The Unexplored Ethics of Body Swaps

[@copilots3159]

Gotta be honest, if I woke up in the body of the opposite gender, my fascination with the anatomy would be severely overshadowed by the panic of me wondering how to deal with the people that know the body I'm using.

[@theonlyeye1170]

I have no idea how to explain how much I can relate.

[@DUWANGlai_kangyi]

You mean of the opposite sex. Because someone of the opposite gender could have the same anatomy as you, you know, trans people lmao

[@Silverwind87]

"Oh god, I have a job now!"

[@inkbery4473]

@@DUWANGlai_kangyi thanks for pointing that out

[@dseray9494]

I mean I would try to test my obsession with the theory that we don't all feel things the same and that maybe changing ones body would change the effects of these

[@cassie6146]

Something that's always bugged me when body swapping stories are done in animation are when the voices just switch over. It's weird because it's not like the body's vocal chords are connected to the human consciousness and people would obviously notice if a wildly different voice came out of their friend's body than usual. Plus, it's a missed opportunity for the voice actors to portray another character while still using the voice of the character they usually play.

[@wendyheatherwood]

The one example I can think of where it sort of make a sense is in an episode of The Owl House because the body swap spell looks like it's actually more of a sort of mutual shapeshifting spell and voice isn't the only thing that's carried over. Though there's still the fact that nobody else notices.

[@TastySalamanders]

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind has a body swap story where the voice actors don't swap and instead they do have to portray the other character. At least in the Japanese version, I've got no idea how the English dub handles it.

[@adambesley4455]

Justice League Unlimited and Revolutionary Girl Utena did bodyswap episodes and were smart enough not to change the voices. Even Utena's English dub got that right. Then you have Avengers Assemble and the English dub of Dragon Ball Z which don't do this and it's frustrating.

[@nekusakura6748]

@@adambesley4455 "I have no Idea Who this is... "

[@Orynae]

It bothers me too, but I think the voice swap is usually not diegetic -- it's just for the benefit of the audience, who may be more-easily-confused children, but in-universe the voices probably don't swap.

[@ryanthomasjones]

As a trans woman who used to date a trans man, I can't tell you the number of times we wished in unison that body swaps could be a real thing.

[@Aar0nDavis]

Me too.

[@dragonispurple6075]

sameee, it would definitely still be awkward though

[@MustacheDLuffy]

That’s probably a movie

[@pink_alligator]

Me and my cousin who grew up together are the same can't say I didn't laugh a bit at the irony when she came out to our family a few years after I did and I think she did too when she figured out she was the same thing as me but the opposite way around

[@JesseTwillaTUBA]

Aww, i know the pain

[@Alias_Anybody]

If body swaps were actually a thing I'd instantly change my smartphone unlock method from fingerprint to pin code.

[@Call-me-Al]

You still should however, depending on where you live. In USA police are not allowed to extort you to get the pin code from you to unlock the phone, but they are allowed to force your finger onto your phone's fingerprint sensor to unlock your phone (or your face in front of the cam to unlock it via facial recognition unlock).

[@Alias_Anybody]

@@Call-me-Al I have the great privilege of not living in the US.

[@Call-me-Al]

@@Alias_Anybody same. I would literally have died as a child there.

[@EtamirTheDemiDeer]

I miss swipe to unlock : (

[@AngelichuXD]

@@Call-me-Al info i didnt know about..

[@LunarWanderer17]

I think Your Name got away with it and also addressed the ethics by having them be teenagers and that they swapped back and forth multiple times so they could tell each other what to do/not to do while in their body. Quite often they ignored each others instructions and that part of the film is very comedic in tone

[@ianr.navahuber2195]

agreed. it also helped that sure, they kinda tried the dumb part (the touching the new female parts and all cliches), but they also tried to treat the friedns of each other as their own (like how taki as mitsuha at one point basically builds a cafe-esque place close to the vending machien they went to usually, for mitsuha and her friends to hang out)

[@ca-ke9493]

Because they were strangers stuck in the perculiar situation, they were more considerate towards each other and communicated what they did and needed for the other to do. Also, it helps that the characters dont have much baggage that they dont want others to be privy to, both Mitsuha and Taki are relatively open books.

[@phari4820]

I really like how that's what makes the romance work. They actually know each other by understanding what is being in their shoes (literally). They basically learn how their lifestyles are, become friends with each other's friends and try to help where the other one struggles, and in the end they both save the day by working together, even indirectly. It's a kind of a unusual romance if you think that the main characters barely actually see each other but it's a incredibly good depiction of a healthy relationship

[@crawlingnemesis2967]

I wouldn't say they handled it in a good way just made the audience gloss over it. I mean a girl clearly told a boy to not touch her chest and he did it anyways... Over and over and maybe I remember wrong but I can't remember him telling her about it

[@Radhaun]

@@crawlingnemesis2967 At least they kind of balanced it out when she basically did the same thing to him. Not that it's necessarily good, but I think it was pretty honest at least.

[@JessieGender1]

HELP! I'M STILL TRAPPED IN THE BODY OF A CARTOON PUPPY!

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

LOL, that opening (and closing) gag is solid gold!

[@Estarfigam]

First thing you need to do is make sure there is no Dip from Rodger Rabbit. Second you need to figure out a way to contact your body. Third ask @CouncilOfGeeks what they did.

[@nekolalia3389]

Sounds ruff.

[@JessieGender1]

@@nekolalia3389 ha!

[@chrismcgovern1647]

Just be glad you're not the zoom cat guy!

[@ibitejawbreakers61]

I think Steven Universe did it best, addressing the consequences of Steven messing around in Larz's body

[@GnightOwl]

I concur

[@jankelen]

Yes! I was just going to comment that Steven Universe should have been mentioned.

[@ShyGuyXXL]

Wasn't that more posession than body swap?

[@duckislord7187]

​@@ShyGuyXXL Why do you say? Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I remember Steven was in Lars's body and vise versa. Lars also wasn't aware that Steven spent a day in his body until Steven told him.

[@aquafvna7813]

Don’t disrespect the hot chick like that

[@Limonenmixgetraenk]

Watching this I'm wondering, at which point in an accidental bodyswap scenario does the body ethically become yours? You tried everything to swap back , but it didn't work, you're stuck and you have to presume you're stuck forever. Do you have to live your entire life to someone else's rules? Can you now do as you please, because you have to believe you are going to die in this body? What if the other person wants to try something to swap back that you don't want to do (or that endangers you), do you have to? Could you get plastic surgery, pregnant, have sex after some time or do you have to refrain forever?

[@Cloverfr]

I will say, there should be a general consensus with the other part. I mean, you can pretend to be another person for just so long.

[@Skeleton-bs7zy]

I thought this could be applied to ww as well and it can at the begin but then she learns that she can take back the wish and she still doesn't seem bothered by killing a random guy

[@pyrocinematics6649]

@@Cloverfr Agreed. If literally nothing works and both of the body-swapped individuals make an agreement (preferably some form of legal agreement but I dunno how THAT would go over well), THAT’S when they truly own their new bodies.

[@k-techpl7222]

In my opinion, the body becomes yours when you agree with the other person to trade the ownership of your bodies, or when the owner of the body gives up the ownership over it. If that's not realised, the body belongs to the original consciousness, as you don't lose ownership over things just because your absent.

[@Bobb11881]

There's a game I want to recommend that kind of answers this question, but I can't because the fact that it's a body swap story is a massive plot twist.

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

Still reeling from the fact that the only media property that actually wrestled with the ethics of body-swapping is a British comedy series from the 1990s with a budget of 50 quid and change and half a crate of ale....

[@KailaKysies]

Star Trek Voyager, season 7 ep 7, they do a fairly good job at showing the downsides of body swaps.

