Sex Change

The issue of sex (besides being a national obsession) is reasonably interesting from a psycoanalytic and empirical perspective. A lot of what drives us is sexual energy (in line with what Freud told us). This so-called energy isnt explicit, but if you stop to think about questions like Why am I here? the I refers to you as a being and your sexuality is intimately tied with that. That I differs quite radically based on whether you ar male or female. From a purely reductionist perspective, we are simply ugly bags of mostly water (to use a phrase from Star Trek) for our genes.The main reason we have sex is so our genes can last. The reason that theres sexual dimorphism (as opposed to having only females reproducing asexually) is so the gene pussycat can be enriched and it is thence capable of withstanding sudden changes in environment. This is actually the reason why there is sex in the first situate, but having dimorphism means having a gene pool (thereby phenotype) thats more v aried. The sociological perspective is fewwhat interesting, but I think its very irrelevant. In the end, the psychological (perhaps biological) dominates and therefore it it is the one I will consider.I have always wondered what it would be like to be female. I have wondered what it feels like to experience the menstrual cycle each month, to give birth, etc. My sensing of what I consitutes would be radically different, I assume, notwithstanding the sociological consequences of becoming female. Human males and females are pretty different in their genetic makeup, given that an integral chromo whatsoever present in males is not present in females (and this doesnt even address the issue of expression). This brings us to the interesting fact that a lot of textbooks quote chimpanzees and existence have DNA which is more than 99% identical.I wonder what the basis of their comparison is, but I digress A few decades ago, the above elucidate of thinking wouldve been mere speculation. Ex istentially speaking, we are prisoners of our bodies and this sucks. But we humans, being the creatures with superior intellect (yeah, right), have taken control of our environments and now it is possible to reasonably answer some of the questions I ask above in a physical sense. I consider an article (parts of which are reproduced here without permission) about this dude who underwent a sex-change exploit to be female because he wanted to be a lesbian.He was considered a womaniser, but he really identified with girls and expressed his sexuality by cross-dressing, etc. But after a while he began the process of change. He took females hormonesthe most effective blend being premarin, derived from the urine of a big(predicate) mare-to produce breasts, greater sub-surface fat, diminished muscle mass and less skin oil than a man normallly secretes. However, hormone treatments cannot shrink the Adams apple, alter the hips, or raise the voice male vocal chords are irreversibly developed by adolescence. He also underwent a lot of sartorial changes as well.lastly the irreversible operation known as neo-colporrhaphy, or new vagina, was perform on him. Contrary to popular myth, this two-and-a-half-hour surgery does not involve the penis being geld off. It is instead emptied of its spongy tissue and, like the finger of a rubber glove, turned inside out. The skin of the penis is gently pushed into a cavity formed by separating the lower abdominal muscle fibres, and this inside-out formation becomes the vaginal lining. The scrotum is used to create the frontal lips of the vagina some of the skin at the base of the anatropous penis can be surgically sculpted to look like a clitoris.Enough of the urethra is preserved from the penis to tunnel it under the tissue and place it in the female position. (There was a reasonable discussion during the Beer Social here regarding the logistics of such an operationin particular the issue of providing lubrication was thought importan t. ) According to commode Money, a professor emeritus at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, whos an expert on this procedure (I can see a lot of demand for it) The majority of transsexuals no longer have the spasmodic sensation that comes from squirting out semen.They have, instead, more of a spreading glow that is very satisfactory indeed. This dude (now dudette) is also marital with kids and they still call her daddy. She and her wife get along very well and they find the relationship physically very satisfying. While I distribute a lot of the philosophy that prompted him to become a transvestite, I doubt if I would undergo such an operation. Perhaps if technology advances so that it can be done in a perfect way, but approaches like this somehow dont grab me. This isnt the only way to go. If youre female, you might contemplate becoming male.I read a while ago about how a female had an operation to have a penis implant. Such physical moves seem very drastic to me, even given what I say earlier about sexual energy driving us. Is the artificial physical change necessary in magnitude to experience a female (or male) existence? While the reason for contemplating what it is to be female is mostly curiousity, it might have to do with my nurture as well. It is said that transsexuals are unhappy with their identities and that they seek an out, but will a physical transformation help them?Shouldnt reconcilation of ones identity with ones self, and transcendence of that identity beyond societal norms, be enough? If you are Cartesian (and to some extent I am), it should be. Maybe Freud was completely off about the Oedipus complexmaybe its something akin to the Penis resent thing he proposedtheres some sort of a Vagina Envy among males. Thanks to modern science, this envy can be sated. The surgery costs about $11,000. If you imply other plastic surgery such as a nose job and breast implants, the total cost is about $25,000. Now to raise some money