Privatised parts would look something like this: an individual surveys her preferences and enters her desires as data into a machine that is apt at recording and memorising all intimate ideas. Her mind will be recorded in various qualitative sessions, her data stored as vast quantitative sweeps, and her energies directed towards a lover, or a group of lovers, who satisfy her present condition and who are likely to parallel the trajectory of her expected desires. A primitive system named Lex Sexualis will try the formula of ultimate availability for one citizen for any other citizen, but the project will derail other concerns of the state. Abandoning Lex Sexualis means abandoning all idea that the individual instinct should be able to choose their lovers. Lovers will still choose their lovers, and any other one human will be an option, but the choices will be made from the results of a vast survey of the human body and mind. Without intimate specialised knowledge this part of the love finding sounds difficult, but it is merely technique.
There is nothing new here. We are simply refining techniques such as those already in place in Internet marketing or other less-direct and semi-intimate institutions such as dating agencies. Instead of offering a choice to the prospective lover, the computer, who has much more experience in these matters than any human could, makes the decision. Still, there is nothing new.
Humans have struggled with intimate folly for too long. If at one moment they have grasped for the help available from higher powers (computation and eternal vigilance) then, as soon as they are cuddled up to another dim-witted darling they cast off these higher powers as a stain on their delinquent delusions of self-control.
The vast majority of people have absolutely no luck in love, but cling to a relationship as if that particular rone were the only buoy in the South Seas. The process of privatisation and the resultant institutions will prove that a better emergency flotation device can be crafted. Once parts have been privatised, customers will remain in the care of private agencies. Lovers will not be allowed to determine the length of their relationships. Perhaps, in the transition period to the first relationships, a five per cent quotient will be allocated to the self-reported desires of the individual. But individuals, through empirical success will soon realize that even this five percent is a waste.
For comfort’s sake, I will use the fictitious corporate name RandyCorp for the examples in this section. RandyCorp would not only decide who is to couple with whom, but they would establish routine meetings with the couple to ensure that all is well and true. These meetings would take place every other week for the new couple. First, each unit of the partnership would meet with a RandyCorp representative to make his or her feelings known. These feelings, along with any other observations, would be added in triplicate to the RandyCorp database: once under each person’s individual file (coded green) and once under the joint coupling file (coded blue).
Once a month, if a rational and mutually satisfying attachment were eveloving a representative of RandyCorp would observe the new couple in their usual place of cohabitation. Defects unknown to the two would be noted and entered into a database, again, in triplicate (though, obviously, the data would only be entered once).
As documented in Lotringer’s Over Exposed: Perverting Perversions, sophisticated equipment has been designed to measure otherwise imperceptibly small changes to an individual’s arousal. This equipment works through the individual’s reproductive organs. Such equipment exists for men and for women, for boys and for girls. Though these mechanics are currently only used to treat sex offenders, they would be very helpful in making suggestions to, and backing up the theories of, the private representatives of RandyCorp.
One of the most important movements from the intimate to private sphere would be the individual’s abandonment of autonomy over cohabitation. A couple would stay together only as long as the objective, but not distanced, RandyCorp would have it. RandyCorp, you see, really is as disinterested as could be hoped for. RandyCorp members closely observe the pairing, but the memory of these observations is stored in the computer. Bias is eliminated as the computer not only decides whether or not the couple stays together, but also filters the comments provided by each RandyCorp worker and decides when a couple’s case manager must be changed.
Once a couple is settled meetings would be held with less frequency, but never less than bi-annually. Humans are the most temperamental animals and a lot can happen in six months to a seemingly happy pair.
Marriage, as you may have guessed, would cease to exist. Also, the practice of naming each partner as husband and wife (and even partner) would be phased out. At first, only couples that made it to their twenty-fifth year and who had entered into the process of producing a child would be able to designate their partners as husband and wife. This allowance would satisfy the older generation who are used to these words and who have already seen enough trouble in their lives, without the added worry of trying to forget their favourite words.
The whole use of possessive terms—darling, sugar, honey, jam, babycakes, pumpkin—would be phased out. Humans are named around their time of birth and do not need more names, apart from diminutives and patronymics, which play a necessary role in, respectively, courting and chumminess. Instead of saying, ‘This is my husband’, it is just as easy to say, ‘This is Claire’ or ‘Meet Theodore’.