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

@@KailaKysies "You became sexually aroused in my body!" Yeah, I remember that one! But given that this was also a hologram (the EMH/ Doctor Zimmerman) taking over a flesh-and-blood (and Borg nanoprobes) body, it was basically a re-do of the Red Dwarf episode Vera mentioned - just like Star Trek Voyager as a whole is basically Red Dwarf played for drama!

[@WhichDoctor1]

@@gozerthegozarian9500 "Star Trek Voyager as a whole is basically Red Dwarf played for drama!" I had never thought of it like that but you are absolutely right!

[@helenwood8482]

Red Dwarf does cover a lot of ethical stuff very well and that was a prime example.

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

@@helenwood8482 True! As comedies go, Red Dwarf is among the smarter ones! Jusz goes to show that intelligent content does not necessarily depend on opulent production values...

[@CulturePhilter]

Ha. When Jessie first appeared I genuinely went in my head “oh, I thought I’d clicked on a Council of Geeks video.... oh I did... oooohhh I see what she did there”

[@m.c.mcgrath8690]

Me too 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@EmeralBookwise]

@@m.c.mcgrath8690 Me three

[@scouttyra]

Same.

[@wolf1066]

Yeah I did a double-take and was about to blame my carelessness for clicking on the wrong thing in my Watch Later list.

[@TheGallicWitch]

I thought the exact same thing hahah

[@bencouch1178]

One of my issues with body swap stories are the lack of insane clumsiness. Like how the hell do you NOT run into crap when your entire body is the wrong shape and size.

[@Abbanellie]

Frr and if you're switching with someone of the opposite sex your center of gravity changes entirely

[@bencouch1178]

And literally everything else, also i wonder if mental issues travel or stay with the body.

[@eveescastle5866]

Also considering how our genitalia effect our center of gravity. If you have a penis and all of sudden woke up without one, you wouldn't be able to walk straight for a while

[@SiddharthShenoy]

Two Words: *"Muscle Memory."*

[@adriana.k.maxwell]

I've wondered something similar. How much of our actions are stored in our mind/consciousness vs muscle memory? Like if I got swapped with a skilled gymnast, would I be able to do flips and cartwheels? The body has been clearly trained for it but how much do you actually have to know to use it?

[@gracjanlekston134]

The big factor in ethics of body swapping is if the characters know if they will get their body back or not, if they think it's permanent or is permanent then the body is their now and they have full autonomy of it. But if they know or expect to be able to get back their original body then what the original owner of the body is okay with happening to their body is important.

[@aikaterineillt9876]

No

[@MydieLy]

Interesting approach. So... in this scenario one would treat it like some sort of 'full body transplant'? What just occurs to me now though is that there is a *whole lot* of tropes surrounding transplanted organs and their original owners. There's always the notion of the original owner pertaining some sort of autonomy over what they donated, some sort of consciousness remaining. And -that- is often played as drama and a sort of invasion/violation. Fascinating! Maybe there could be some sort of follow up vid about that !

[@davidbjacobs3598]

@@MydieLy Well, to be fair organ transplants are actually a real thing and there are no deep ethical ramifications regarding ownership. If I give you my kidney, it's your kidney now. There may be some health ramifications (if you receive a plasma transplant, for instance, you'll receive any allergies the donor had), but nothing ethical. With a full-body transplant, the main issue is a potential for fraud. Even if you're open about it and families/friends accept the truth, and the transfer is legally recognized, there's always that chance of running into someone the donor knew from years earlier who thinks you are that person, and how you handle that situation could have ethical ramifications.

[@MydieLy]

@@davidbjacobs3598 well, I am not so sure about the "there is nothing ethical" component especially when it's not a kidney or liver part which you can donate while still living. And even then, sometimes there is a notion of "a part of me now lives in you so I kinda have a say on how you treat that part". Which can lead to issues of consent etc. Sometimes relatives of those who donated organs after death want to be a part of the receiver's life because they feel that the deceased 'lives on' in them. And that's not just a movie or TV trope. Legally those parts may belong to the new owner, but that doesn't stop the people from thinking that way

[@davidbjacobs3598]

@@MydieLy Okay... but it doesn't though. If I die and donate my heart to someone, my family does not have a claim to that heart anymore. It is the receiver's heart now. If my family is sentimental and the receiver is willing to indulge that, great. Win-win. But it's the receiver's heart now, and they have the option to reject my family. It's the receiver's consent which is needed here. My family doesn't get a say in how they live their life, and neither would I. Heck, a few years ago when I almost donated plasma (it was determined not to be a match), I was informed the transplant would be done anonymously. They didn't want to allow for any chance of discrimination, and determined this was the best way to save the most lives.

[@schmourt]

body swapping & possession is literally my favorite trope when done right but oh my gooddddd I think about this kind of stuff all the time

[@frameturtle]

What are some of your favorites? Ive really only ever seen your name and some others

[@Pslyse]

There's a manga called Shishunki Bitter Change that covers 2 people who swapped bodies as children, and are unable to swap back, so they end up living in each other's bodies for years, going through puberty in each other's bodies (one being male, the other female) and a lot of the implications of this. it's a really good read (however there is no official English release, so the only way to read it in English is the scanlated version online (which is piracy, but given that it's the only way to read it in English there isn't much other choice)

[@delliehan5290]

Omggg this manga is CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED. I'm soooo glad that someone found this hidden gem. I have no words on how I really like this story because it really has it's heartbreaking and heartwarming moments.

[@carcinogenicoak3057]

Was absolutely gonna mention this manga in the comments but since you already have, take my like instead

[@pinkfox08.f28]

Yes this manga is so underrated, it really understand how body swapping can work in real life and how it would look like in real life.

[@d4s0n282]

man I loved that manga, I should go back and look at it :D

[@fazestepbro49]

Oh damm I didn’t realize that I’m a pirate 🏴‍☠️

[@ChannelPup]

At last, I have a third dimension. I will use it to conquer the world.

[@TGM_Productions]

Sonic: “So Anyways, I started boosting.”

[@driveasandwich6734]

How does it feel to have gained it back?

[@theirishpotato6588]

Hi channel pup.

[@madmidasstudios1629]

Hello comrade

[@mohammadsoori9831]

There is a great novel by Claire North named "Touch" that addresses many of these questions and so many fascinating questions about gender, body, identity, and agency. It's about a person who can room from a body to another at will. Highly recommended. here's the Goodreads summary: "Kepler had never meant to die this way - viciously beaten to death by a stinking vagrant in a dark back alley. But when reaching out to the murderer for salvation in those last dying moments, a sudden switch takes place. Now Kepler is looking out through the eyes of the killer himself, staring down at a broken and ruined body lying in the dirt of the alley. Instead of dying, Kepler has gained the ability to roam from one body to another, to jump into another person’s skin and see through their eyes, live their life - be it for a few minutes, a few months or a lifetime. Kepler means these host bodies no harm - and even comes to cherish them intimately like lovers. But when one host, Josephine Cebula, is brutally assassinated, Kepler embarks on a mission to seek the truth - and avenge Josephine’s death"

[@AtomicSim]

Another one is Everyday, The book is good the movie changed a lot but was still kinda good. Is about a person/entity that wakes up in the body of a new person every morning. They cant change it and as far as they can remember they were born like that. They fall in love with a girl and over the course of several weeks they kiss her and have sex with her without the person that they are possessing remembering it. And at one point they wake up in the love interests body (which is statistically dumb) Its really interesting... Like is it fair to call that entity unethical because they cant choose whos body they are in or that this is happening. And don't they have just as much a right to a love life as everybody else?

[@crawlingnemesis2967]

I love Touch, it's one of my favorite books

[@endiefriendie8525]

Another one which sounds similar is The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Murder mystery with body swapping

[@starrychan33]

This scenario reminds me a lot about Cas possessing the poor man whose name no one remembers. Canonically his soul dies at the end of season 5 and goes to heaven but Cas still like keeps the body...

