User blog:Matt-256/Spartan sex drive

I was skimming through this page a while ago, and it brought up a point which weirdly enough annoys me (there aren't many things that do). That point is, the Spartans' sex drive. As it is now, a lot of people - including users on this site - seem to believe that all Spartans have suppressed sexual drives, which is not correct, as the book (The Fall of Reach) confirms that it's a risk that may occur while undergoing the Catalytic Thyroid Implant augmentation (which boosts growth of skeletal and muscle tissues, and also has the rare risk of causing elephantiasis).

To prove that point, I'll quote from The Fall of Reach book;

''"Catalytic thyroid implant: platinum pellet containing human growth hormone catalyst is implanted in the thyroid to boost growth of skeletal and muscle tissues. Risk: rare instances of elephantiasis. Suppressed sexual drive." - The Fall of Reach, page 57''

As you can see, it's written in the Risk section of the description; there would be no need to do that if it was an absolute effect - in that case it would've been written immediately after the "boost growth of skeletal and muscle tissues" part, not after the risk(s).

For those who still think it means that the effect is absolute, I'll take another example;

''"Occipital capillary reversal: submergence and boosted blood vessel flow beneath the rods and cones of subject's retina. Produces a marked visual perception increase. Risk: retinal rejection and detachment. Permanent blindness." - The Fall of Reach, page 57''

There you see that it's written the same way as my previous example, the one detailing the catalytic thyroid implant. Permanent blindness is written in exactly the same place in the description as Suppressed sexual drive is. Yet, for some reason, I don't see people assuming that all Spartans are permanently blind :)

The point of all this is, that it is not definite for Spartans to have a suppressed sex drive, only a possibility, which means they aren't necessarily unable to feel love/attraction to other people, whether it be straight or gay or whatever other kind of sexual orientation there is out there. So what I'm trying to say is that we can't NCF-tag any articles simply for the reason of the Spartan character in question harboring romantic feelings for another person (whether that means a man, woman or tree - yes, there are people who're aroused by trees). That's not to say one should overdo it with an unnecessary amount of "lovin' Spartans" - as I hardly think the Spartans were exactly encouraged to love, since it could potentially get in the way of their assignments - of course, but it is something we need to remember in the future. Indeed, I'm surprised this topic hasn't been brought up sooner (or maybe it has, but has been forgotten).

Hope this helps people in the future. Now I'll go and be happy that a debate never broke out on the talk page of my lesbian Spartan article. Good day people!