At each meeting with RandyCorp, relationships would be given a health rating. If the rating slipped below a certain level, then the couple would be put on probation and would need to fix their ways within the month. If the month lapsed and they remained in an unhealthy coupling, then separation would be required.
And what of those who would separate of their own volition? They would be cast out of RandyCorp, though would be free to return to its motherly bossom as soon as they had quashed their aberrant connexions. Perhaps there would also be some sort of extra fees involved. I would let RandyCorp decide the fee. But it would have to be exorbitant. There might also need to be some preliminary device for radicals who wish to evade the forsaking of autonomy required by the publicisation and privatisation moves away from the intimate sphere.
My first great fear is of unions. Some nights I have such awkward dreams about the unionisation of lovers. Dues undo undressing. Or with the negations negated: dues keep our clothes on. And yet you would think that a union would be all for the freedom of the most fundamental union? So unions will be summarily banned from organising the love lives of regular folk.
My other great fear is of a Leftist regime using publicised parts for political ends prior to the ultimate privatisation. Practically the question is: what couplings would a Labour party seek to make? What information would a Labour party seek out? Surely Labour, or any other leftist, would not be so blatant as to go on a campaign pairing strong willed Lefties with weak willed Righties so as to influence the general sway of the voting block to gain eternal power. Rather, Labour would likely try to influence the way lovers cohabitate based on structuring their collection of data. And what sort of focus would Labour take? Their approach is obvious in their ideology. Labour would focus on discovering fears with the aim of curing inabilities.
Labour would ask: erectile dysfunction causing our electile ruction? Got dirt, disease or other debris? A curved codger? Wayward wang? Clitoris envy with a dash of Freudian role-play fetishism? Balls the size of grapefruit, the colour of denim (a case for immediate medical attention)? Ugly ankles. Just tick the box. Tics in your box? Just circle the problem. Poorly circumcised knob hem? Rate your ailment from one to five. Tired of being objectified? If you just put your phone number here then I or one of the caseworkers will schedule a secluded meeting for just the two of us, god you smell good!, what and you’re only nineteen! Phwoar! Head to one side, of course I am a doctor, cough, humm, might have to keep you overnight for observation.
And this is why the publicisation of love must be as rapid as the denuding of an apricot tree by German backpackers on a fine January day in Roxburgh.
National, of course, would aim at rewarding those who are already well off. National would get straight round to privatising parts if there was an ample public institution to garner a few million millions.
These are preliminary speculations on how RandyCorp would operate. I have wished to sketch the broad design of a system that addresses the wondrous array of human problems and pains. Obviously there would be many companies like RandyCorp and refinements would be made with experience, as occurs in any mixture of planned and free economies. Despite the logic, privatised parts participants would need to begin with some faith in their own revolutionary courage and not become bogged down on speculation of possible errors.
The sovereignty of wild love, despite details will be crushed. But don’t fret, eager lovers, as the aim of privatised parts will be to know and satiate needs that you may not yet know exist. Your bedroom yearning will be reduced to the level of every other number. The orgasm will become just one more ablution. One is pee, two is poo, three is the big O. Furthermore, there will be systems that allow you to identify each and every partner, or group of partners, that you desire. Remember that O\our laboratories will test your inclinations against biometric hormonal data and, like the impressive predictions of astrologers past, we will make sure that only the correctest of your hunches are forwarded to the stage of body crunching pleasure making. You can be one hundred percent confident that there will be no mid-love recriminations, no need to worry about consent and no undue disease or pregnancy issues.
Some of the most awkward people will be concerned at the reallocation of erogenous work. These people are the worst offenders who hold onto their fetishes as manual workers hold onto their jobs in the face of mechanical advancement. If they were not such deviants they would see that they are simply in need of retraining. Perhaps the most awkward ten or twenty percent of the population will have to be relocated to pro-sex re-education work camps n the nationalisation process, but when all of these errors have been corrected or isolated, life will go on at pace. There will still be a world for everyone, but there are parts of our past lives that must be annihilated. We will not only be the people of the future, but we will want to be these people.