[@Companion92]

Yeah, but Chuck pretty much remade the body for Cas from scratch. He just looks like Jimmy from then on

[@Ben-vf5gk]

Jimmie consented to his body being used while alive, tho as we know from most angel possessions they can't exactly retract consent.

[@Companion92]

@@Ben-vf5gk Also angel host don't really know what they conset to.

[@Ben-vf5gk]

@@Companion92 I think that applies to rank and file angels to an extent but the archangels seemed very aware of what they were doing

[@TheAstip]

They definately do bring it up - angels needing consent (though we found that a lot of them are dicks who force 'consent') and that Jimmy wanted to help though he obviously didn't know what he was in for. Yeah after a while it got brushed aside (partially because Jimmy left his body and it got destroyed and remade anyway) and they stopped going over the ethics of posession more and more.

[@juliakay6204]

The most frustrating thing about the body take-over in Wonder Woman 1984 was they didn’t even have to do it. It was magic, Steve could have just come back as himself.

[@ajhalkeright7043]

I've been thinking about this lately, too. I was mostly thinking about gender dysphoria, though. A lot of the time, there's a male and female swapping bodies, and I was thinking about them feeling gender dysphoria, and if they didn't realize they had it but felt more comfortable in someone else's body because it was of the opposite sex, they would start questioning. Also I'd be really interested in seeing cis people handling dysphoria. Also it might have the same effects even if they're of the same gender.

[@hotterhatter2211]

*always thinks of scooby doo when body swap is brought up for no particular reason*

[@winterfire1097]

My friends and I were quoting that movie in school all the time, even Fred's line. Lol the 2000s definitely were a different time.

[@snowyyzoe]

WAIT BECAUSE OF THE SCENE FROM THE LIVE ACTION MOVIE?

[@hotterhatter2211]

@@snowyyzoe Yep.

[@bencouch1178]

Saaaammmmeeee

[@captainwilliams1325]

mirror's gaze?

[@TheIndieOcean]

I'm glad to see someone address this. Body swaps always make me vaguely uneasy because of the fundamental violation of privacy. It's not (usually) a big thing but it niggles at me slightly every time. Also, I'd also like to see a body swap story that deals with the psychological weirdness of looking in the mirror and seeing someone else, differences in things like experience of sensation, perception, etc. Even thinking and behaving out of character. After all, if you've swapped bodies then you have a different brain and you might find yourself not behaving like yourself. I feel like there's potentially interesting stuff there.

[@EternalDensity]

Yeah you're gonna get major body dysmorphia at the least, regardless.

[@sofialu226]

I also feel uneasy and uncomfortable watching Body Swaps. But if, as you said, it was properley manage, with the seriousness it should be treated with, maybe I wouldn't get bothered and would be actully interested on it.

[@Hiya8partyz]

Yeah I agree. As for works that do tackle the seriousness of body swap...Inside Mari (a manga) is the closest one I found. Although it focuses more on identity than it does with body swap itself. It’s a psychological horror too, so do tread carefully.

[@Bobb11881]

Oh boy, there is actually a body swap story that deals with that stuff, but I can't tell you what it is because you're not supposed to know it's a body swap story until the big reveal at the end.

[@fireblade696]

@@Bobb11881 just say it lol

[@255ad]

There’s a British body swap miniseries called Boy Meet Girl, that actually deals with the ethics of the situation. In came out in 2009 & Martin Freeman plays one of the two people who swap bodies.

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

Oooh, will have to check that one out...Martin Freeman is great in everything he's in!

[@deebeedaydreamer]

I've watched that show a couple of times, it's pretty good. Rachel Stirling is excellent.

[@Donnagata1409]

@@deebeedaydreamer Rachael Stirling always is.

[@ptheorist4670]

When you talked about the "Handsome Man" and about the fact that he had his own life while being possessed, I thought of Charlotte Richards from Lucifer. She was possessed by an entity that was seen as a villain by almost every other character, including the narrative, and when she was free again, the show actually spent time focusing on her feelings about the changes in her life that she didn't remember (because she didn't have any consciousness of what was happening while being possessed) instead of ignoring her completely, as they very easily could have done. I'm not saying that this is an example of how things should be handled in the case of a possession, just that as I think about it it sounds quite respectful and understanding when it comes to what consequences possessing someone else's body can have on them and their life. Also, you look glorious!

[@dylanshadowstar9779]

Glad someone else meantioned this! I loved that they brought Charlotte back and she now has trauma from her "missing time" and is confused on why people like or hate her.

[@kylejones8289]

The earliest use of the trope that I'm personally aware of is the 1933 HP Lovecraft short story "The Thing on the Doorstep" where the idea of someone else deliberately swapping bodies with you without your consent is treated as horrifying. And now I just realized that a horror short story from the 30s written by an extreme racist somehow managed to be more progressive on this topic than Wonder Woman 1984. That is just really depressing.

[@foxymetroid]

He wasn't a traditional racist. He was more someone who suffered a literal fear of the unfamiliar and different. Heck, this fear even extended to mathematics and science, as certain subjects were terrifying to him.

[@nwut]

@@foxymetroid so xenophobia but to everything

[@aiocafea]

maybe the most accurate of conditions to call xenophobia not just aversion to other kinds of people, but a genuine irrational fear, a phobia, of anything 'other'

[@tmaxgo6696]

@@nwut yes, but he seems to be saying an actual phobia/medi-psycholgical thing.

[@nwut]

@@tmaxgo6696 true

[@queenb7013]

Also, Angel did a great body switch episode in s3 and thank you for talking about how faith technically sexually assaulted Riley ugh I wish the fandom would acknowledge that smh

[@mc-funk]

Honestly one could have an entire 3 course meal on the consent issues in Buffy which ... knowing what we know now, tracks

[@serenitysilvermoon]

It's been a bit since I've watched it but Passion of the Nerd's Buffy guide I think talked about it too

[@jessetorres8738]

While not necessarily body swapping, in The Host aliens possess the bodies of humans, but sometimes the human is still conscious on the inside, and the film ends with 1 of the aliens that allied with a group of humans possessing the body of a girl who was brain dead.

[@Companion92]

They also did something like this in Supernatural, when the demon Ruby took over a braindead body because the main characters would otherwise not allie themselves with her

[@josephdavis9234]

@@Companion92 "Ally" is... interesting word choice.

[@sara_sah-raezzat5086]

While Buffy bungled dealing with this stuff, I find the way it bungled it telling in the context of the time. If you watch the scene where Buffy learns that it happens, you see SMG take this beat of taking the information in and be horrified, and then Riley insists that it was her he slept with. There's this element of him denying her experience in his need to deny or redefine what happened to him. It's an interesting scene with many implications, but it doesn't get explored further and gets into this messy metaphor for cheating or something because 90s and we didn't talk about male victims or consent issues.

[@PirateQueen1720]

And unfortunately the underlying attitudes linger. This reminded me of the bit in "Song of Achilles" where Thetis coerced Achilles into sleeping with that princess on the promise that she'd tell Patroclus where he was (a lie). The issue was essentially dropped after it is established that Patroclus understands what happened and isn't jealous...BUT THAT'S NOT THE KEY PROBLEM, IS IT? (Seriously I liked A & P, and the writing is beautiful, but that book managed to make me mad so many times!) No body swap, but the focus is still on whether the dude's PARTNER is upset, not how the guy directly affected feels about it.

[@berniegertje5358]

Thanks for this video! I actually started following you around the time I started writing a story about a trans guy and a trans girl who swap bodies. Initially I thought it would be a comedy, but as I got going in it, I started coming across a lot of these exact problems. I wanted it to be funny, because I know that so many trans stories are really sad, and I wanted something uplifting. However, I don't want to trample over some really serious problems about consent, dysphoria, and bodily autonomy. I want to handle them thoughtfully. This was helpful for my thinking on that!

