Talk:Sex and sexuality in science fiction

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Archive 1:up to 2006

Contents

[edit] initial comments

Science fiction has often featured sexual themes

During the Golden age of science fiction you would be lucky to find males and females mentioned in the same paragraph let alone having sex.

Ok, that's a start for an article on this interesting subject. The Anome

[edit] Issues about the table for Notable works with sexual themes

(See Archive 1 for earlier part of this discussion)

Unfortunately what we have here is a demarcation problem. One solution would be to explain in more detail what the purposes and criteria of the list are. My impression of the list is that it tries to cover published works (with original content, published on paper by a publisher) which broke new ground, and to present a wide variety of sexual manifestations. Love, marriage, sex with aliens and hermaphrodite aliens are already accounted for on the list, so I don't see Star Dancer as being particularly noteworthy. You can argue [anatomy], but frankly stories are stories and not anatomy lessons - anatomy is simply extra detail on an established premise, premises in this case which have been used before. I highly, highly doubt it was mentioned in an airplane's in-flight magazine.
I agree that Wikipedia is supposed to present multiple sides of any given topic, but yes it does "hurt" when unnecessary information is added - it wastes people's time, and lowers the reader's opinion of all the other information associated alongside. You say the list should "present readers of Wikipedia with other information that they might be looking for" - that's an argument for the content. I argue the content of Star Dancer is not new and wastes people's time. If you're arguing that people might be looking for the genre of material it comes out of, I would suggest instead a general statement to the subject of adult fiction in Furry fandom - that solution would be in "a nonbiased manner and let the reader then do his own research." No individual's work would be singled out.
Personally I think an extra criteria should be made for quality. Most of the items on the list are formally published novels. Editors and book publishers thought the material was relevant and capable of being interesting enough that someone would pay for it - they edited it, then brought the story to the readers. As a web publication, Star Dancer has no editors nor book publishers behind it to judge and improve its writing. People find their way to the website - the website is not shipped and marketed to the reader. Additionally, most of the characters and settings are derived from other people. ("Berdoovia"? Sheez.) This makes the work a fan-fiction short story; at best, a shared-universe short story. If we argue for written quality, frankly it's not very good. If you insist on including a link to it, I would argue replacing the link with something much better, so as to not insult the quality of the other material already there. M.C.A. Hogarth's [Cheldzan Jokku] are better-written and contain many similar sexual elements. Or, for true novel length, Elf Sternberg's [Journal Entries].
In short: Improve the explanation behind the table. Drop Star Dancer. If and only if it still qualifies under the rationale behind the table, replace with a link to a much better story, or generally mention the genre it falls into.

