Sex in the Environment of the High Frontier

--- In spacesettlers, "victoriatangoman" wrote:

> --- In spacesettlers, "Xenophile" wrote:

>> Hey! As long as we are talking sex (and to pull this, skyhook-
>> like, back into space), if applicants to habitat life are screened
>> for diseases, that would include STD's.

> Makes sense. You could develop a Habitat free from STDs and thus
> get back to the good ole' fashioned natural sex, rather than safe
> sex.

Sex would be naturally safe.

> But as soon as you let a tourist in, and he/she hooks up with a
> local, you've just introduced a risk vector into your society. Now
> what?

Either a) don't allow tourism or b) require tourists to be certified
disease free. However...

>> If birth control is also available, then I suspect that, even if
>> the original applicants were chosen for their commitment to
>> premarital chastity, the next generation is going to be somewhat
>> more permissive.

> I'd love to read the rationale for why this woould be a selction
> criterion. :)

The habitat was set up by erotiphobes? But if it was, then BC is
likly only available to married couples (except on the black market),
and checking tourists for STD's may be seen as "condoning immorral
behavior."

>> And *their* kids will be less prudish still. A few generations,
>> and you have a society that would make 1960's era Free Love
>> advocates blush!

> I tend to think that a dynamic that would be at play will be
> something similar to the "power outage baby boom." There they are,
> all those colonists, 250,000 miles from Earth, feeling isolated.
> They'll probably celebrate life with a lot of "interpersonal skill
> development" if you get my drift. They'll probably attach even more
> significance to births as a life affirming process and recognize
> that no matter where mankind goes, the life cycle continues.

I wouldn't be surprised. But in any environment where marraige (and,
probably, children) is put off into the late twenties through mid-
thirties, the issue of premarital sex is going to be huge, and even
more so if BC is available and STD's are not an issue.

> They'll have a safer environment to raise the children. The kids
> can walk to school rather than be chauffered. Family time will
> probably increase because insane commutes will be reduced. Things
> will be more local. Neighbors will probably know each other, rather
> than be strangers like they are, in many instances, on Earth. This
> will all probably result in a higher fertility number.

And if people live (and remain fertile) longer, then the extra years
could make up for "time lost" during the non-reproductive (though
sexually active) teen years. Anybody want to suggest a society and
upringing that makes it "OK" for 14- and 15-year-olds to be parents?
It was that way in the olden days.

> TangoMan

Xenophile (who realizes that we might be winging our way back to
population control or even eugenics... ah, well)