doesn't need to be a real human. The point is they're going somewhere else for their physical needs, possibly programming the hologram for emotional and other needs too. I'd rather discuss whats lacking with my mate. If such technology existed, I, for myself, would not tolerate my mate using it. What happens if he can't have sex with me because he tired himself out with the hologram? LOL! But seriously, that's not something I'd accept, and I wouldn't do it myself either.

You marry your best friend so you have that- that friendship and loyalty even if she's just had a baby and you can't be intimate for while, or whatever the reason is.

Post-partum is a separate issue with its own complexities, but it is discrete and cognizable. Whatever the reason, by contrast, is carte blanche language, and carte blanche language is never good. A person has a right to expect that for which they bargained.

I'd rather he be there for me no matter what I'm going through rather than thinking about not being able to have sex for a little while because I'm going through a horrible time. I wouldn't do it. I expect that of him. By "whatever the reason" I meant I didn't want to type them (finger is mysteriously inked black, and getting on the keys). But that could mean me being out for surgery, or on vacation... If I'm in a coma for a few days, I don't expect to be sexually replaced by a light fixture. I personally would not accept my husband going to a holosuit instead of missing me. Some people may not mind, some have open marriages, etc. But I personally wouldn't.

And if my husband cheated on me, I'm with NG,... yeah, he'd have a 99.9% chance of being divorced, he can try his luck with the cheater instead if he so desires.

OT, I definitely wouldn't want my mate doing that in a holosuit- lest he forget that its about pleasing each other when you're with someone. Because porn and the like have affected people's marriages.

And preserved others, I don't hesitate to say. But if porn (or a holodeck) can affect a marriage one way or the other, the problems are extrinsic to the porn.

I personally will take the risk that watching porn won't save my marriage any more than a hologram. Sex to me is about showing how much you love someone. If thats done, and both people are happy and satisfied... and it can be a learning/testing thing too of course. I know a guy... well, never mind, but lets just say he may need to... see... something... before...

Anyway! The point is, porn is mostly watching, and maybe learning from what you see. A holosuite is just too much doing with something that isn't real. And I'd rather he talk to me, that we learn and experiment together if need be, wait for me if I'm injured, than take some quick fix. Sex is addictive, but he'll be that much more eager when I'm ready. I'll just find someone who wants to be with me, and only me- not even replicators and a holosuite- who knows it would never compare to the real thing.

The goal is to marry someone of like mind.

I don't disagree with this. I'm lucky in this regard.

And I hope to be some day too.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The way I see it is, if your sweetie is in the holodeck fucking some random hologram, then obviously they don't want you, otherwise it'd be you in there with them and not the holo-skank.

That does not follow at all. If I'm eating hamburger, does it mean I dislike pizza?

No, but the analogy does not hold, because you don't make a commitment to eat one food or the other.

Food is an inanimate object, a perishable commodity intended solely to nourish the being who eats it. A person is a living, breathing, sentient being with wants and needs. A romantic relationship has certain obligations which cannot be violated. You stray outside the parameters of your relationship with that person, and you are cheating.

People have said that fucking a hologram is like whacking off. People have been wrong. A simulated human being is not simply a sex toy. Like I just said, if a hologram looks, acts, and screws like a human, then for all intents and purposes (particularly sexual), it IS human.

 

[-Brett-]

Sure, its only a holocharacter, but still...are you a cheating bastard???

No. Holosex, if it existed, would be no different than whacking off. The real thing should be preferable, but if she isn't around or isn't willing...

 

[JustKate]

People have said that fucking a hologram is like whacking off. People have been wrong. A simulated human being is not simply a sex toy. Like I just said, if a hologram looks, acts, and screws like a human, then for all intents and purposes (particularly sexual), it IS human.

Certainly it would be hard to think of it as anything else - either for the person having sex with that hologram or for that person's partner. We might say, "It's just a hologram," but would we really feel as though it were? I very very much doubt it, and I don't think 400 years will change us all that much. And the proof that this is the way it works in the Trek universe at least sometimes is that Starfleet personnel have difficulties with this very thing. They fall in love with holograms, they get addicted to holodecks, and so on. All is not perfect, soulless, responsibility- and feeling-free in the holodecks of the 24th century.

 

[Myasishchev]

^For the record, it's only 24th century nerds who fall in love with holograms. Yes, including Riker.

At any rate, in the first instance Geordi was in fact using the holodeck as a relationship-substitute. In the second, Minuet was sapient (or, more likely, Riker's Turing Test was graded on a curve).

There's a world of difference between stalking Leah Brahms or wanting to marry Minuet and having "sex" with a computer-generated tactile image that probably doesn't even look identical to anyone at all, because she (it) was designed by a professional holoprogram designer like Felix (Gaeta? ) or Grathon Tolar.

True, hologram programs uncommonly attain sapience. But these are programs programmed to be sapient. Minuet? Programmed by crazy Bynars. The Doctor? Required complex-adapative capabilities on par with a human to do his job; sapience follows naturally, and how they were surprised really begs the question. Moriarty? A strange case, that minimizes how difficult it must be to program a sapient creature, but ultimately he had to be given the same capabilities as the Doctor, in order to defeat Data. Holo-Brahms? The same deal, Geordi required a complex-adaptive system equal or greater in capacity to the real Dr. Leah Brahms.