--Andre, 8 June 2005

I agree - maybe an introductory paragraph above the table? Then people have some sort of criteria by which to judge including something new. It seems the table is now getting long and cumbersome. Is there any way we can split it into two parts, each with its own theme? Maybe one table dealing with purely human issues, like Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land, and another with human-alien issues? Cbdorsett 17:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I concur with splitting it along human-human and human-alien lines. I don't think Dune is relevant - eugenics is off-topic. I also think that only works published by reputable publishing houses should be included - which puts Circlet Press in something of a grey area... worth mentioning certainly, but only in as much as a desire for sex-themed works in science fiction has brought abnout the creation of a niche publisher specialising in that area.Tanzeelat 12:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
An introductory paragraph that explains this is a list of first significant or notable treatments of particular themes or issues would be helpful. I initially liked the idea of splitting it by subject, e.g., human-human and huma-alien, but then I thought that might encourage people to try to list other works within those simple subject criteria.
Also, the human-human and human-alien categories leave too many gaps. For instance, some works would fit within both categories, or perhaps neither -- what about Left Hand of Darkness? Le Guin makes clear that Gethenians and others are experiments in human sexuality & reproduction; so this is human-human? It doesn't get at physiological differences? Storm Constantine's Wraeththu is an "evolution" of humans into another species; Slonzewski's Door Into Ocean is genetically engineered aquatic parthenogenesis of people; Butler's Fledgling is vampire species/human sexuality; Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy is alien intervention into human sexuality/reproduction, and affects human-human relations as well as human-alien relations and constitutes evolution into a different species.
Perhaps a better distinction is a) social - sexual behavior (including many taboo-breaking works about human marriage & sex habits); b) biological - reproduction & copulation (altered human biology; alien biology) -- although tere might be still works that fall in both camps.
Actually, I think that while the list is a good starting point, ultimately the materials in the list should all be converted into examples in an encyclopedic essay, that looks at both themes and social context (time & society) in which the works were created. --lquilter 14:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Isn't The Left Hand of Darkness, or the Wraethhu trilogy, more relevant to a discussion of gender in sf? To me, sex in science fiction refers to relationships and the physical act, so works such as The Lovers (Philip Jose Farmer), 'Aye, and Gomorrah' (Samuel Delany), 'And I Awoke And Found Me Here On The Cold Hill Side' (James Tiptree Jr), Yellow Matter (William Barton)...
Also, while there's also the element of taboo-breaking (qv DV), I'm not convinced of the relevance of "spicy" science fiction (to borrow a phrase from Clute & Nicholls' The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction) - i.e., straight sf with sex thrown in for pure titillation, like van Vogt's The Mating Cry, a rewritten "adult" version of his The House That Stood Still / Undercover Aliens... Tanzeelat 15:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gibson?

Though it's not strictly a part of "new wave" sci-fi, William Gibson tackles a few important sex issues tangientially in Neuromancer in particular. The concept of the 'meat puppet', a girl working in technologically-induced trance state as a prostitute, originates with this work as far as I can tell, and there are is at least one explicit sex scene in part one, as well as two later implied sex scenes. I think the posthumanist concept of sex can be nicely summed up with the first sex scene, where Molly won't let the protagonist, Case, touch her face for fear of fingerprints on her cybernetic optics... the idea of distance in relationships created by technological integration is an important theme to Cyberpunk, which is as a genre sadly and conspicuously abscent from this list. The inclusion of a sexualized element in the virtual construct the titular AI creates also reinforces the sociological nature of sex. Wintermut3 22:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You might look at Tiptree's "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" which I think is an earlier example of "meat puppet" that Gibson refined & altered. Actually Tiptree should be added to the list -- I'll do it later. --lquilter 15:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup tag issues

I agree that the list needs to be cleaned up a bit. There are entries that may not be sci-fi (Jurgen), are not described (This Perfect Day, The Shape of Sex to Come), have issues that are not necessarily science fiction but could be any kind of fiction (Triton, The Door Into Fire), the description is stretched unrealistically so that it might fit into this list (Snow Crash) or the connection is completely opaque (Metabarons). I vote for deleting all of the works I mentioned here. I also think we need an introductory text that roughly describes what fits on this list, so that people will know what they should add and what they should just read and enjoy. --Cbdorsett 14:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