[@dseray9494]

Interestingly, a lot of this applies to shapeshifters who can imitate other people.

[@erithecatgirl6002]

I had a discussion with my male friend once about if we swapped bodies for a day. He asked me what the first thing I would do would be. I said "Well the first thing I do in the morning anyways is use the restroom. I'd probably be panicking since I wouldn't know how to anymore." He then face palmed and said "THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT??" I replied, "It's a valid concern!" He responded "You can still sit down you weirdo." We both laughed about it.

[@MsMaydayGoingDown]

Just curious, have you seen the anime film Your Name? It's body-swap romance that, while not only a legitimately beautiful and emotional movie, doesn't doesn't entirely sidestep the ethics of swapping bodies, even if it doesn't address all of them. It does play the magic accidental swap and non-consent cards at first, but some of these ethics are things they need to communicate to each other about and how the romance develops between them. Highly recommended if you're looking for a body swap movie that takes itself mostly seriously but is legitimately a great film.

[@crimson-cloud]

doesn't she mention it near the start of the vid?

[@emartin29]

I wouldn't say it's mainly about romance, it's more about, well, I shouldn't spoilers, but whenever somebody calls it ''romance movie'' it bothers me a little, like, yeah, it has some romance going on between the two but isn't the main thing that goes on in the movie, is more about how they help each other to learn how to live their lives and then a plot twist comes, the most romantic scene is the part where they finally meet on the mountain and the end. I wouldn't call it a romance movie. Like, when I watched it, I never considered it a romantic movie. Sorry if I don't explain myself pretty well, English is not my main language.

[@onijester56]

@@emartin29 There's a yes-and-no. Short spoilers, the romance is the most iconic part. And, in fact, there are two distinct arcs: the Swap arc and the Search arc. The search-arc, at least in the novelization since I can't find a free-online version of the OVA, has a deal of romantic coding...up to a pretty-intimate climax. This is to the point that despite the girl setting up a relationship with the boy's one coworker, the boy sacrifices that relationship in the Search arc to find the girl. It's a frickin' love-triangle.

[@shallendor]

Nobody did it like Quantum Leap did! Red Dwarf was such a great series!

[@miqwerty]

In conclusion, Perry the Platypus should be held accountable for taking a teenage girl's body on dangerous espionage missions without her knowledge or consent.

[@Andyatl2002]

Perry the Platypus is canceled.

[@snowyyzoe]

To be fair, Perry somehow didn't realize he was in her body until he looked in a mirror

[@Wuffskers]

Something a lot of people gloss over I've noticed is that in Supernatural all demons and angels are possessing humans, to be fair in the case of angels they have to get their host's consent, but the whole time castiel is running around after he's introduced, he's doing it in some random normal human's body.

[@victoriat8922]

I believe that take a few episodes to address that in a later season.

[@sofialu226]

Well, they did care about the posses humans at the beggining. Hell, even one of Sam's reasons in S4 was because his way saved more people because he didn't have to use the knife. But then they didn't care anymore and all the time were like "Posses Human? Oh well, stab stabby with Demon Knife or Angel Blade". I didn't like how they simply didn't care anymore.

[@sofialu226]

The only time they adressed it from someone else's perspective besides the brothers was in S7 with this dude who was posses, but Sam and Dean told him they needed to get information so they tecnically torture him. Though, it was then showed to us that the dude had something wrong with him since before being posses. Is the episode Sam let Hallucifer in.

[@bobmathis-friedman6742]

There's also the Body Swap episode of Community, wherein the characters in question play out the trope with full consciousness of its ramifications (ironic, since all of the characters are doing bits rather than literally body swapping)

[@ianr.navahuber2195]

yeah. the fun part being the dean wanting fully to embrace the trope with jeff but jeff being "Nope". which leaves the dean imitating jeff on his own which very funny enough makes anne (completely unaware of the shenanigans) briefly attracted to the dean to her own confusion

[@NeonNijahn]

There's not a swap going on in WW. It's a takeover. Like in "Get Out".

[@Alias_Anybody]

Yeah, it's basically a possession PLAYED as a funny body swap Story.

[@palaniuki]

You didn't even wait 4' in the video to write your comment, she explains exactly that ^_^

[@rmsgrey]

That's debatable. We don't know what happened to Handsome Guy in the interim - maybe he spent the couple of days scattered across the world in tiny fragments (or in some form of afterlife). It seems likely he's not aware of what his body did during that period, but he could also have still been in the body, but unconscious.

[@NeonNijahn]

@@rmsgrey this is true. Either way the point I'm intending to make here is that there is no evidence that he is alive and well existing in someone else's shoes or even existing whilst his body is taken over. Perhaps he's in a coma like state? In a way it's just as disturbing that we see him at the end and she talks to him and he is marveling at how beautiful the world is, almost like he hasn't seen it for a while. And wonder woman just chats with him like it's normal while little does he know she used his body for sexual intercourse against his will. And all that time did he have a family or a job or loved ones who didn't know where he was or if he was okay? If he has no consiousness while the events of the movie are taking place he would have no knowledge of the passage of time. To others in his life he would appear to have suffered from a spell of amnesia or a delusion. It's all around terrible.

[@rmsgrey]

@@NeonNijahn It's unclear what the rest of the world made of the situation after the fact - Steve is around for less than a week - he spends one day searching for Diana, they spend the night together (while Max is making his wish), then they go find out the stone's history on day two, travel to Egypt overnight, lose Max there and return home, presumably still day 3, and then face Max in the White House day 4, Diana revokes her wish and has the final confrontation that same day. There may be an extra day or two of travel in there, but still just a few days, and during that time the world briefly went mad (particularly around DC). So when Guy wakes up and is missing maybe half a week, he may not be that far from everyone else's experience, or other people might remember most of it, but he probably wouldn't be the only one with significant gaps. Without knowing how the world in general deals with those few days, we don't have a basis for judging whether his experience is particularly unusual, horrific, or as much lucky to have skipped the insanity as anything.

[@namikkou]

The thing about body swap and sexual contact did actually pop up in my mind when watching strangely, Jane the Virgin. Uh...spoilers ahead but it makes sense soon It wasn't technically a body swap, but it was two sisters, Petra and Ansaka (think that's how you spell it) and how Ansaka due to evil plan by their mother, paralyzed Petra with a drug, and dyed her hair brown while Ansaka dyed her hair blonde (swapping hair colors) and learned to perfectly imitate her sisters voice. After the "swap" occured, no one knew for months that the sister they thought was paralyzed in that time was really Petra instead of Ansaka, and Ansaka took over her life. This is important because around the time this was happening, Petra was getting closer to her ex husband. And that lead to her ex husband sleeping with Ansaka thinking it was Petra. And the show never really touched upon the fact that was r@pe by deception, since the ex husband thought he was sleeping with his ex wife, not his ex wife's sister. That scene always bugged me for that reason

[@kawaiiqueee]

In my opinion - the ones I saw *Freaky* : Most humorous and scary *It's a boy girl thing* : Most grounded *Your Name* : Most utilized fantasy element also its anime *The Swap* : Most child friendly and emotional (also it's so underrated, Disney what happened???)

[@louie3074]

i thought the swap was actually awesome because it mentioned consent, the boy in the girls body not wanting to be weird, keeping a leotard on at all times, and the girl in the boys body experiencing toxic masculinity??? adult themes expertly packed into a kids movie

[@Katwind]

The FX show "Legion" brought this up with the character of Sydney who is literally a mutant with the ability to bodyswap. In flashbaks she tells how being careless with it might have terrible consequences and also how it can be quite a traumatic experience.

[@partycitydumpster]

The other episode of Buffy that deals with body swapping (s1e3, Witch) does a little bit better of a job examining the horror and violation of the concept, although it didn't deal with anything sexual since it was between a mother and a daughter. The Faith/Buffy swap was also presented as bad, but in Witch, the story is explicitly about child abuse. Alongside Amy's body being stolen is the fact that her mother projects her own eating disorder onto her daughter, starving her as an early mechanism of control before she escalated to body swapping.

