Letter to the Editor – IPA

From the late 20th Century to the early years of the 21st, the conservatives and the religious right have waged a war against same-sex marriage. They proclaimed it to be an “unnatural abomination” that tears apart the “moral fabric” of our society. They hammered upon our society the moral imperative of traditional gender roles.

It is only natural that this very ideology, the fear and demonization of any deviations of gender roles and sexual orientation, is behind the ban on intergender mind exchange. In many ways, intergender mind exchange presents a greater threat to the traditional gender roles than same-sex marriage. The proponents of the ban argue that allowing men to casually switch into female bodies and vice versa would encourage (some would even say condition) people to become transgender. The religious right believe that a rise in the transgender identity would be morally decadent for our society. They fear that, if the transgender identity overtakes our culture, it would divert people from forming what they believe to be one of the fundamental pillars of society, the traditional family unit.

Once again the political machine of the conservatives is pandering to the religious vote at the expense of human rights. In exchange for the alliance, the conservatives retain the voice of the psychiatric industry to undermine intergender exchange medically. They work to install uncertainty and paranoia within society regarding possible side-effects that intergender exchange would have on the mind. They are a powerful element in the cultural discourse around intergender exchange because they paint a coat of scientific legitimacy on the condemnation of intergender exchange.

The conservatives, the religious right and the psychiatric industry form a superpower in the political arena where the legal system surrounding mind switch is being created. This trinity is ingeniously synergetic. Each party contributes equally and each party stands to gain tremendously from it.

Mind switch should have been a miracle for many transgender individuals. Those born male, but feel that down to their very soul that they are female, could have simply switched minds with those born female but feel that they are male. No more sexual reassignment surgeries. No more financially, emotionally and psychologically damaging therapies.

It is well-known that recent research revealed that 30% of all black market transactions are for intergender exchange. The ban on intergender exchange seems to have a similar effect as the criminalizing of prostitution and marijuana or even the criminalizing of alcohol in the 1930’s. By pushing it to the realm of criminal activities, it is now within the control of organized syndicates and out of the reach of the law. It has been proven that conventional enforcements of the ban is incredibly costly and, just like prostitution and marijuana, will never eliminate intergender exchange. If anything, it has made intergender exchange unnecessarily more dangerous.

Dr. Gerald Lee has argued that mind switching has the potential of opening all of our eyes to greater and more profound understanding of each other. If we have all been in both the male and female bodies, perhaps the conflicts and issues that arise from separation of genders would dissipate.

To attempt to continue the no longer relevant mentalities of the past and to deny the current reality is backwards. The fundamental cultural shift that must to happen is a realization by our society that gender, thanks to mind switching, now exists within a completely different context. Our perceptions of gender roles and our relationship to gender must be appropriately reoriented to the landscape of the new context.

This past week I made our first podcast about Anatta. It was an interesting experience, especially because I know so little about podcasting. The internet has become so massive, and I hadn’t really realised it until I started making Anatta and wanted to proliferate it as far as possible.

So, here is our multimedia debut. I would like to do podcasts regularly, about the comic and science fiction in general. Wei and I really like to talk and you will find, once you get us started, it’s very difficult to get us to stop.

Our podcasts are being published through podOmatic. If you want to follow us there, or have a space at the website, you can find us at [link] All of our podcast content will be linked in the Extras section of our mainpage, along with other content as we complete it.

Go to the Anatta mainpage: [link]

June 4

Jonathan O’Hare, IPA Commentary

Anyone who has tried mind switching for pleasure purposes realizes that it can be a tricky business. There are those of us who look online for body hosts ourselves. And then there are those of us, who, for reasons of quality assurance and contractual enforcement, hire an agent to do it for us. Frankly, unless you aren’t afraid to end up in some drifter’s body (which means they will end up in yours too), I recommend going with the latter method.

