I've always thought that after four centuries, you'd be sure to go through phases where sex of any sort just seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Immortality doesn't just mean more time; it also means that any monogamy you entered into would be strictly temporary, at least on your side. Not to mention that you could expect to outlive pretty much any taboo.
So maybe after a couple of lifetimes' worth of heterosexuality, you'd give homosexuality a hundred years or so, and then it would pall and you'd spend a happy fifteen years in a mutually satisfying relationship with a llama, and after that maybe you'd try some of the more extreme pursuits of pain/pleasure, and you'd work yourself into a fetish and then back out of it again, and then you'd have a period where you were perfectly happy with masturbation, and then even that would come to seem less satisfying than other hobbies ...
... and when someone made a pass at you, you'd give them this look: Sex? That's so passe! I can't believe that still interests you! Now, oil painting, that's something that continues to satisfy through the centuries -- let me show you some of the new color-mixing discoveries I've made.
sex IS a lot of trouble. some people get tired of it in an ordinary human lifespan!
it's certainly possible that duncan hasn't given homosexuality its fair one hundred yet, but i can't believe he finds it shocking. 500 years is enough time to get acquainted with and used to all the permutations of human sexuality at least by reputation. the shock value's gotta wear off fast.
i mean, even a llama's not worth more than a couple of decades' domestic felicity.
(no subject)
Date: 31 Jan 2005 05:56 pm (UTC)So maybe after a couple of lifetimes' worth of heterosexuality, you'd give homosexuality a hundred years or so, and then it would pall and you'd spend a happy fifteen years in a mutually satisfying relationship with a llama, and after that maybe you'd try some of the more extreme pursuits of pain/pleasure, and you'd work yourself into a fetish and then back out of it again, and then you'd have a period where you were perfectly happy with masturbation, and then even that would come to seem less satisfying than other hobbies ...
... and when someone made a pass at you, you'd give them this look: Sex? That's so passe! I can't believe that still interests you! Now, oil painting, that's something that continues to satisfy through the centuries -- let me show you some of the new color-mixing discoveries I've made.
(no subject)
Date: 31 Jan 2005 09:16 pm (UTC)it's certainly possible that duncan hasn't given homosexuality its fair one hundred yet, but i can't believe he finds it shocking. 500 years is enough time to get acquainted with and used to all the permutations of human sexuality at least by reputation. the shock value's gotta wear off fast.
i mean, even a llama's not worth more than a couple of decades' domestic felicity.
(no subject)
Date: 31 Jan 2005 08:43 pm (UTC)Oh, I dunno. There are (near) precedents. Strom was about 3-and-a-half centuries old centuries old, before he finally kciked, wasn't he?
translation: I completely agree