[@dorkseid5874]

I would add one thing to this, Amazing World of Gumball, like Red Dwarf before it did a better job handling the ethics of body swapping than Wonder Woman. When the Ghost Carrie possesses Gumball, it's initially consensual (much like the base plot from Red Dwarf, with similar repercussions). I guess I'm saying you need to watch Amazing World of Gumball.

[@t0m239]

I’m so happy somebody mentioned that scene in scooby doo I’ve been thinking about that since I was like 7

[@dreadlordvellan733]

When you mention 'body swap with a dead guy', my mind goes to Lovecraft's misogynistic (but chilling) The Thing on the Doorstep.

[@carpelibrarium8522]

I wondered whether you would touch on The Dollhouse.

[@RedAngelSophia]

The 2016 DCOM movie, THE SWAP, touches on the bodily autonomy issues - when Jack mentions that he doesn’t shower while in Ellie’s body for fear of violating Ellie’s bodily autonomy and integrity.

[@ya_v_lesu]

Please, check out movie “it’s a boygirl thing”. This movie is just a body swap nightmare. The synopsis: a jerk guy and a shy virgin girl go to the same school, and as it usually happens they magically swap bodies. While the guy is in girls body he does every awful thing to ruin her reputation and even have sex with another guy. He rubs this fact tight into the face of the girl inside of his body and she cries about it, while all of it is played out as a joke. This aged so horrible, it made me shivers.

[@lamechial]

Yup, can’t forget the fact that FL ended up falling in love with the guy and postponed her education at Yale :|

[@arson_ruby2403]

He does ruin her reputation, but doesn’t he not actually have sex with the guy. He let’s her think for a while that he did, so that’s messed up, but he doesn’t actually do it, and he eventually tells her he didn’t

[@fireblade696]

@@lamechial the guy is redeemed by the end of the movie. It was shown how he was going through hard times. They never said that stuff was not bad.

[@SHEESHAW100]

@@fireblade696 So he apologized and was punished? Cuz the bad boy having a sad backstory doesnt mean he's redeemed, especially when he ended up with the girl he abused.

[@MB-lu3th]

This is actually why I really like the trope! In theory at least, I think it’d be interesting to explore themes of trust and communication, interpersonal things. Plus, as a trans person I’m sure we’ve both had the “We could totally swap bodies” convo with other trans folk. A consensual permanent body swap. I think that’d be interesting. Or the ethics of possessing a dead person, they’re no longer using the body yeah but is it really okay? Or when a body swap is long, like months or even years. In a way if you’ve lived so long in that body doesn’t that kinda make it yours? Not really but I can see where people would start to deviate. I love when characters are forced to face complicated moral dilemmas, plus if there’s a first body swap early in the series where they both fuck up, and later where they draw up proper rules or agreements and whatnot to show character growth. It’s something you can do so many awesome things with, and I think the body swap concept is a great way to fill out a characters view on body autonomy, even if it’s never an actual episode or whatever, just to put them through that test. I’m rambling. Tl;dr, this is what makes the body swap trope good, because we get to have these conversations, even if it is mishandled more often than not.

[@RingtailCafe]

When this episode started, my first thought was "Oh, a great example is red dwarf!" and I was so delighted to see that brought up! :D

[@KarlAndArma4ever]

Even Code Lyoko has a better understanding of consent after accidental body-swapping! Granted, there's not much to begin with, but Yumi gives Odd specific instructions regarding interacting with her family after school, dressing, and even bathing, while Odd automatically trusts Yumi not to do anything more reckless than what he ordinarily does with his own body. Sad when a single episode from an otherwise obscure-ish French cartoon put more thought into consent around using another person's body than a full-length mainstream film.

[@Bobb11881]

I just watched that episode, like, today or yesterday, then watched this and went looking down here in the comments to see if anyone mentioned it (and to see if anyone had the gall to mention another story). I just wanna point out that Odd, being Odd, most definitely broke the rules Yumi layed out for him, especially when he had Ulrich practice confessing to Yumi. Fun fact: In the script, Odd (in Yumi's body) was supposed to _kiss_ Ulrich.

[@dylanshadowstar9779]

​@@Bobb11881 also, odd does indeed change clothes and at least went as little as underwear at one point. Yumi never changed clothes.

[@Bobb11881]

@@dylanshadowstar9779 There's no way Odd stopped at underwear. He's _Odd._

[@dylanshadowstar9779]

@@Bobb11881 true, to be fair it's in character for them both that Yumi played it safe and just never undressed at all.

[@logicallyblue3814]

The fact that you covered Red Dwarf's body swap made me extremely happy :D

[@persephonebasilissa5109]

I literally cheered out loud!

[@jenniferpearce1052]

I haven't watched Red Dwarf for 30 years...

[@alfredpennyworth114]

And in that same year, Soul made it work pretty nicely

[@kameronbelcher]

You've inspired me to attempt to write a body swap film that genuinely goes over these uncomfortable truths.

[@RubyDianArts]

Shout out to Quantum Leap which was the first sci fi show I loved as a child that got me interested in history, but a show that would never work out today.

[@Sootielove]

It's honestly an underrated story to tell from a horror pov. Whenever I consider how I'd act if I had to swap bodies with someone, the situation would be terrifying and uncomfortable. People don't know how to live each other's lives and the body dysphoria or fear of lack of personal bodily autonomy is a fascinating awful thing to explore. I understand where the humour comes from, but I'd love to see a horror story or something more dramatic with the premise

[@queenb7013]

Smallville did a great body swap episode with Clark and lex’s dad switching bodies

[@tamerafarly7666]

I loved that episode 😍

[@nekusakura6748]

@@tamerafarly7666 You can tell that Tom Welling was having a lot of fun with that Episode.

[@Aar0nDavis]

This came to my head and I was a little surprised it wasn't mentioned.

[@47ness5]

As far as movies that really played out this trope in a serious way, Being John Malkovich...? It felt more like a very thorough thought experiment, IMHO, though the possessed character gets to say their piece about (lack of) consent.

[@Kartissa]

"Malkovich? Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich."

[@tarnyowl6068]

The entire plot of stargate is kind of focussed on this where the main villains are stealing peoples bodies like parasites.

[@Jonathan-q9z1n]

I think it's interesting to consider the relationship between the parties involved in the bodyswap when discussing how these stories get a pass. In something like Freaky Friday it is a parental connection between a mother and daughter; in Shrek the Third it is two friends etc. Most often, bodyswapping characters have some kind of previous acquaintance as the whole point of a bodyswap story, from a writing perspective, is to ask what if this character (likely already known to the audience) had the life/abilities of that other contrasting character (also likely known). I personally haven't seen WW1984 but I understand what its doing and something else to consider is, unlike most bodyswap stories, the change here doesn't involve the main character or someone with a clear connection to Steve. Without involving Diana or anyone else Steve knows (for obvious reasons) the film, for the trope to work, is forced to create a seemingly new character for Steve to inhabit. So, contrary to films like Freaky Friday and Shrek the Third; Steve Trevor bodyswaps with a character who holds no power of his own (as he cannot inhabit Steve's body) therefore resulting in an inbalance of power. Usually bodyswaps have some sort of stalemate when it comes to the power they hold over each other as one side can't really do any kind of life altering or ending damage without inadvertantly causing themselves pain in the process. But this isn't the case here as Steve has all the power, and for the reasons outlined in the video accidently commits several acts removing this man's autonomy; subverting the ususl template of bodyswap films. Another reason this doesn't get a pass.

[@godlessgoth213]

Legion had an interesting take as did Community.

