Once I said that lapdragons, back in the very beginning of this project, typically signed over banked gametes to their keepers, who could then use them as they saw fit, I set in motion a chain of logic whose end was difficult to anticipate except by running through it from the beginning.
At that point, the keeper might choose to destroy the samples, either as a statement ("Yeah, I don't breed people who willingly emasculate themselves…") or because they don't find it worth the cost of maintenance. Alternately, they could keep them for later use, or they could use them, typically to make babies. Since the "keep" category will either use it or not, they may be treated as either "use" or "toss." For narrative purposes, the "toss" category are boring. Nothing's really ethically questionable, they're just a couple of perverts not directly exposing anyone else to their lifestyle. There's stories to be told, but that's not what I'm worrying about now.
It's the ones who use that banked seed (or, for that matter, egg) who are far more ethically complex. Before I can go into detail in the who, the why, and the consequences, I must first ask the question: Who breeds a lapdragon? Those castrated for birth control or while installing artificial endocrine systems can be safely ignored; the question of "what happens when cyborgs make babies" is probably adequately discussed elsewhere in genre fiction. Same for those who use a full-body prosthesis. There, the only real question is "Do they have vat-grown mammaries installed so they can nurse?" and "Does the milk from vat-grown boobs contain critical antibodies like natural milk does?" Technically fascinating, but narratively boring.
Families that might include a lapdragon and their genetic offspring include:
• A dragon and his female keeper, in a kinky but conventional monogamous relationship
• A family keeping one or more lapdragons, but who were not in a relationship before the dragon was lapped
• A family formed from two lapdragon-keepers who then marry
In the first example, it's possible that the child could be groomed by the parents to be a lapdragon from a young age, or raised normally. "Normal" being relative; it's impossible to be entirely normal when one of your parents walks the other on a leash. This will result in a certain open-mindedness and strange perspectives later in life. If the two parents maintain a good split of power in regards to decisions regarding the children - not a given - both will have equal input in this decision. In relationships where the female maintains greater power in the relationship, I believe that group would self-select for those who would groom their children for pethood more often, or preferentially groom males for pethood. This is not the scenario this decision matrix attempts to address, and would require a branching-tree approach rather than a single three-dimensional probability space since the assumptions shift radically within the single relationship structure.
The second and third relationships described here can be addressed with this matrix. While a family formed from two keepers who decided independently they liked lapdragons is liable to hew a little closer to the red scissors - one family member can't drag the other into keeping with sufficient enthusiasm, and one less-enthusiastic keeper won't cause an enthusiastic one to hesitate - how they get to their opinion is beyond the scope of this attempt to model outcomes from opinions.
While simple decision logic like "If two agree, snip; if nobody agrees, leave ambiguous" would be immediately obvious, the relationships of all parties in this matrix are asymmetric. Each one has more power than another, though it isn't a simple case of tactical rock-paper-scissors. Therefore, each has ways of overriding the preferences or subverting the intent of others; without accounting for cheating, this chart would just be wrong.
Let's start from the top-right: Everyone agrees, and the lapdragons' children are snipped and on their way to being themselves branded as lapdragons, sooner or later. The keepers have wide discretion when either party has no strong feelings, and can override the parents in many such situations through soft power - convincing the parents to go along with it through discussion and overcoming any objections fairly, bribery, threats (those who condition themselves to pethood can be threatened with a whack from a rolled up newspaper surprisingly effectively), or depending on how the contract transferring body-modification rights is worded, simply by leaving them at home and dropping the kit(s) off themselves. If the kit doesn't want it, well… their parents are medical surrogates, and if the parents have no strong opinion, deferring to their keepers is common. The gray ~ represents the susceptibility of the parents preferences, bolstered by their kits' objection, to push back strongly, potentially even threatening to use the bail-out clause in the petplay contracts if the keepers move ahead. On the other hand, if it's judged that they'll get over it after a week or two, some keepers may ignore the risk.
In the middle grid, if the keepers don't care and either other party has an objection, it probably won't happen. The asymmetry along the top and right represents that the parents are medical surrogates, and much like kids don't have much say in getting a measles shot, their preferences can be overridden by their parents. The two ambiguous situations occur in the center and lower-right. At center, if nobody has a strong opinion, the decision may come down to social pressure, expectation, cost, convenience, and a desire to avoid questions provoked by someone in their position keeping intact dragons. In the bottom right, if the kit wants cut and the parents are against it, a keeper could be persuaded to override their wishes, if they're eloquent enough.
In the bottom portion, if the keepers are against altering the kits, any deviation from a blue - represents someone cheating and going behind their backs. A kit might take signed paperwork, and duck into a veterinary clinic on the way back from school, for example, or the parents could convince family to have it done during a visit, or the kit could forge paperwork or potentially even bribe someone to pretend they had the paperwork, and it was lost during the office visit.
This gives 13/27 or 48% where a lapdragon's kits are gentled, 9/27 or 33% where they aren't, and 5/27 or 19% where the outcome is in doubt, assuming an even distribution of opinions. A normal distribution around "no strong opinion" may increase the number of ambiguous cases, but shouldn't change the output significantly. A skewed distribution - likely resulting from self-selection biases; those who keep or become lapdragons or look up to them as parental examples are likely to be pro-modification, so 48% is likely an underestimate.
Furthermore, that ignores the effect of marketing on susceptible groups. The "Fix By Six" movement is liable to find a sympathetic ear in lapdragons and their keepers, and much of lapdragon-related marketing has an unintentional appeal to younger demographics than intended. In addition, it is alleged that third party clinics, whether chains or private, are deliberately but subtly marketing to kits as well as their parents and keepers, with the intent of replacing the Bodyshoppe with their own services and creating customers for life.
Already, declawing of dragonets before the age of two is becoming routine; of those in this position, it is presumably universal. In addition, I expect that given the skewed distribution of opinion, around 50% of wyrmlings born to lapdragons will be desexed at or near their birth, with the number rising to 80% by the time they enter school. Still, the group discussed here represents no more than 1% of overall dragon births, so the number should not be overestimated based purely on this ratio.
(Yes, this is what it takes to avoid talking out of my ass about a fictional setting I made up. :p)
Keywords
dragon
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body modification
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neuter
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331,
discussion
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declawed
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rfid implant
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declawing
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implied castration
85,
impending castration
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statistics
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lapdragon
12,
intellectual honesty
1,
setting bible
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8 years, 11 months ago
03 Feb 2016 03:00 CET
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