'The Lovers' certainly belongs on the list. It's generally considered to be the first science fiction work to feature sex as a major theme. Also, commenting that some Golden Age magazine covers featured "raygun-toting" women rescuing men has a ) nothing to do with sex in science fiction, and b) smacks of an agenda.Tanzeelat 10:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Re: Raygun-toting women: I have no idea what agenda, but I agree that it has nothing to do with "sex". --lquilter 12:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
On closer look the list is rubbish. No mention of Dangerous Visions. And... Dune? There's no sex in Dune! I'm tempted to say eugenics has nothing to do with sex but, well, that would be wrong :-) But it certainly has nothing to do with the introduction of sex as a theme, or descriptions of the the sex act, in science fiction.Tanzeelat 13:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Bah. Dangerous Visions' is mentioned. My mistake.Tanzeelat 13:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I was tempted to dismiss Dune from the list, too. However, the description started me to thinking. Weren't the Bene Gesserit choosing mates for people over thousands of years, or centuries at least? It's not just the ordinary, garden variety of eugenics. The whole thing takes place within a science-fiction universe, so it seems to me the book should stay on the list. Maybe move it to the next section, Other works? Cbdorsett 17:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC) woops
I still don't see the relevance of eugenics. The Dune series arguably belongs in an article on gender in sf because of the revelation that axolotl tanks are no more than non-sentient female Tleilaxu. But that's still not "sex" :-) Tanzeelat 16:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Pretty minor relevance to gender, though -- not really a major plot point in the series as a whole. As for sex -- sex as used in this current article means (a) sexual behavior (poly, homo, hetero, s/m, etc.); and (b) sexual reproduction. I take Cbdorsett's point about Dune and breeding -- a multi-millennia human breeding program is somewhat notable. To me, though, I think it's on the fence because even though the breeding program is key to the works, it's key in a background-sort of way. You don't really see the thousands of years of breeding at work, see discussions of how they make their choices, and so on. Dune's breeding program is more just to set up the characters & plot than an exploration of breeding programs per se, isn't it? --lquilter 16:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  • A lot of the material that was added wants to be in an article about "Gender in science fiction"; unfortunately, that article does not currently exist. I'll start the stub. --lquilter 12:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I took out the material from the text, but not the individual works which that editor added; those should probably be discussed individually. I also posted a note on the User talk:70.95.168.25 page explaining the new page. --lquilter 13:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needed additions

  • Several people mentioned Farmer's The Lovers which indeed should go in. (I'm not doing it because I haven't actually read it & couldn't describe it.) --lquilter 15:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Short stories - Are they excluded for a reason? In particular ... --lquilter 15:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Sturgeon's "If All Men Were Brothers ...." is a pivotal short story about incest; but is not on the list. I didn't add it because first publication was in Dangerous Visions which is on the list. However, not all stories in DV were of equal notability for this article, and Sturgeon's story is particularly notable for this article/list. --lquilter 15:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Potential deletions & subtractions

Okay, I made some additions of obvious omissions. However, there are some likely subtractions, as well, and I thought best to discuss here first. I'll do it in subheads so individual discussions can spawn. --lquilter 15:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

  • The question of deleting fantasy works was raised; I brought it up above as more a question of scope of list. In particular, some works -- like Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Heritage of Hastur, which ought to be on the list as groundbreaking work with a gay protagonist, is "science fantasy" -- feels like fantasy but has a science fictional veneer. --lquilter 15:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
a gay protagonist is gender in sf, not sex Tanzeelat 15:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, "gay protagonist" is sexual behavior & sexual orientation -- not gender identity. Modern identities and scholarship usually distinguish between sexual orientation (gay, straight, bi, etc.) and gender identity (trans, intersexed, hermaphroditic, and so on). There could be overlap between "gender in sf" and "sex in sf" article, of course; and old works (Havelock Ellis-school-influenced works) conflated gender identity & sexual orientation. --lquilter 16:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Joanna Russ The Female Man -- Okay some people will scream, but to me, this is the classic work of feminist sf and it was included here for that reason. The description isn't really quite accurate and seems written to make the work fit here; but TFM wasn't groundbreaking because of its sex; it was groundbreaking because of its searing feminist analysis of gender roles and its literary style. The critical point about Jael is the war between the sexes; this is actually not a "new" concept, although what Russ did with it was new. Likewise Janet -- the woman from Whileaway, the world of women -- this is not a new concept; but what Russ did with it, from literary and political perspective, is new. But as groundbreaking concepts of "sex" -- that's not what TFM is about. --lquilter 15:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Woody Allen's Sleeper - Put here I believe more because of the notability of the creator than the notability of the work. Is the concept of an orgasmatron notable? It was just a humor device in Sleeper (as I recall). If the work as a whole is notable for its "sex in sf" aspect then it should discuss it more broadly: sexual liberation in the present analyzed as sexual obsession in the future, with phds in oral sex and so on. --lquilter 15:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
as well mention Barbarella...Tanzeelat 15:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes - nice catch and another discussion. I could take out Barbarella too, although I think it was semi-notable for its soft-core sf porn mainstream-ness, if you get my drift. But maybe that's a false distinction. --lquilter 16:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Kilgore Trout / Venus on the Half-Shell - Again put here more I think because of the notability of the author (Kurt Vonnegut) than the notability of the work as an exemplar of "sex in sf". Basically a a sort of picaresque, but there are others that are earlier. --lquilter 15:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC) (Amend: Notability of the pseudonym issue -- see Kilgore Trout -- although maybe by my confusion I've disqualified myself from commenting on the historical relevance of this work! --lquilter 16:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC))
er, Venus on the Half Shell was written by Philip Jose Farmer :-) Tanzeelat 15:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh ... wasn't there a relationship w/ Vonnegut? Kilgore Trout was a Vonnegut character, maybe? Or am I just completely confused? Will look it up! (Ah: Kilgore Trout clears it all up.) --lquilter 16:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First gay male protagonist?