[@EvelynMadisonFaust]

This discussion had me thinking about another trope, although not nearly as common, it is related: the doppelganger narrative (or body doubles). This one may not have as much potential to be problematic as body swap narratives, but there is still a LOT of questionable ethics going on. The other person may not have access to YOUR body, but they do have a body that looks identical to yours: they can fool your friends, your significant other(s), people you work with, they could steal your money, ruin your marriage, get you fired, get you arrested, even get you killed in some cases... maybe a couple of times I can think of where this was done in a story and is shown to be a violation, but most of the time it's just glossed over, even when it's a villain -- take Loki as the most prevalent example -- sure he gets caught again and again and is reprimanded many times for his various crimes, but never has anyone questioned just how immoral it is for him to take the form of someone else. He even doppel'd Odin (in "Thor: Ragnarok") and took over Azgard for (we assume) a long time! And all Thor had to say was "why are you still alive? and where's my daddy?", didn't even bring up the fact that he probably ruined Odin's reputation as king... nope, we're just gonna sweep that under the rug. That's just naming one example, Skrulls are another one. Also Zygons from "Doctor Who". lol

[@katlyncoker8488]

If you're looking for a story that touches on those issues The Vampire Diaries does a pretty good job on it. With the character Katherine showing many of the ways a doppelganger can ruin your life.

[@bookinit5610]

I was so confused for a sec I thought this was one of Jessie's videos ahaha

[@batstork9435]

I was surprised you didn't bring up Jordan Peele's Get Out, which really explores the horror inherent in consciousness swap. Although it is more of a take over than a swap it deftly explores these issues alongside racism. I'd be interested to hear your take on these stories where the original consciousness is trapped alongside the invading one.

[@Bobb11881]

Probably to avoid spoilers, which is the same reason I'm not mentioning my go-to body swap story.

[@tcshack701]

The Syfy show Eureka did discuss the ethics and even the consequences of body swaps.

[@eveescastle5866]

It's been so long since I've seen that show and while I generally remember that happening I don't remember any of the details

[@BlackParade727]

I think that Kokoro Connect did it well to my recollection. I can't remember the show very distinctly, but the body swapping element was always random and inconvenient and it really highlighted how many ways it could affect a person, and people got rightfully mad when their body was misused. It wasn't played for laughs as much as you'd think an animated show about kids in high school would be, it was mainly serious

[@Eva-kl3fy]

The show Grimm actually had an episode exploring a similar concept to the Buffy The Vampire Slayer one. While it was more of a polyjuice potion kinda thing and not really a bodyswap, a villain took the form of the protagonist's wife and had sex with him in order to get pregnant. The show portrayed it (as it should have) as a horrible and violating thing to do to a person, the protagonist was not blamed once and was clearly presented as the victim of a horrible crime, and I thought it was quite refreshing to see that kind of thing explored and taken seriously , especialy with a man being the victim.

[@thealexellucas]

Body swapping, it’s like demonic possession with the ones you love.

[@BiPaganMan]

Reminds me of the body swap episode of Community, the first thing both Troy and Abed did after they switched was look down their pants.

[@v-mouse]

like everyone would do...

[@MusicalIrishgrl]

There was actually a Kdrama called Secret Garden where the male and female leads swap bodies for a huge chunk of the show (more than the usual day or two). It explores more of the logistics of body swaps then usual simply because they spend more time as each other and have to actively work at continuing each others lives. And they don't shy away from some of the more awkward and uncomfortable things about swapping bodies especially being that they are of the opposite sex.

[@octopi_latte]

While this topic is certainly interesting to elaborate and talk about, I don’t really care about the real world ethics of it too much, since body swapping is a phenomenon that happens purely in fiction. (I don’t necessarily count DID since in order for it to be a ‘body swap™️’, there essentially has to be 2 or more bodies. DID would probably fit more into a conversation about possession) So while the topic can be fun to elaborate in a more serious sense, i still don’t have much of a problem of it being a more comedic trope.

[@Samisnotbritish]

I mostly see a missed opportunity for content that could really help the cis majority to understand the trans community. Watching a cis person react to a body swap with the appropriate dysphoria rather than the usual immediate creepy sexual curiosity would be very informative for the public. Also it's always important to remember the very real influence that media has on the people who consume it, and how much power a popular film or TV show has to normalize problematic behavior, especially via comedy. Issues like consent and the daily struggle of existing as a trans person are grossly underappreciated by our society, and it really can't be argued that these tropes play no role in that.

[@himynameisoliver]

ah yes, even when I was a small child I pondered the ethics. glad to see someone bring it up

[@HBHaga]

I'm reminded of the Mercedes Lackey novel Jinx High where a sorceress has been using body swapping to extend her life. She's evil as hell and we get glimpses of the horror she's inflicted over the course of the story.

[@jam-the-hologram]

The whole video I was waiting for you to bring up Red Dwarf and actually cheered when you did so.

[@complainer406]

For the purposes of sexual activity, is "your body" necessarily the one you were born into and not the body you're currently occupying? While I've never seen them go through with it, most of these stories have a threat that the swap may be permanent. What if the morals were considered more along the lines of trading ownership vs. borrowing something?

[@EternalDensity]

It's like if you woke up driving someone else's car, you'd treat it as a loan until you found official papers saying you bought it. Materially my body isn't the same matter as I was born with. But if I was in a body that I expected would be returned to someone else I'd treat it as such. Though in my case I doubt it would make a difference. Actually the possibly bigger ethical question is how to treat the body-owner's family, spouse/partner, friends etc who think I'm someone else. In that case I probably shouldn't just act as the body-owner would.

[@midnightmist2358]

I believe I am in the minority here, but I don't see a problem with someone doing things to their body if they swapped bodies. As long as you do not do something to the body that will negatively impact the person once you switch back. I believe that there is a difference between taking advantage of an unconscious person and masturbating or looking at yourself naked if you swap bodies. Personally, I don't think I'd have a problem with someone masturbating in my body as long as they are a stranger to me and it's not my dad or something, because it is not my body after the switch, it is theirs. If I were to be in a man's body, honestly, I would try masturbating. I am curious to how masturbation feels different when you're a man. Yeah, if after we switched back I ever met that person it may be a bit uncomfortable to know they masturbated as me, but I wouldn't be mad because at that time it wasn't my body, it was theirs. If you disagree with me, I'd be interested in having a respectful conversation about it.

[@midnightmist2358]

with the comparison of using someone else's car I believe it's the same. As long as you are not doing something that will permanently impact the car it's fine. For example you can wash the car, but don't total it. If someone were to borrow my car and masturbate in it, I don't think I would be bothered, but maybe I am in the minority here too.

[@complainer406]

@@midnightmist2358 I agree. If we consider masturbating in that body as a violation then it puts you in a situation where you can only achieve sexual release with the consent of one specific person. I don't think that's a fair spot to be in. I understand how involving other people gets tangly, with STD risks and possibly uninformed consent, but masturbation shouldn't be an issue.

[@Bobb11881]

It's killing me, because there's a story that actually deals with this, but I can't tell you what it is! All I can say is that it's a video game.

[@audreyseddon9749]

I remember seeing many such examples and the debates that surrounded them. Turnabout Intruder (ST:TOS S3E24), Freaky Friday (1976), Like Father Like Son (1987), Face/Off (1997), Your Name (2016). What happens in Ghost (1990) and WW84 are possessions more than swaps but one can argue the ethics similarly.

[@BainesMkII]

Possessions can be ethically much worse, particularly situations as in WW84. Body swaps affect both parties equally, while possessions are one party having partial or even full control over another party. Involuntary/unintended body swaps are generally not easily reversible by either part, possessions are generally voluntary and easily ended by the possessing entity (or someone related). For example, Diana could have reversed the WW84 possession at any moment. She just didn't care about the innocent man who's life and body she'd stolen, and Steve ultimately went along with it.

