Results for the Time-Travel Sex Poll

This poll was open for 2 weeks in June 2009. It was completed by 33 people. Respondents were self-selected from among those who saw my link to the poll in my Gmail status message, my Twitter account, my Livejournal, or by word of mouth.

Results should, therefore, not be considered scientific, so don't bother telling me I'm doin it rong. Thanks!

Premise

So I read a lot of science fiction, and the question foremost in my mind is this: if you were a time traveler and could meet your past self without causing some sort of tear in the fabric of the universe, would you 'do it' with you? There is a scene in Audrey Niffenegger's book The Time-Traveler's Wife where horny adolescent Henry has sex with slightly older horny adolescent Henry (and gets caught by his dad), but there is disappointingly little discussion of what the heck that even means. Is it gay? Is it masturbation? Is it... okay? How would you handle the opportunity to fuck the only person who could truly ever know exactly what you want?

These are important ethical questions from which only our apparent lack of time travel capability protects us.

We will work with a couple of basic caveats here:

1. That all selves involved consent to the activity. (Time-traveling self-rape? Oh god, my head hurts.)
   
   
2. Future You can't give you lottery numbers, and Current You can't warn Past You not to do something dumb. Please answer questions based purely on the (already totally wack) assumption that your time traveling can't change anything except whether or not you have sex with yourself.

Demographics

Gender

• 66% of 33 total respondents identified themselves as female. 
• 28% identified themselves as male.
• 6% did not identify their gender.

Age

• Average age provided respondents was 29.2 years old.
  
• Median age was almost the same: 29 years old.
• Two people did not provide an age.

Sexual Orientation

• 25 respondents out of 33 completed the sexual orientation field.
• Of those who answered, 24% were straight, 24% were "mostly straight", 12% were bi, 12% were queer, and 4% were gay.

Poll responses

Is it masturbation?

The majority of respondents did not feel that traveling in time and having sex with either a past or future version of yourself was a form of masturbation.

One person commented that "It's another person... period. I am not the me of an hour ago. I am not the me of an hour from now. We are individuals on a continuum of changing selves. Its masturbation when I touch myself, not future-me, past-me or ten-seconds-ago-me."

Is it gay?

A majority of people felt that having sex with a version of yourself from another time constitutes a homosexual act.

A comment from a respondent who felt that it was gay: "I think having sex with yourself from the past/future is gay, but I don't think you'd have to be gay to do it. I mean, it's just yourself." Another said "It's also certainly not heterosexual, because there are two lady-identified people with lady parts in this scenario."

What if your other self is a minor?

Most people felt that going back in time and having sex with a version of yourself that is under 18 is morally ambiguous. Only 16% of respondents thought this was morally okay, while 6% felt it was morally wrong.

One person felt that "I don't think that it would be [a] moral problem to have sex with your under-18 self, because you are consenting, and you can certainly tell when your own self is uncomfortable with this." Another person said that "...'informed consent' is more complicated. [Time-Traveling Me] would be necessarily more informed about the implications than past-Me... I'd like to think I'd only have sex with a young me if I thought that it would be good for young me? [...] Certainly by 15 or 16, young me would have been ok to go."

Would you have sex with your time-traveling self? If so, from which era?

24% of respondents would not have sex with a version of themselves from another time under any circumstances.

Of those who would have sex with at least one version of themselves:

• 8% would fuck themselves from 20 years ago. [See: median age of 29.]
  
• 56% would fuck themselves from 10 years ago.
• 80% would fuck themselves from 5 years ago.
• 72% would fuck themselves from a time very close to the present.
• 76% would fuck themselves from 5 years in the future.
• 80% would fuck themselves from 10 years in the future.
• 60% would fuck themselves from 20 years in the future.

...Of course, totals add up to more than 100% because many people chose more than one option. Further:

• 2 people would only have sex with a future version(s) of themselves.
• 2 people would only have sex with a past version(s) of themselves.

Further details about this awesome time-traveling sex thing

• 45% of respondents would perform sexual acts with themselves (in another body) that they would not ordinarily do with another party.
• However, 24% of respondents like to do things with other people that they would not do with their other self.
  
  
• 69% of respondents are tantalized by the idea of having a threesome with another self plus a third party. This is a substantial majority of all those who would have sex with themselves from another time.
• 48% of respondents would engage in a threesome with two other versions of themselves.
  
  
• 31% of respondents would consider it cheating to have sex with themselves from another time if they were in a monogamous relationship.

Selected additional comments

• "It would be freaking weird to see my own 'o-face.'  I'd also be interested to see if I became a better or worse lover as I got older."
  
  
• "The nice thing about this is that you have an instant emotional connection and the surety that you can please your partner... Of course, next time you have sex with your time-matched peer it will probably be a total letdown."
  
  
• "I don't think I could do it.  I consider myself to be a selfish lover so I doubt it would be very good for either version of myself."
  
  
• "While it's definitely not masturbation, it's not cheating, unless you are extraordinarily narcissistic."
  
  
• "I don't turn myself on. At all. This just gets weird."
  
  
• "Never! Ack!"
  
  
• "I am extremely 'traditional' in my attitudes about sexual roles in gay male sex.  [...] So, really, the thought of me having sex with a past-me or future-me is not appealing at all....in the same way that hooking up with any other non-me bottom is totally unappealing to me."
  
  
• "What a great thing to think about -- I'm kind of my type."