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GAY_APPAREL

                                              August 6, 2005


When I was a teenager, I had a number of science
fictional ideas about likely and/or potential
futures that in retrospect seem pretty good to me.

For example it seemed likely to me that plastic
surgery would continue to get cheaper and more
reliable, and my prediction was that:

 First, everyone would transform
 themselves into clones of the         I was thinking largely about
 hollywood stars of the moment.        facial plastic surgery as I
                                       remember it, and I was
 Secondly, everyone would              envisioning something like
 quickly grow bored of                 a generation of Redfords and
 Hollywood clones, and                 Farrahs.
 decide to transform
 themselves into
 something more unique.

    And then the age of                The actual
    monsters would begin.              train of
                                       events has         We've been
                                       been more          skipping back
                                       complicated        and forth
        That's not a bad               with the           along the
        chain of thought,              strange            timeline I
        if I do say so                 side-jaunt         invented.
        myself, though                 into "modern
        you can't give me              primitives"
        a high score for               territory.
        prophecy.                                      Reality never conforms
                                                       to a unified vision.
        I didn't at all
        anticipate what's
        actually happening:
        the use of surgery      But then, fat
        and hormone             removal surgery --
        treatments to           later called
        exaggerate              "lipposuction" --
        secondary sexual        did seem like an
        characteristics.        obvious idea to me.

           They're turning                 Why didn't I
           themselves into                 guess that this
           comic book                      would happen?
           caricatures of
           human beings.                     I was certainly
                                             famliar enough      There are
                                             with comic books.   reasons
                                                                 that they
                                                                 are popular.
               And I knew something
               about hormone                                     Probably:
               treatments as well.                               I took their
                                                                 paraliterature
               I'd heard about an                                status too
               "anti-testosterone"                               seriously
               that would neutralize                             to follow
               male biological sex                               that chain.
               drive: I thought
               was interesting.

                                 It took a decade or so
                                 for someone to hit this
                                 subject in SF: Bruce
                                 Sterling has used it
                                 several times now.



  Of course, it could still turn
  out that I was correct, in some
  sense.

  After the age of the comic book physique,
  we may yet see a return to individuality...


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