[@sabrinat6838]

The wonder woman body swap reminds me of my favorite character Wei Ying, how he's brought into another man's body after death via a self sacrificing ritual which is pretty fucking dark if you think about it. He's in the body of a man who killed himself to invoke a spirit he thought was evil to take his revenge. Which also takes more in common with body swaps than it does with possession, as the book points out early on, he was forced into this body neither of his own will or accord.

[@sephirothii13]

one of the things I tend to notice with most body swap stories is it is normally parent child or siblings as well. in both those cases you normally aren't not going to have those kind of problems that Wonder Woman 84 brings up, especially in the sexually way.

[@_RKev]

Another piece of media that tackles the ethics of body swaps is the short manga series Hina Change, where our protagonist Hina and Ren can change bodies at will, but stopped after they were kids as they grew apart, Ren now wanting to use her body to get to his crush as he is gay and it would be the only way to play out his fantasy. I have can't say how gracefully in approaches the topic, but I'm putting it out there as a thing that exists

[@Maerahn]

That was the main thing that creeped me out about the Wonder Woman body swap/takeover; the whole time I'm thinking "Where has Handsome Man gone throughout all of this? Is he still 'there,' but just sort of 'sleeping' through all of this? Is he fully aware of what's going on, like a passenger in a car, but powerless to do anything? Or is he floating in some sort of 'limbo' somewhere else, waiting to be 'let back in' again? As someone with OSDD, this plot point was particularly disturbing to me, as this condition means I *have* experienced episodes of 'missing time' and then later been told I'd said and done things I have no memory of saying or doing. IT'S PRETTY HORRIBLE, even when those things I apparently said and did were harmless but just really out-of-character for me. You never, ever get used to that feeling of temporary and involuntary lack of autonomy. I can only compare it to being a parent of a rebellious teenager and finding out that your kid borrowed your car without you knowing the previous night, and the only clues you have as to what might have happened during that time is whatever new junk is scattered around inside the car, or dents and scratches on the outside of it. Your mind automatically gravitates to worst-case scenarios, and you don't know what might be worse - finding out the full details of what happened, or never finding out much at all. I'm fortunate in that I've had a lot of therapy over the years for my condition, so this happens to me very rarely these days, and not for long periods. But for Handsome Man, he'd have been 'missing' from his life for WEEKS. That would be TRAUMATIZING.

[@jakem7666]

Are you okay? You sounded a little trill at the beginning

[@CouncilofGeeks]

I see what you did there.

[@no_i_in_kersten]

Re: possession stories, an interesting case to consider is in the show Ghost Whisperer. They basically kill off a character in the series, (no spoilers as to who) then the show runners realized the repercussions of killing off that character were something they didn't want to deal with (re: narrative and viewership) so they just had that person's ghost (since in this show it's canon dead people with unfinished business become ghosts) jump into another person's body (it wasn't canon that ghosts could do this but now this opens up a lot of issues in the world building that aren't really properly addressed later in the show)... and then... they just show this character portrayed by the original actor since, the main character sees this person rather than the body this person possessed. It's super messed up and obviously just an attempt to undo a major plot thread they weren't willing to deal with properly, but it is interesting to think about, even though it's more problematic than clever.

[@JenniferFuss]

Ah! A surprise Jessie Gender in my Council of Geeks dose :D Cool!

[@daniisd2555]

i cant be the only one riddled with immense anxiety everytime i see a body swap story play out

[@ianpark1805]

There’s an episode of Star Trek Voyager - ‘Body and Soul’ that partly addresses some of these issues. To save the holographic Doctor being deleted by the hologram hating aliens of the week Seven, being Borg, downloads him into her cybernetic matrix with the result that while she is still aware of what is happening, the Doctor experiences the world as Seven and revels in the feel and sensations that he never experiences as a hologram while Sevens character is merely aware in the background. In some ways the Doctor’s excesses in Sevens body mirror the actions of Rimmer in Red Dwarf and Seven’s reactions are as outraged as you would expect. Mainly though, it’s played for laughs as Jerry Ryan does a brilliant take on Robert Picardo’s portrayal of the Doctor, which means it follows the usual body swap tropes, but it does address a couple of the problems particularly regarding consent.

[@superkid801]

Good video diving into those ideas! I find it funny, I just watched Your Name last night. Good video as always

[@WSDigitalArtwork]

Somehow the second i saw this videos title i just knew the fred's "i can look at myself naked" clip would be here

[@jbcatz5]

In the Disney Channel series Phil of the Future one of the functions of the Wizard, the do anything device the title character and his family bring back from the future, is reshaping the bodies of individuals. In the episode Versa Day it’s even used to invoke a Freaky Friday swap between Phil and his younger sister Pim as punishment for them arguing, the traditional learn to appreciate what the other has to go through. The series completely overlooks the concept of consent, as many characters use the appearance of the others without any opportunity to ask for consent. This is consistent over the series, as early as one of the first broadcast episodes. This includes people turning into people of the opposite gender, members of their family or both (one cold open has Pim as their father unaware she’s taking to Phil in their mother’s body, all for a joke). While it implies that in the future time they come from there’s not so much a belief in modesty, it’s still implied as it’s a Disney Channel show. In a very early episode Phil disguised himself as a classmate after scanning his image from a poster, and ends up with a girl believing he is that guy kissing him. In the aforementioned Versa Day episode a teenage boy and his sister who is two years younger are swapped in what’s a standard future era punishment, and it’s implied they’ve been subjected to this before. What’s more, they’re going to be restored at a set time, which is during the school day (great job Lloyd). Gender bending is squicky enough, even more so that two teenagers are involved but gender bending teenage siblings, it’s no surprise Disney Channel only went so far as bathroom confusion and Pim drawing on Phil’s bicep.

[@WisdomShark]

There's an episode of Steven Universe called "The Good Lars" where Steven accidentally possesses his friend Lars, in a way that's not too dissimilar to the "body swap" in WW84. That episode does address some of these questions, even while mostly sticking to the comedic angle.

[@ianr.navahuber2195]

and probably the somehow both comedic and kinda sad angle the episode ended was that nearly everyone liked "lars" (steven possesing his body) more than usual real lars. which was like a sad realization for lars that he needs to improve himself

[@deanmottershead9208]

I was going to point out Red Dwarf good job! When I saw the bodyswap episode with my Mother I remember there being a discussion about Rimmer breaking consent. It does open a can of worms that most TV shows and films aren't going to want to deal with, unless that is the point of the film/program Maybe that would be a good idea to deal with the fallout

[@SingAllTheThings]

I'm unsure if we can ethically and responsibly discuss "the ethics of body swapping"/someone else using your body without factoring in plurality or people with DID. As much as I like your premises here (and I understand your disclaimer at the beginning stating this wasn't intended to be a super serious video), what is to be done when you have no choice but to inhabit someone else's body, and "leaving" isn't an option? We can discuss these stories and tropes esoterically, sure, as they are written and contrived, but we must also acknowledge that there are people who experience these types of things daily, and talking about it without factoring them in leaves the discussion, as a whole, unfinished and unsatisfying. An example of this unfinished conversation is the point of "body-swapped sex deceives the person outside the body-swapped pair having sex with the body", when in fact, this occurs often between people who are plural and their partners. The host body, while it might be assumed by society and the law to belong to only one person, is actually the communal property of all those who live inside it. Now, obviously, consent and foreknowledge must still occur (whoever is using the body to have sex must be allowed to do so, and the outside partner must be aware who they're having sex with and that the host body is shared among multiple people), but implying that inherently, a partner of someone who is not the sole or original inhabitor of a body is being deceived or not having sex with who they think they are, ignores that, as long as consent is given (which I know we both agree is an important point), the partner *is* being intimate with exactly who they think they're being intimate with. This isn't to say that I think Steve's relations with WW in some random dude's body without consent isn't problematic, but she is still having relations *with Steve*, and there is a way for this to occur ethically when all parties are accurately informed. Though I do appreciate your comment that it'd be different if the original host of the body consented to the actions!! But I also think these discussions of fraud and defamation are also important to have while factoring in plural people. This isn't a hypothetical for them; rather often, people in systems have to negotiate with each other what actions are alright to perform in the shared body. This can include clothing choices, friend choices, food choices, activities and associated locations, etc., and they have very real daily ramifications. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this :) I enjoyed the video greatly!

