From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sat Jun 26 1999 - 21:33:00 MDT
Dave Sill wrote:
>
> I'm tired of being dominated by my hormones. I waste vast amounts of
> time and energy thinking about and having sex, and I'm constantly
> being distracted by sexual thoughts. Sometimes I think it would be
> better--now that I've sired all the children I plan to--to just get
> out of the sex game altogether. (I'm 39, married, three children.)
> Castration would be a little extreme (permanent) and I don't know
> exactly what the effects would be. I'm sure there are drugs that can
> help, but I don't know how effective they are, how safe they are for
> long-term use, or even what they're called or how to get them.
>
> Is there any practical relief for this problem available today?
I also find that I'm spending too much time thinking about it - but for
me anything above zero would be "too much", considering my old statement
that "When I want to reproduce I'll clone myself or build an AI." I've
heard that the average male thinks about sex every 34 seconds, according
to the only statistic I've heard on the subject, from some forgotten
source. Well, I'm way, way below that; presently down to something on
the order of every 3.4 hours. And I'm presently 19, and had 34-minute
discipline from around the beginning of puberty, which probably makes it
more impressive.
I find that the two best strategies, are, first, to be able to view
yourself in terms of evolutionary psychology and neurophysiology,
translating emotions into evolutionary strategies, testosterone, and
"small explosions of endogenous opiates", as I believe someone on the
list said. And, second, to bear in mind the cosmic moral insignificance
of both abstinence and indulgence - from what I've heard, not that I'd
know, feeling guilty doesn't help at all.
Drugs... I wouldn't know. I think I'll have to second the
recommendation Not To Tamper With It; it's too central. Even a software
solution is playing it close.
See also "The Celibate FAQ": http://mail.bris.ac.uk/~plmlp/celibate.html
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way
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