The work cited for this is: 1968, Samuel R. Delany, "Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand" - but that book is from 1984. I'm sure it was Delany, but not about which novel...was it Dhalgren? Vendrov 08:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

1968 would make it Nova, but I don't think that's right either. There's certainly been plenty since -- from Ralph Sperry's Status Quotient: The Carrier to the Bending the Landscape anthologies to Perry Brass... Tanzeelat 09:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We need to agree on a canon

We need a list of novel-length and short fiction that either has sex as a major theme, or was the first to mention it openly. Either between: humans of different sexes, humansd of the same sex, humans and aliens, or aliens and aliens. A similar list of film and television would also be a good idea Tanzeelat 09:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

We need to decide which criteria to use first; "sex as a major theme" and "first to mention it openly" are two very different things. Perhaps two separate groups of lists? I'm not really sure that we should have either sort of list; I don't see that merely having sex as a major theme makes a work notable, and the latter sort of list is basically trivia. Ben Standeven 04:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
What would you classify as a "notable work"? This article is a bout sex in science fiction. We can't cherry-pick good books that touched upon the subject, and ignore those that treated it as a major theme. As for the "first to mention it"... why is that trivia? Any historical commentary needs to name those who first to break the taboo Tanzeelat 10:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, I've changed my mind about the trivia point; a list of taboo-breaking works is worth including. As for "notability", the usual standard is, I believe, being referenced in unrelated works (say in a history of science fiction or of sex in science fiction, or in some other unrelated story). In general, I don't think it practical to include every scifi book about sex, even if we only consider ones written in the last century. Ben Standeven 01:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Why do you feel we need a "canon"? --Orange Mike 04:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
In order to encourage people not to add random texts they might think are relevant, however vaguely. Like Dune, for example... Tanzeelat 08:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Movies & TV - Star Trek

"This trend - no-strings sex, to mostly-limited-to-relationships sex, to gratuitous exploitation - has some close ties to American pop-culture views on sexuality; which created which?" this smacks of a violation of NOR or NPOV, or both. I think even a joking implication that ST might have shaped sexual mores needs a citation of some kind. In any case, some more context should be given explaining the 'mostly limited to relationships sex' statement since the previous statements don't seem clear to me on which one that was (esp. since I didn't see Enterprise or DS9).

Further, was the Tasha/Data hookup really in episode 2? My recollection has it happening later in the series in an alternate universe, but I also don't remember season 1 very well. Kit 08:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Since no one came along with a cite for this claim, I deleted the implication that Star Trek may have influenced American sexual mores. Feel free to add it back to the article -- if you have a citation for it.
Additionally, would still like some ST geek out there to confirm Data & Tasha did the nasty in episode 2, not later. Kit 09:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Yep, it was in the episode entitled "The Naked Now", production number 3 but aired as the second episode. Anville 14:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Now I realize I've excommunicated myself from the cool club, forever. (insert the sound of a wry smile) Anville 20:28, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not entirely sure how to fix this sentence

