A Word About Genre: Mundane Sci-Fi

What a wonderful aberration of science fiction that I have just discovered! It is sci-fi based on this planet with only the technology we have, without the fantasy of speed-of-light travel or parallel universes. I find it strange how excited I am by Sci-Fi that completely lacks fantasy, but I am. If you wanted to map this on the hard/soft sci-fi continuum, it would be all the way over to the hard side with accurate science, although that does not preclude the possibility of soft science themes.

Is this even sci-fi? I am not sure. Fantasy seems to be such an intrinsic part of the genre. But if this is fiction about or heavily influenced by science or fiction about where current technology can take us, then it must be sci-fi, right? The Cold War inspired numerous sci-fi stories of possible impending doom as nations play a deadly game of one-ups with weapons. Those were certainly science-fiction.

I suppose The Twilight Zone has a few examples. There was an episode called 'Where Is Everybody?' in which a man finds himself in an uninhabited town except there is lingering evidence of someone having just been present (i.e. a lit cigarette in an ashtray). It turns out that this is a dream or hallucination caused by prolonged sensory deprivation. A little wiki-sluething has revealed that this was the first episode of the series! Facts are fun.

This seems to have riled up quite a large section of the sci-fi world but I am intrigued by the possibilities it offers in literature.

Since I have not read any mundane sci-fi, at least not knowingly, I cannot offer my own opinions, analysis or even a reading list. Instead I offer you a link to this blog about Mundane Sci-Fi.

A Word About Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi

The post-apocalyptic genre details the destruction of civilization or the planet, the end of life on earth, and/or the struggles of the human remnant to survive and recreate civilization. The cause of the destruction may be disease, invasion, nuclear holocaust, or a mundane disaster, such as the melting of the poles or dimming of the sun's power. This genre has ancient roots, present in Babylonion and Israelite myths. The threat of the end of times and millenialism has cycled through humanity constantly over our history.

Disease
The disease may be naturally occurring but is most often a manufactured weapon in biological warfare that has been spread by accident. A desperate race may ensue to contain and treat the diseased. The survivors may have natural immunity but frequently have acquired immunity from some government connection, possibly this connection is to the government which unleashed the disease. The survivors rebuild the population while fighting the disease and a second outbreak. Some survivors may interpret the disease as a religious punishment that spared only the just or faithful.

Invasion
Alien invasion may either decimate the population or destroy the habitability of the Earth. Survivors may fight back in war or attempt to escape the Earth in search of a new home planet. Invasion may also come from a supernatural source, such as zombies, or mutated humans who seek to supplant human culture, I am Legend. The Day of the Triffids is similar except that the invaders are an intelligent and lethal plant life that had been genetically engineered for economic purposes.

Nuclear holocaust was a popular element during the cold war era and the paranoia caused by the space race. This destruction is the result of either direct attack in a war or of misfired weapons. The survivors are understandably hostile and distrusting. Crude clans or governments form according to rule by fist. The threat of nuclear fallout or mutation haunts characters.

Classic Examples:
Earth Abides
Dr. Strangelove
Planet of the Apes
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Book of Eli
The Road

Related Genres:
Utopia/Dystopia

A Word About Genre: Utopia/Dystopia

Utopia comes from a combination of two Greek words: οὐ is "not" and τόπος is "place". It was first used in Sr Thomas More's book of the same name to describe hypothetical ideal societie, often based upon Plato's ideal from The Republic (which I would only recommend if you want a study in fascism).

Dystopia describes the utopia gone wrong, usually in the form of a controlled state - actually quite like Plato's Republic. Or imagine what has become of Cuba - lack of freedoms, threat of violence/imprisonment/loss of income and nationwide poverty. To survive, many assume conformity is utopia/dystopia societies and individuals are stigmatized. Only the top eschalons exhibit individuality and freedom of thought.

Often these societies feature artificial or contrived religions that reinforce the state power. These religions or cultures focus on one's responsibility to the society over themselves and their families. The family unit is often disbanded and a threat to state loyalty.