A sexbot hardly needs the underlying software capability to attain sapience and threaten an existing sapient-sapient relationship. I might worry if your mate was trying to take the thing out on holodeck dates or if it looked like an actual person with whom your mate has an existing but non-sexual relationship (Odo: ubernerd?), but this isn't really what we're discussing.

 

[JustKate]

^ The point, at least for me, is not that holograms=real people, because they don't. (Usually. Not that I'm talking from personal experience here.) It's that a human being would have a tendency to think of him/her/it as a real person - because he/she/it looks like a real person, acts like a real person, feels like a real person. And that's where the trouble lies. When you're talking about human emotions and human perceptions, reality isn't really all that important, is it?

Are you telling me that NO person has ever developed some sort of romantic notions from seeing photographs of an attractive person, even though he (gender-neutral "he") has never met that centerfold and is never likely to? Of course people have - lots of them. They look, they lust, they want to like, so they start to award to the person in those photos the attributes they want. So if a mere 2-D photo can have that power, how much power would a 3-D fully functioning hologram have?

An you really think that with all that, all a holorelationship would be, all it would remain, would be a convenient, guilt-free way to have sex? All I can say is, I completely and utterly disagree.

So I'm still voting for "cheating bastard."

 

[RobertScorpio]

^ The point, at least for me, is not that holograms=real poeple, because they don't. (Usually. Not that I'm talking from personal experience here.) It's that a human being would have a tendency to think of him/her/it as a real person - because he/she/it looks like a real person, acts like a real person, feels like a real person. And that's where the trouble lies. When you're talking about human emotions and human perceptions, reality isn't really all that important, is it?

Are you telling me that NO person has ever developed some sort of romantic notions from seeing photographs of an attractive person, even though he (gender-neutral "he") has never met that centerfold and is never likely to? Of course people have - lots of them. They look, they lust, they want to like, so they start to award to the person in those photos the attributes they want. So if a mere 2-D photo can have that power, how much power would a 3-D fully functioning hologram have?

An you really think that with all that, all a holorelationship would be, all it would remain, would be a convenient, guilt-free way to have sex? All I can say is, I completely and utterly disagree.

So I'm still voting for "cheating bastard."

Acutally, the way I see it, some of these holograms must be considered living beings if Data now is too. So technically, in my eyes, having sex with a sentient hologram would be having an affair...

Rob

 

[Myasishchev]

^Naturally, and I certainly wouldn't argue otherwise. But a non-sapient hologram is a different kettle of fish. Okay, that might be a bad metaphor.

The point, at least for me, is not that holograms=real people, because they don't. (Usually. Not that I'm talking from personal experience here.) It's that a human being would have a tendency to think of him/her/it as a real person - because he/she/it looks like a real person, acts like a real person, feels like a real person. And that's where the trouble lies. When you're talking about human emotions and human perceptions, reality isn't really all that important, is it?

Are you telling me that NO person has ever developed some sort of romantic notions from seeing photographs of an attractive person, even though he (gender-neutral "he") has never met that centerfold and is never likely to? Of course people have - lots of them. They look, they lust, they want to like, so they start to award to the person in those photos the attributes they want. So if a mere 2-D photo can have that power, how much power would a 3-D fully functioning hologram have?

Surely that's possible. Ultimately, and at worst, they're playing an erotic video game that happens to be taking up too much of their time and devotion.

Some people become so addicted to World of Warcraft they let their children starve; is one to be prohibited from ever playing in the first place, because there is (a rather slim and statistical chance) that they might become addicted?

An you really think that with all that, all a holorelationship would be, all it would remain, would be a convenient, guilt-free way to have sex?

Holo-what? Relationship? People don't ordinarily buy prostitutes flowers, and they're real people. What kind of "relationship" does one want with a sexbot?

I suggest that the most a holo-"relationship" could aspire to is playing the same program more than once, the same way a particular piece of porn or particular actress (or I suppose actor) specifically appeals to a viewer who seeks out, almost always without exclusivity, more materials featuring the object of their desire (not, to be sure, their romantic attachment).

All I can say is, I completely and utterly disagree.

All I can say is, I can't wait till they invent holodecks or, more realistically, some Matrix-type VR, because I'm going to town.

So I'm still voting for "cheating bastard."

I can agree to disagree.

 

[JustKate]

^ But...people do develop relationships with prostitutes, or so I understand (not speaking from personal experience here, of course). Heck, people develop relationships with the squirrel that regularly comes to the feeder in their yard - "ooh, look, there's Mr. Scuffle! Isn't he cute! He seems to really like those sunflower seeds, so I'll have to go buy some more of those." With their cars. With their PCs. With their rosebushes. People can develop a relationship with pretty much anything, so how you can imagine human beings that would almost invariably treat something that looks human and acts human like a glorified vibrator is a mystery to me.

But as for you last sentence, you betcha. No hard feelings.