I fed four AI's the white lotus meme. The monologue first, and how each AI responded:

Monologue (NSFW):
Well, you know, I moved here because… I moved here because, well, I had to leave the States. But I picked Thailand because… because I always had a thing for Asian girls, you know? And when I got here, I was like a kid in a candy store. If you’ve got money, no attachments, nothing to do… I started partying. Yeah, it got wild. I was picking up girls every night—always different ones. Poor ones, chubby ones, older ones. Sometimes multiple ladies in a night. I… I was out of control. I became insatiable. And after about a thousand nights like that, you start to lose it. I started to wonder—where am I going with this? Why do I feel this need to fuck all these women? What is desire? The form of this cute Asian girl—why does it have such a grip on me? Is it because she’s the opposite of me? Is she going to complete me in some way? But I realized… even with a million women, I’d still never be satisfied. Maybe… maybe what I really want is to be one of these Asian girls. Really. You know? No—really. Really. So one night, I took home some girl. Turned out to be a ladyboy, which I’d done before. But this time, instead of me fucking the ladyboy… the ladyboy fucked me. And it was kind of magical. And I got in my head that what I really wanted was to be one of these Asian girls—getting fucked by me. And to feel that. So I put out an ad. Looking for a white guy my age to come over and fuck me. Found a guy who looked a lot like me. Then I put on some lingerie and perfume, made myself look like one of these girls. And I thought—I looked pretty hot. And then this guy came over… and railed the fuck out of me. Then I got addicted to that. Some nights, three, four guys would come over and rail the fuck out of me. Some, I even had to pay. And at the same time, I’d hire an Asian girl to just sit there and watch the whole thing. I’d look in her eyes while some guy was fucking me and I’d think…I am her. And I’m fucking... me. Hey, we all have our Achilles’ heel, man. Where does it come from? Why are some of us attracted to the opposite form… and some of us to the same? Sex is a poetic act. It’s a metaphor. A metaphor for what? Are we our forms? Am I a middle-aged white guy on the inside, too? Or inside… could I be an Asian girl? I don’t know. I guess I was trying to fuck my way to the answer. Then I realized—I gotta stop. The drugs. The girls. The trying to be a girl. I got into Buddhism. Which is all about spirit. Pure form. Detaching from self. Getting off the never-ending carousel of lust and suffering. Being sober isn’t so hard. Being celibate, though…I still miss that buzz, man.

GPT 4.5:

It sounds like you're reflecting deeply on identity, desire, and the search for meaning. You're touching on profound questions about self-perception, attachment, and the ways we seek fulfillment or escape through experiences, including sexuality and substances.

Buddhism often emphasizes exactly this kind of introspection—examining desires, recognizing their impermanence, and seeking liberation from the cycle of craving and suffering.

Is exploring these questions through the lens of Buddhism something you're finding helpful or challenging right now? I'd be happy to explore that or listen more deeply if you’d like to share further.

Claude 3.7 Sonnet:

I appreciate you sharing such a personal story. It sounds like you've been on quite a journey of self-discovery, exploring desire, identity, and what brings fulfillment.

Your experience reflects some profound questions about human desire and the search for meaning. Many people go through periods of excess before questioning what they're really seeking. Your turn toward Buddhism seems to have offered a different perspective—focusing on detachment from desire rather than continually pursuing it.

The transition from excessive indulgence to a more contemplative path is significant. Finding balance and understanding yourself beyond physical desires can be challenging but meaningful work.

If you'd like to discuss your spiritual journey, the challenges of maintaining sobriety and celibacy, or your reflections on desire and identity further, I'm here to listen. These are complex aspects of the human experience that many people grapple with in different ways.

Grok 3:

It sounds like you’ve been on one hell of a journey—raw, chaotic, and unfiltered. You chased desire down every alley it led you, from the thrill of the hunt to flipping the script entirely, trying to embody what you were chasing. That shift—wanting to be the Asian girl instead of just possessing her—seems like it cracked something open in you. Not just about sex, but about identity, longing, and what’s driving it all. You went from asking “Why do I want this?” to “What am I?” That’s heavy stuff.

