Having sex on the bonnet of your car when the car is a HUGE SENTIENT ROBOT

[jack]

Who'd have thunk the Transformers movie would raise interesting philosophical etiquette questions? You're probably tired of "So, can we eat sapient alien" questions, so let's have a different one.

Does privacy apply between species? Does it go with intelligence or compatible biology/mores?

I mean, me, I don't like having sex in front of cats or inflatable penguins, because I'm (most of the time) very private. Being naked in the flat is an occasional luxury rather than the norm. So it doesn't apply to me.

But if the aliens don't place any importance on sexual reproduction or pair bonding, and are friends, and don't gossip, does it matter?

You'd naturally think it does. In the Mote in God's Eye (insofar as Larry Niven is an authority on alien contact) the humans have to explain some aspects of privacy.

OTOH, in books where the sapient alien is pet-like, or an artificial intelligence, sometimes people don't care.

What actually would happen? Can we ever know until we *do* find sapient aliens?

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, technically. But you don't know who with whom, nor on whom, nor when, and you already know some transformers look like cars. And it's TRANSFORMERS, spoilers don't make it worse :) (OK, sorry, I was a touch cavalier there, but I really hoped it wouldn't make a difference and cutting it would be hassle to everyone, who I bet reads it anyway.)