Monday, June 13, 2011

Fuzzy Definitions






Alice Dreger delivered this fantastic TED presentation about the fuzzy anatomical definitions of human social categories and the implications of this on both understanding democracy and building our humanity.

The talk plays into so many of the ideas that we as creative erotic romance writers often use, challenging mainstream sexuality and the social norms of relationships. She talks about viewing the world by seeing the commonalities of anatomy and not the differences and uses examples of individuals who are born seeming to be one sex, but whose DNA and actual anatomical structures are not just one thing. What do we do as our science leads us to a point where all of the definitions on which we've built our culture and democracy are shown to be much more complicated and unclear?

Please take the time to watch. I really think you will stretch your mind and will enjoy this one. Let's keep thinking ladies and gentlemen.

3 comments:

Jina Bacarr said...

Lots to think about, Michelle--as writers, we have the ability to take those "what ifs" re: birth time, etc. to create the backstory of our characters. But we can change things...imagine if you could do that in real life.

Powerful stuff.

Michelle Polaris said...

I found it very interesting Jina. Although sometimes real life is more bizarre and has more twists than even our imagination.

Dalton Diaz said...

Scary stuff. We weren't meant to have control over these things. Great book fodder, tho.