I'm so sorry, but there's seriously a ton of text here 😭😭😭
(also I have zero sense of tone when it comes to "formal" vs "casual"—I just tried to make it as clear as possible 🙏🏻)
If we’re talking strictly about consciousness transfer—no brain swap, just pure mind-swap—then to me it starts feeling way closer to mind-reading. In the case of mutual telepathy, as it seems to me, extremely inconvenient
But let’s imagine together that it’s not about telepathy. There is one body (Andrew), there is a second body (Aaron). Consciousness—the inner voice—of Andrew is placed into Aaron’s body. Aaron is moved into Andrew’s body. Important condition: only one consciousness can exist inside one head, otherwise we immediately lose the game (you can just imagine a badly desynced track in headphones: right side playing the fast first verse, left side playing the last lines of the song with jumbled words. Total nonsense that gives you an instant headache xd)
Setup: Andrew’s inner voice sounds inside Aaron’s head, while Aaron’s consciousness is inside Andrew’s body. Body control remains with the original owner of the body
I’m sure that the very first thing Andrew would do is hit himself (from inside Aaron’s head—his own body); to test whether he can feel pain + if possible, make Aaron pass out before he learns all of Andrew’s secrets
Suppose Aaron stays conscious and manages to read all of Andrew’s secrets. What would his reaction be? Horror. Tears. Possibly a desire to hug Andrew in his own body—or to smash everything around him
Andrew wouldn’t answer a single question. He would drown in self-hatred. And most likely, once back in his own body, he would do something irreversible. Andrew couldn’t survive the fact that at least one person knows all his secrets. And most likely he would literally feel them through him (all the fear, all the violence, including sexual)
What about Andrew’s consciousness in Aaron’s body? He probably wouldn’t be surprised by anything. Most likely he would feel envy, latching onto the positive moments of attention from their mother. Drug withdrawal pain? Andrew has already gone through pill withdrawal. Physical violence? Andrew has been through that too. Everything bad that exists in Aaron’s past, Andrew has already experienced. And the good parts... no, Andrew never had those
Unfortunately, such a swap would bring Andrew nothing but negativity
I really wish the greatest minds could gather in one room and finally figure out how the human brain actually works. Too bad it's not my birthday today, and I'm not big on making wishes anyway xd
As for how sexual orientation is wired on the chemical level in the brain... at this stage of human knowledge, we still don't have a clear, definitive answer.
We can only really go by hormone production in the body + how the nervous system responds. Unfortunately, even the data on that is pretty limited... so yeah, you're literally not missing anything by not Googling it haha.
If we're talking purely about sexual arousal, two main factors play a big role:
1. Stimulation of erogenous zones,
2. The psychological factor.
If the goal is to actually enjoy sex and get pleasure from it, then the psychological side is decisive. But if the goal is just to achieve physical arousal (like getting hard/wet/etc.), then your mental state doesn't matter that much
I'm not sure about Tumblr's exact rules as a platform, so I'm cutting out a huge chunk of my deeper thoughts anyway (it's probably better for everyone that way)
Would Neil and Katelyn deliberately try to arouse Andrew and Aaron? Very unlikely. It would be extremely weird for literally everyone involved.
But if they did try... The body can respond to any kind of stimulation, but erogenous zones vary a ton from person to person. We know that for Andrew's body, the neck is a major erogenous zone. Suppose psychologically it starts feeling good too (including when Neil touches him there)
But for Aaron's body? Let's say the neck just isn't one for him. It might feel like absolutely nothing.
So the outcome would be:
- a ton of stress in any theoretical attempt at sex,
- the partner would have to discover and learn brand-new erogenous zones,
- and the person now in that body would need to figure out what actually feels good and what doesn't.
Honestly, it doesn't seem worth it. That said, I wouldn't rule out Aaron having a purely clinical curiosity: could he get aroused in the body of a 100% gay guy from a woman's touch? Psychologically he'd be open to it—Katelyn is attractive to him in every way, so why not experiment? The result could be some kind of medical breakthrough
I'm more inclined to think Andrew would go to absolutely any lengths just to make sure no one touched his body at all
I'm pretty sure I owe you some gratitude: thank you so much for actually reading through my stream of consciousness ❤️
(I really hope I wasn't being too rude)
