> Elizabeth Childs wrote: If you really want to try being a girl, the easiest
> way is to try
> being a transvestite. I went to a "come as a girl, whether you are one or
> not" party a few years ago and was surprised to see one of my hairiest, most
> aggressive male friends daintily sipping tea and dishing out the most catty
> gossip....
haaaaa! {8^D This whole notion is going off in the wrong direction. I could have sharpened the question a little I guess. I do not want to actually *be* a woman, I just want to understand what it feels like. I dont want to *be* a homosexual, just want to understand what it feels like. For instance, if one could switch one's gender or orientation, would people *look* different? How so? How could people *not* look different to you, if you were to switch genders? No one knows.
If one were to ask me: spike, what is it like being you? Or: spike, what is it like being a hetero male? I could not answer either question, because I have never been anything else. Now, if one were to ask me what its like being 30something, or what is it like living in California, those are easy, because I have lived elsewhere and been younger.
Elizabeth, I want to know, for instance, how the heck women can tune into one channel, then stay there until the whole program is, like, over. {8^D Seriously, I want the total *experience* of humanity. I want to somehow *know* what its like to be female, lesbian, gay, black, brown, big, small, fat, schizophrenic, you name it. I want to be able to Vulcan mind meld into other people's life experience. If I could somehow plug into others' experiences, then I could actually *for the first time* know what it is like to be me, because I would have something to compare it to. I would know what it is like to be not me.
Perhaps this can only be accomplished after uploading becomes reality. Could we not have a hell of a good time with this? Two people who love each other could perhaps mentally merge by writing their collective memories into a location that could be accessed by either processing unit. Or perhaps I was thinking too much about Steve Martin's All Of Me. [hilarious movie, highly recommend]
Furthermore, I have often pondered: what would motivate society to upload a corpsicle? Now I know: so it can play in that person's mindspace. Their memories are inherently valuable.
I dont think dressing up as a woman is the approach for me, and after reading some of Kathryn and Elizabeth's comments on taking hormones, I have chickened out there too. I dont think my wife would be the least bit pleased if I began eating her birth control pills either... {8^D