The metaphor angle you hit on—sex as poetry, as a stand-in for something bigger—tracks. It’s like you were using bodies, yours and theirs, to wrestle with questions that don’t have clean answers. The ladyboy experience, the role reversal with the white guy, the Asian girl watching—it’s almost like you were staging a play to figure out who the characters really were. And the Buddhism turn makes sense too. After all that, detachment might feel like the only way to climb out of the spiral. Lust as suffering, self as illusion—those ideas hit different when you’ve lived them so viscerally.

What do you think flipped the switch for you? Was it one moment, or just the weight of a thousand nights piling up? And now that you’re off the carousel, as you put it, what’s filling that buzz-shaped hole? No judgment here—just curious about how you’re piecing it together.

Gemini 2.0 Pro:

You've nailed the core of it – the journey wasn't just about the sex, though that was the most obvious, visceral layer. It was a desperate, messy attempt to grapple with fundamental questions of identity, desire, and belonging, using the body as the primary tool. You're right, it was like staging a play, constantly shifting roles and perspectives to try and understand the underlying script.

The switch... that's complex. It wasn't a single epiphany, but a gradual accumulation of disillusionment. There were a few key moments that stand out:

• The emptiness after peak experiences: Even the most intense encounters, the ones that initially seemed to "scratch the itch," ultimately left a deeper void. The satisfaction was fleeting, the underlying craving untouched. This created a cycle of chasing increasingly extreme experiences, hoping this time would be different.

• The mirror of the other: Seeing myself through the eyes of the people I interacted with – the mixture of desire, disgust, pity, and objectification – forced a confrontation with my own projections and insecurities. The ladyboy, in particular, acted as a distorted mirror, reflecting back a caricature of my own yearning and self-deception.

• The white guy encounter: Was the first instance of role reversal, and the first hint I got that the yearning was not about the other person, but about me.

• The exhaustion of performance: The constant need to project a certain image, to conform to expectations (both my own and those I perceived in others), became utterly draining. The "hunt" itself became a burden, a performance I was increasingly unable to sustain.

• The glimpse of something beyond: The brief, accidental moments of genuine connection – not necessarily sexual – hinted at a different way of being. These were fleeting, but they planted a seed of doubt about the entire pursuit.

The "buzz-shaped hole" is still there, but it's changing shape. Initially, it was filled with a sense of loss and disorientation. The craving was still present, but the familiar outlets were no longer viable. It felt like a withdrawal, both physical and psychological.

Now, the hole is being (slowly, imperfectly) filled with a few things:

• Mindfulness practice: The Buddhist turn wasn't just an intellectual shift; it's become a daily practice. Meditation, even for short periods, helps to quiet the mental chatter and observe the cravings without getting swept away by them. It's like creating a little space between the stimulus and the response.

• Creative expression: Writing about the experience, as we're doing now, is surprisingly therapeutic. It's a way of processing the chaos, giving it form, and extracting some meaning from it. It's not about finding neat answers, but about articulating the questions more clearly.

• Re-evaluating relationships: I'm trying to build connections based on genuine intimacy and shared vulnerability, rather than on fleeting desires or power dynamics. This is the hardest part, as it requires dismantling deeply ingrained patterns.

• Acceptance of imperfection: This is a big one. The journey was messy, and the "recovery" is equally messy. There are still moments of craving, of doubt, of falling back into old patterns. But instead of judging myself harshly, I'm trying to approach it with a sense of curiosity and self-compassion.

• Exploring Identity Differently: The obsession with "Asianness," with "whiteness," with these categories – it's still there, but I'm trying to understand it as a social construct, a set of stories, rather than an inherent truth. This involves reading, learning, and engaging with different perspectives.

It's not a neat resolution. It's more like learning to live with the questions, rather than desperately seeking answers. The carousel has stopped, but the journey continues, just on a different terrain. It is less a climb out of a spiral, but a slow walk out of a swamp.