Queer in Space

[beccaelizabeth]

I've been reading a lot of science fiction lately. The sort where they show you grand civilisations by throwing ships at each other and having a fight. It's fun. But there's one thing that's niggling and bothering me. So far this author has about a dozen different species, all of them with multiple worlds, different civilisations on different worlds, carefully worked out from the biology on up. Human civilisations too, there's a bunch of different ones, with logic applied to how value sets change when you get years away from Earth. And yet you know what's missing? Homosexuals. There's entire species of hermaphrodite threesomes, wiggly snakey things and skittery things that apparently bud, lots of exotic biology. But binary gendered people who fancy other people the same gender? Great big gaps.

There was one book with gay couples. It's the one all about aberrant psychology. Someone reprograms a young man's brain and then he shags men. I find that problematic. Very.

All the other stuff? How people reproduce is central, how value sets shift and how that impacts how children are raised, that's thought through a bunch of different ways. But all of them are heterosexual. There's no lesbians. There's no gay men. In a dozen different species.

And there's times it would make a big difference. I'm reading one set where there's women on spaceships leaving the poor fragile hair triggered berserker men back home. Their whole society is based around the idea that two men can't be in sight of each other without trying to kill each other. Only now they're playing what-if and it turns out this may be social not biological and there's men who can ignore their temper just like women can. So, okay, men have thoughts and variety and stuff. And the society is set up along the idea that the men will fight each other and win land to give to women, and then women have their children and look after them, until the next man comes along and kills them. But what if two men got together and decided not to fight? Team up? Perhaps because they fancy each other? Suddenly they've got an advantage over all those other lone hunter males. They'd live longer. And if women are only interested in spring and men interested all year, like has also been said, then it's even more likely men would do something about that. And it would change the shape of their society, because there would be male social structures out there shagging instead of killing, approaching each other with an eye to what they can get instead of how they can kill, building instead of moping around lone and dangerous. So it's like there's a great big loophole in the otherwise interesting logic. And, okay, they're Lions In Space. Are there any gay lions? I haven't the first clue. But it's just one example. There's all these intricately worked out structures and they go all to bitses if you notice that people shag in different combinations.

Leaving out the completely obvious just leaves great big holes in the logic of the world.
It's one of the things that annoys me about the same-ness of stories even without getting into the politics of the thing.

Comments

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

I am reasonably sure that there are gay lions. I know almost nothing about lions, but since there is gay everything else, there would be gay lions.

I can see why the author might have skipped over the gay Space Lions: if the majority of the males is Kill On Sight to all other males, the gay Space Lion may obey the instinct to kill before the instinct to attempt to shag the other Space Lion.

But since there are Space Lions that can control their temper, I'm sure that they have very happy gay Space Lions in their number.

I'd be more shocked if there were no mention of gay Space Lionesses.

[beccaelizabeth]

the lack of lesbian lions was a *glaring* omission. They travel for years in all-female crews, but they're celibate. And mostly pairs of sisters. And don't think about that sort of thing. :eyeroll:

gender imbalance like that, males that they don't reckon have proper thinking or conversation, and the only ties between equals are between women... but there's no shagging.

Entirely ridiculous.

[beccaelizabeth]

Plus it gets even more utterly ridiculous when there's cross species romance between 'males' and 'females' who are pretty much guessing based on very little similarity in biology. If species is no barrier, why why why is gender?

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

From wikipedia on lions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion):

One scientific study reports that both males and females may interact homosexually. Male lions pair-bond for a number of days and initiate homosexual activity with affectionate nuzzling and caressing, leading to mounting and thrusting. A study found that about 8 percent of mountings have been observed to occur with other males. Female pairings are held to be fairly common in captivity, but have not been observed in the wild.

Most species have had observed homosexual behaviour.

[beccaelizabeth]

cool, thanks.
that's what I figured.