[@SHEESHAW100]

Dang this is really interesting

[@valasafantastic1055]

All great points!

[@carlie501]

I haven’t finished watching the video so I don’t know if this was mentioned but the Disney Channel original movie the swap touches on swapping bodies but also not looking at other peoples private areas and I always really appreciated that

[@42billybob]

A couple thoughts on the supposed double standard: Most instances of the trope in comedy television generally DO lightly acknowledge the wrongness of a number of possible actions by using it as a source of conflict. Comedies don't generally pass up om the opportunity to milk the "don't you dare" reactions. The characters don't tend to "get away with it," the alternate in the swap is generally at the very least annoyed and often gets petty & turns the whole situation into a downward spiral of messing with the other one's body. When both characters engage in it, the story usually has them be petty assholes for a few scenes before reconciling, APOLOGIZING, and helping to clean up the mess they made. On that note, most characters in comedy television that engage in the trope are deeply flawed, petty, immature etc. Reprehensible, irresponsible, or wrong behaviour is generally more tolerable coming from someone like this (at least up to a point). A superhero by contrast is supposed to be a paragon (wonder woman especially so... she's basically superman in that respect). They represent aspirational virtues we should all seek to emmulate. So anything that THEY do that the script doesn't highlight as a flaw / mistake they must overcome heroically reads as something the writers deem acceptable. I'm also not sure sexual assault / rape is the right word for it in most instances. These concepts are generally considered crimes against a person, not their property. To use the "crashing each other's car" metaphor, the "assault" portion generally involves the person being in the car during the crash. Otherwise it's more or less just vandalism. I think that might have been what had people begging the question during wonder woman, it wasn't made clear where handsome man's consciousness was (at least to my knowledge, I haven't seen the film) so some might have been led to assume he was a powerless spectator trapped inside his own body. And (at least to me) the real horror to being victimized in a sex crime is the aspect of being present and unable to stop what is happening to me.

[@SHEESHAW100]

I think it's rape/SA cause it's similar to SA victims who were blacked out, comatose, or asleep during the event. Your body was still violated even if your consciousness/mind wasn't.

[@42billybob]

@@SHEESHAW100 I think your mind is still "present," it's just dormant in those circumstances. Your mind hasn't gone anywhere else while you're asleep. And being blacked out is more of a state that affects your future ability to recall events, it's still you driving the car (though likely a very impaired you). It's kind of like the difference between someone breaking into your house while you're on vacaion vs while you're asleep. In either case you don't find out about it until you're told about it later, and they both present a sense of violation of personal boundaries. But the latter is a much more visceral experience, the sense that someone you don't want there could do whatever they wanted to YOU (not just yout stuff) and you couldn't stop it. I think in a body swap scenario, your body becomes a lot more comparable to "your stuff" than "you."

[@ToontownAndCpenguin]

This made me want to re-watch the Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers episode where all of the Rescue Rangers & Professor Nimnul ended up swapping bodies, Nimnul & Zipper swapped with each other & their goal other than everyone switching back was to help rescue Zipper because they all swapped heads on the bodies, Nimnul is human & Zipper is a fly so you can imagine how people would react to seeing that. Last time I saw this, I was a kid & I'm 29 now so needless to say, it's been enough years so I don't recall the plot perfectly but one thing I do remember is that Dale & Gadget swapped bodies & one of the first thing Dale does is start touching her body that he's in & Gadget had to lay down the rule to not do that. This is a kids show. I think I remember that part well enough because of how out of place it is for a kids show. Gadget herself felt uncomfortable due to the fact Dale doesn't wear pants. I don't think this one made it onto the DVDs because I have volumes 1 & 2 but it's been so many years since the last time I recall seeing this one, don't believe it's gotten any sort of ban I mean, the Darkwing Duck episode where Drake & his 9 year old daughter swap bodies didn't see any sort of ban but other episodes such as Hot Spells did so they did do some quality control when it comes to Disney Afternoon cartoons. I'm wondering how the body swap Rescue Rangers episode will make me feel now that I am an adult & have seen this video. Reason why my mind is there & not on the Darkwing Duck body swap episode, as disturbing as I made it sound is that Drake respects his daughter too much, he's over protective of her so I'm sure he wouldn't dare think of doing anything bad with her body, I have trust in that but Dale in Gadget's body, given he has a crush on her, uhh yeah, that's something different.

[@jessetorres8738]

While not body swapping, in 3 of the 4 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers films, alien pods absorb humans to create bodies for themselves and they can live without fear or pain, but it kills the human body.

[@adolfodef]

The only "aspect" of body swapping there that is "relevant" for this discussion is the identity theft (given that the "B.S." purpously try to deceive other humans by assuming their host´s name & personal relationships). -> If all of them did "as much as posible" to get distanced from everyone else who knew their hosts [simulating what a sudden, unexplained, but still looking voluntary "self_exile" of that person would be], then only the murder & stealing would remain (irrelevant to our subject).

[@hitismeduh]

The 1996 Katherine Heigl DCOM "Wish Upon a Star" actually did address the ethical implications of the body swap as well! Two sisters switch bodies, and Katherine Heigl's-sister-in-KH's-body gets back together with the boyfriend her sister had broken up with because she had a crush on him. The other sister then freaks out about how much her sister is taking over her life and says something like, "What, are you going to lose my virginity, too?!" This was back before Disney Channel was so squeaky clean with their content.

[@AxelWedstar411]

There was an episode of Power Rangers a few years ago that did a body swap but it was between two male characters, instead of a man and a woman like the Japanese version of the show that it's based on. And I think I remember calling it weeks prior to airing that modern Western politics would make the original scenario unlikely.

[@AlmightyCRJ]

Dino Supercharge's Freaky Fightday with 1 line probably did more than WW84. "Yo Caveman, don't eat too much! I worked hard for that body."

[@LeanneModenPoet]

I'm so glad you talked about Red Dwarf! It's such a great episode - the writing in that show is *chef's kiss*

[@thebananabeast2322]

most people: yo freaky Friday was my favorite body swap thing ive watched jojo part 5 fans: mhm mhm go on

[@ikarikid]

Fun fact: the book of Freaky Friday is told entirely from Annabel’s POV. We don’t find out what happened to Annabel’s body until the end (fortunately it’s innocuous. Her mother-who was doing this for Annabel’s benefit-cut class and got Annabel prettied up).

[@milic5749]

I watched the 70s movie a bunch of times as a kid, and it always bothered me that the mom got a new hairdo when she was Annabel. I was a kid and these consent issues weren't on my mind, I just thought it was so unfair of the mom to make her daughter get a presumably unwanted new look in that way. The other interesting difference about the book is that it's implied the mom made the switch happen on purpose to teach Annabel a lesson, when in all the movie versions it was an accident. (That and the incidental part where Annabel finds out she's been getting her crush's name wrong for years because he has such bad allergies that when he tries to say "My name is Morris" it comes out as "By dabe is Boris" which made Annabel think his name was Boris. In the movie his name really is just Boris.)

[@BonaparteBardithion]

@@milic5749 I haven't seen the 70s version, but the 2003 version had the makeover in reverse. The mother made it very clear she did not appreciate the new look.

[@casualcraftman1599]

"Uhuh, that's all right, we do that sort of thing all the time here on Moya. I just peed in the maintenance bay." Rygel XVI

[@eabea]

that intro had me double checking the channel i was watching ♥ great collab!