2004 Column Archives
Pros and Cons of a Hermaphrodite
By John Sammon
Oct 17, 2004, 09:53

We’re all familiar with gender swap, people who have their sex changed by an operation because they are dissatisfied with the sex they were born with. Drag queens have long been a fixture of nightclubs, and today there are even parades of such people down the main streets of our cities.

With scientific research forging ahead on stem cell, cloning and other forms of alteration, it seems only a matter of a few years before it will be scientifically possible to produce a true human hermaphrodite, a person having both sexes combined.

What are the pro and cons?

A major con is that a single person having reproductive organs of both sexes could in theory reproduce with himself----or herself. This bodes ill for global overpopulation. If it’s that easy to get in a family way (having a sex act with yourself), double the number of people around.

We’ll need more condos in Florida.

A pro is that dating with all its uncertainties could become obsolete. If you take yourself out to a movie for example, you don’t need to present flowers at the door like in the old days. Your date is yourself. You can save money on dinner at a restaurant buying only for yourself.

This money could then be applied for a trip to Hawaii----with yourself.

Thinking only of yourself fits right in with what is perhaps the current TV-generation most selfish age in history---another pro.

The question begs. Where will the reproductive organs be located on this new man-woman “it?” You can look down right now and see the one you’ve already got. Where would the other thing go? Not on your forehead. That would be too disconcerting. A con. You couldn’t walk into your boss’s office and ask for a file folder with that hanging from your head.

Maybe the second organ would be placed on the back, or your butt.

Even more vexing would be the question of how the sex act would be accomplished with yourself. The way the current alignment is (pardon the pun) laid out, you would need to be double-jointed and bend like a pretzel, which could cause spinal problems, a con.

I think scientists will invent elongating-type equipment for this purpose, which could give (pardon the pun) birth to a whole new cottage industry.

Another pro or con depending, would be what the offspring of such a self-union would look like? And would that offspring be a hybrid like a mule, unable to reproduce himself/herself-it?

In theory, your child would look half like you, and the other half like half of you.

A third of the child would probably, knowing nature’s vicissitudes as we do, be radically different, maybe a pink horn sticking out of its head----a con unless your plans are to go on and mate with a cow.

Which brings us to the close of what I think is a unique treatise. I recommend federal funding be removed from our current doomsday weapons’ programs, and re-allocated to explore the possibilities of developing both-sex humans, recognizing that the goal ever since time began is to make whatever quicker, cleaner, and easier.