"In the society of the planet Pern in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, women are do not favor the use of contraceptives" -- AnonMoos 22:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am unclear how this is a example of pioneering sexuality in SF either ... Kit 09:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
It should actually be noted that the hierarchy among the Dragonriders in her series is based off of what male dragon catches the queen dragon in a mating flight. Once copulation occurs between the dragons, it is implied that their riders engage in intercourse, as well. Also, there are many homosexual and bisexual characters in the bulk of the series in the case of male riders of green dragons, a female dragon variation. These green dragons will enter estrus, even though no offspring is produced by the pairing. When the green is caught in a mating flight, the two male dragonriders will engage in sexual activities or the riders are with an individual that they will want to be with for intimacies. This is changed later on when girls are allowed to have green dragons imprint on them, again.-Anonymous
I thought it was stated explicitly, not implied. I don't remember which book it was, but it was only one book out of the series, not all of them. It's an interesting concept - choice of human partner entirely determined by the actions of their steeds. The somewhat intelligent animals (except for the greens, I think) do all the choosing, mate like crazy, and the humans keep going for the whole ride until thoroughly exhausted. Why would we want to delete this from this page? Cleanup yes, delete no. Cbdorsett 17:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title of the article

Would this article be clearer if it were titled "Sex and sexuality in science fiction"? to effectively delimit it as talking about sex/sex behavior, and not gender? --lquilter 12:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The first line of Clute & Nicholls' The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction entry on "sex" is a good description of the article's contents: "This entry is primarily about human relationships and sexual stereotypes as themes in sf". Why not something similar for wikipedia? Tanzeelat 09:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Are you saying that you think the current title "Sex in science fiction" is fine, and the article should include both topics? Because I think, looking at the vast majority of the content until recently, it was all about relationships, and not much about gender/sex stereotypes. That topic deserves its own article, at any rate; the two articles would reference & rely on each other, but would also be significantly different. I created Gender in science fiction to split off that content. (As for using the title Clute/Nicholls propose -- I think it's fine to use print encyclopedias to get ideas, but in this instance Clute/Nicholls were constrained by print, or the general nature of their encyclopedia, into conflating two topics that could have/ should have deserved more in-depth individual treatment. We don't need to be restricted in that way.) --lquilter 19:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Point taken. I agree the article should focus on human relationships (and human-alien relationships, of course :-)).Tanzeelat 11:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Of course! We wouldn't want to be species-ist. <g> --lquilter 16:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


I moved the page. Should i have done that? I think so. This page seems almost entirely about sexuality (why, when, with whom people choose to have sex) than the sex act itself or with gender specifically. Creating n article about "Depictions of sex in SF", or simply a "List of SF that has some sex in" might divert some of the less interesting or notable books from being added, but i wont create them, as i don't intend to write them ;).Yobmod (talk) 15:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Genre scope of article: fantasy? speculative fiction?

First, if this article is to include fantasy then the title should reflect that. Obviously this gets into questions of genre that get a lot of people worked up; personally, I think it's fine to have both f&sf put together for the purposes of this list, but right now i'm just raising it as a question. I would point out that "X in science fiction" is being used as a synonym for the sf & f industry/business in other articles, which may be the appropriate way to make this distinction: Is the article about fandom or industry? Then sf/f is okay. Is the article about literary specifics? Then breaking down by sf and f is more appropriate. --lquilter 15:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The prose part seems to be focusing exclusively on the literary side (claiming, for example, that "science fiction" didn't usually include sexual elements until the 60s, which is not true if "science fiction includes fantasy.) That seems reasonable anyway; sex in fantasy seems either too broad or too trivial to be a useful topic (unlike gender in fantasy). Ben Standeven 03:45, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Removed from article, pending ANY cites

" Other sub-genres

A number of works of mainstream erotica, including the Gor novels by John Norman, have also used the science fiction format. There is now a separate sub-genre of science fiction erotica that aims to integrate the two genres: writers in this genre include Cecilia Tan, whose small press Circlet Press caters especially to fans of erotic science fiction.

Science fiction erotica is frequently associated with Gay science fiction, Lesbian science fiction and S/M (Sado/Masochism) Erotica.

In recent years there has been a growing BDSM awareness in the science fiction and fan community."