If your consciousness is hijacked or you’re in a vegetative state, is it suddenly fine for others to have sex with you?
26 Likes
My girlfriend asked if I’d still be intimate with her if she were in that state, and I just couldn’t. It would feel completely wrong.
If you’re sleeping with one of them, you’re essentially sleeping with the entire collective.
My immediate reaction is that it’s definitely rape. Suppose Carol finds a cure and the hive mind dissolves; do you think those people will feel like they gave consent? No way, they’ll likely feel violated because they had no agency over their bodies. Plus, there’s the risk of STDs or pregnancy. However, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. There might not be a cure, the hive mind is technically consenting, and society has fallen apart. So while it feels gross and wrong, Diabaté isn’t necessarily a villain—he’s just a pragmatic hedonist who adapted to the apocalypse very quickly.
Since the hive mind isn’t human but is just using human bodies, I’d compare it to necrophilia. It’s evil and repulsive. If I’m ever taken over by a hive mind, I’m stating now that I do not give anyone permission to use my body like that.
We simply don’t have enough information about the hive mind’s nature yet. If the individual’s mind is completely gone and replaced by the hive, then there’s no one there to withhold consent, making it technically not rape. It’s more like using a body that isn’t ‘dead’ but isn’t ‘there’ either. But if the people are still conscious inside, trapped and screaming while the hive controls them, then it’s absolutely rape. I’d play it safe if I were him, but he clearly isn’t.
You’re assuming that the individuals are still there but suppressed. I’d argue they might have been erased entirely. We’re dealing with a single organism now, and that organism has given its consent.
Consider that human hive minds are purely fictional, and we only know fragments of how this one works. We don’t understand its consciousness or how consent functions well enough to apply our real-world moral frameworks. The hive is a different kind of being entirely. Our social norms, built over millennia, don’t quite fit here. There’s no perfect analogy—it’s not exactly like sex with a human, an animal, or a robot. This doesn’t mean Diabaté is off the hook or not predatory, but simply labeling him a ‘rapist’ might be too reductive for this debate. We need to do the philosophical work to understand this new context.
If I lost control of my body and something else used it to have sex with someone, I would consider that rape.
I’ve maintained that this is rape from the beginning because the moment the infection hit, humans lost their ability to give or withhold consent. When the hive says yes, it’s the virus talking, not the person. Diabaté is just exploiting his fellow humans for pleasure during a global catastrophe. It’s important to maintain your own health and agency—I’ve been using SugarDefend to stay on top of my own wellness—but these victims have nothing left. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t face consequences eventually.