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About 30 years ago I shared a 2-bedroom apartment with a fellow geek, gamer, and friend. I can’t recall what prompted this particular discussion that day but somehow we got close to the worn trope of body-swapping. You know, Freaky Friday, from the original Star Trek series Turnabout Intruder.

I asked my roommate if for a day it was possible to live life as a woman, in a woman’s body, would he do that. With the clear stipulation that there would be no need to engage in any sort of sexualized activity but be in that body for 24 hours.

His answer was not only ‘no’ but a very fast and very emphatic NO.

This has always puzzled me. My answer is the opposite. I would jump at the chance to see, to feel life from a perspective I can never truly experience and perhaps can only barely imagine.

Biology is not destiny, but it has a huge impact on our perceptions and on our concept of selves. We are not minds that exist separately from our physical forms but consciousnesses that arise from those physical forms. Our natures start at the biochemical level and build from there. Of course, a wholly different brain with its unique connections can never host an alien mind. That’s what makes body swapping the realm of fantasy and not science-fiction, but I have a hard time understanding not being so curious as to want to know what it is like, really like, for another.