The state often directly controls or manipulates the economy by deciding what should be produced and how much. In Brave New World, this is created by a control on population numbers and their desires. They are encouraged to value consumerism, to replace instead of repair, to constantly desire. In other works, such as in Asimov's short stories, computers control the world economy. In Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano, this perfect control over the economy leads to disatisfaction as the populace feels absurdly purposeless denied the ability to work.

Many of these works are set in the future after a world collapse which necessitated the creation of a planned, authoritarian state. Since these stories are set in the future, the control of the society is often enabled by advances in technology.

The hero may come from any social class but typically comes from the extremes in society, either the low/working class or the upper/power class. The hero is often a member and leader of a revolt movement, s/he will perhaps even sacrifice himself for this movement, or humanity itself.

Classic Examples:
Brave New World
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Soylent Green

A Word About Genre: Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a portmanteau (one of the greatest words ever!) of cybernetics and punk. The plots are based upon developed technologies, especially information technologies, artificial intelligence and hackers who manipulate the intended purposes or control of these technologies. The protagonists are frequently hackers, misfits, dissenters, criminals - essentially anti-heroes and cowboys. I find that it is easy to connect and love these heroes because they are typically flawed and damaged people.

Another classic element is dystopia, oppressive societies, fascist dictators, overly powerful corporations, etc. The world is generally in social decay. Often, the setting is Earth in the present and not too distance future. Societal critique is often present, linking this genre to social sci-fi. The prophesied futures tend to be on the paranoid side, our worst fears about where technology may lead us.

Classics Examples:
Neuromancer - William Gibson
The Matrix Series - Wochowski brothers
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (AKA Blade Runner) - Philip K. Dick

A Word About Genre: Social Sci-Fi

Social science fiction may sound at first as if it is a part of soft sci-fi since it's main concern, anthropology, is one of the soft sciences. However, the focus is on the group rather than individuals. This is usually developed through the exploration of hypothetical, alien societies. This is perhaps one of the earliest sub-genres in science fiction because it was possible prior to modern or even accurate science. Think of Gulliver's Travels. Obviously, this genre is closely related to the alternate reality/parallel universe genre since the development of a separate world facilitates the creation of a new society. However, one does not imply the other.

These invented societies are frequently critiques of existing social norms and their possible futures as well as suggest possible solutions. Morality and ethics often are central to these critiques. Taken to extremes, social science fiction crosses into the utopia/dystopia genre.

Consider The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein. The society on the moon has different mores concerning sex and marriage. The female to male ratio is very low. As a result, the society has introduced polyandry, the practice of a woman having multiple husbands, and group marriage, the practice of having shared spouses, both male and female, that often develops into line marriages which successively introduces new spouses so that the marriage does not end due to any one death. The family votes before a new husband or wife may join and the marriage is to the whole family. It also maintains economic stability by working from improvements made in the past and through multiple income earners. The continued line marriage also insures continual parental influence. This part of the novel is social critique. The romance and friendship of Manny and Wyoming is within the domain of soft science fiction.

Classic Examples:
Brave New World - Alduous Huxley
Nineteen Eighty-Four - Orsen Wells
Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guinn

A Word About Genre: Alternative Reality/Parallel Universe

The alternate reality, parallel universe is one of my favorite elements in science fiction. It turns our silly world on its head. Generally, the alternate reality has a stronger relationship to our reality than the parallel universe, it is much like ours but with small variations.* A parallel universe often has different laws in the hard sciences. For example, gravity may not be stable or travel at the speed of light may be possible.

The other world has a beautiful history as ancient as man. Many of our great myths are stories of events in another world, such as on Mount Olympus. Other worlds are found in favorite children's stories as in the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. In such a world, there are talking animals and trees. Another key difference is that time passes at a different rate. The Pevensie children live full, adult lives before returning to childhood, having missed little time during the reality that contains WW II. Similarly, when they return, they have not aged greatly but the world of Narnia has aged and changed greatly.

