I swear it’s not my fault

My computer has been in the shop.

There is little more frustrating to an info-junkie than staring at a cable modem that isn’t hooked into anything. So what’s been going on? Amputations.

You see, my Sociology professor was going over paraphilia and mentioned people who get aroused by amputees. This spiked a neuron or two that remembered reading about individuals who desire to amputate perfectly good limbs. Oh, their own, not other peoples: otherwise we’d be discussing teenage males. El professor expressed interest in reading this article and, with a little sleuthing, I discovered it was an old Atlantic Monthly article.
Psychological disorders are interesting. One time’s desire is another time’s poison. Homosexuality used to be considered a mental disorder, now it isn’t. Current research has been working on creating robotic limbs for amputees that can be run by thought. When this technology becomes commonplace, will the desire to hack off a healthy limb to get the chromed out model still be considered deviant?
It doesn’t have to be limbs that we augment. Presently, it would be uber-geeky to get an implant that let’s me control a cursor with my thoughts (although monkeys already have such things, which is a strange bit of evolutionary déjà vu). Can’t we foresee a time when healthy individuals start implanting bleeding edge tech, just to get things done a bit faster. The early adopters may get hired easier in certain fields. Then others will do it just for the resume padding. Eventually, not wanting augmentation will be the mental disorder. Michael Jackson will be cured by the simple passing of time.