With so many agents available, due to a booming and still relatively unregulated industry, how is one supposed to choose a good agent? After all, aren’t all those problems associated with finding a good body host or hostess applicable to finding a good agent as well? Absolutely, but it’s easier to relieve these problems. If you really want to mind switch for pleasure, you’ve got to be willing to put some money into it. Most would recommend going with any of the bigger agencies like Continental, Odyssey and Sierra. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for small businesses, but it’s just too difficult for them to have the resources or bureaucratic clout to enforce anything outside of the U.S. This becomes exacerbated when you want to travel to some exotic developing country that doesn’t yet have the infrastructure or regulation to enforce safe switching practices.

There is also an enormous difference between the service and value that you can receive from independent agents and the big companies. With independent agents, if you get lucky, then perhaps the body you end up would be nicely dressed and the body host might leave you with some recommendations for trendy hangouts. The big boys offer much more than that. Take my personal favourite, Odyssey, for example. You can ask the body to be dressed in any specific style and make extremely detailed requests for any type of accessory. All of Odyssey’s bodies are recognized as VIP status and therefore receive executive treatment in the trendiest hangouts and hotspots. If you are willing to pay a little extra, you can request a charming escort (the classy kind, of course). If you’re willing to go with the most prestigious contracts, you may be allowed to utilize pleasure enhancements with the body that you have rented.

The support service that the big agencies offer is tremendous. Both Odyssey and Sierra offer comprehensive and constant monitoring of both your original body and your home. You can customize the monitoring as well, ranging from conventional visual and audio monitoring to body function or even mind pattern monitoring.

All savvy mind switch enthusiasts, when considering which big agency to go with, need to be aware as to how well these agencies are paying their body hosts. I personally like Odyssey because I know that they pay their body hosts a decent wage, plus all the perks of their extended benefits package. Body hosting, technically, requires very little skill and anyone with an implant can do it, which is why many of the independent agents are so cheap. Some of the big agencies, however, continue to pay their body hosts close to bare minimum while charging their clients high premiums. Sometimes the pay is so low that these body hosts have to work at other jobs to supplement their income. In such cases, the bodies are more likely to be tired when rented out, which of course makes it a less pleasant experience for us, the clients.

So all I am saying is give the bigger agencies a try. Yeah, it’s a bit pricier but you won’t regret it. With the independent agents, yeah, it will be cheap, but it’s almost guaranteed that you will also regret it.

Read the Original article at [link]

Wow, Wei and I have completed our first chapter of our first collaborative webcomic, Anatta. It has been so much fun to make it so far, and the learning curve has been immense.

As we get further into, I've become more comfortable with the idea of doing this webcomic for the next year or longer. I like the characters, I like the process of working and I love working collaboratively with my partner.

I've also noticed that a lot of my watchers are more vocal with my comic pages. I would first off like to thank everyone for their comments and critiques, every word is so helpful to my work. I would also hope that everyone will enjoy Chapter two just as much as the first one. We're going to get some new characters, plus Wei and I are working on tweeking the art style so that it's just perfect for our concept. Wei has commented that this is difficult for him, he feels like he's going through a style identity crisis! I find it kind of cute, and really a joy in supporting him to try new styles.

Thanks again everyone, I really appreciate the support.

Finally, after much deliberation, procrastination and general stagnation, my partner () and I are putting together our comic. It's an interesting theme that seems to be building as we progress and I'm thoroughly enjoying the colouring process I've chosen.

My mostly full time job has ended now, and December is slow for the teaching, so I have endless time to produce the ambrosia for DeviantArt. Well, I actually don't just produce FOR DeviantArt, but I do tend to post everything I do, complete or not complete, so keep an eye out.

Life is marching on, and it's nice to do something that I enjoy for once. It seems to be sustainable for now.

I also wanted to point everyone over to drunkduck, a webcomic hosting site, to take a look at Comic Pie (www.drunkduck.com/comic pie), the comic compilation my 9-12 year old students put together every season. They do some pretty good stuff. Some students do some pretty terrible stuff too. Some of it is hilarious, and just so much so that you can't believe it's coming from a 10 year old.

Feel free to crit our comic, every aspect of it. We're looking for that kind of feedback, otherwise we wouldn't post such unfinished work here!

Cheers,
Anise