Authors and film makers tend to have great fun when surprising their readers and audience by the surprise twist that the plot takes place in another reality.

The magic of this genre is that anything in our world can be changed, for better or worse. We can live for a few hundred years, travel great distances, be able to move through time as we move through space. The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde offer a complex alternate reality in which time travel is possible, literary integrity is a crucial part of law and government, vampires and werewolves exist, dodo birds have been resurrected through cloning and so much more it makes my head spin. And all it takes is the gentle letting go of some law of reality and suspending it.

Of course, like all science fiction genres, alternate reality is not all fun and games. Parallel universes frequently threaten the universe of the main character's universe. And quite often his/her universe is quite like our own. An excellent and curious example is Isaac Assimov's The God's Themselves, which includes characters from both sides of an Electron Pump.

Do not be fooled by our "common sense" ideas about parallel universes. Quantum mechanics has widened our minds to the possibility. I must admit that quantum physics is exactly where I lost my firm on physics and resigned myself to Newtonian laws.

*One such variation is the alternate history sub-genre. I plan to get to this one later.

A Word About Genre: Soft Sci-Fi

If you have watched a few episodes of Bones, you know that Dr. Temperance Brennan dislikes, abhors and has little appreciation for the soft sciences, to put it mildly. These sciences are psychology, sociology, politics, are the focus of soft science fiction. The plots of soft sci-fi focus on character development or societal problems than on scientific elements. The first Star Trek is one of my favorite examples. The setting, modes of transport, presence of aliens, etc squarely place Star Trek in the sci-fi genre. But the plots revolve around the captain and the crew of the starship Enterprise, their loves, their losses, their conflicts.

Don't get distracted by the term "soft" as these books can be harsh and cruel indeed. For example, The Road by Cormac McCarthy could easily fit into this genre because the story focuses on the thoughts and feelings of the father with practically no detail explaining why the earth was destroyed and its food stocks decimated. However, the story is horrifying and down-right disturbing (so much so that I cannot force myself to finish it).

Included within this genre are the space opera (think Star Wars, especially episodes I-III) and science fantasy (Startling Stories, Weird Tales and other collections of pulp shorts). I might return to these later but suffice to say that soft science fiction and her sub-genres are the reason why science fiction and fantasy sit side by side in book stores.

Finally, soft science fiction is not necessarily bad science or vice versa, although some would have you believe that. Think of the hard-soft binary as a line. On the left side you have hard science based on modern, real hard sciences. On the left side you have soft sciences focusing on human relationships and problems. All science fiction exists between these two poles. If you go all one way you either end up with a scientific treatise lacking in plot or in a romance novel.*

*Please note, the romance I am describing is a literary form which engages the fantastic and the supernatural. Shakespeare's The Tempest is a romantic play which certainly lacks any modern notions of romance between the supposed lovers.

A Word About Genre: Hard Sci-Fi

While science-fiction has much in common with pornography (just look for a book by Kilgore Trout and see where you find yourself), the hard vs soft distinction in science fiction is about the gratuitous display of scientific accuracy. Hard science-fiction sticks to the hard sciences: physics, biology, astronomy. While the fictional world of hard science fiction does not necessarily correlate to our world, the author portrays these elements in scientific and technical detail.

Isaac Assimov and Arthur C. Clarke, who were part of the Big 3 in sci-fi, are two of the earliest authors in the hard sci-fi genre. They also exemplify some of the difficulties with extrapolation and hypothesizing future inventions, which can make their works feel quite dated.

If you know the how and the why of phenomena, you've probably got yourself some hard sci-fi. If things are a little magical and unexplained, focusing mostly on the mental and social aspects, then it leans toward the soft side of the scale. There is some gray area in the middle. Sometimes, what is dressed as hard, scientific fact is just plain our silly magic. If someone explains in great detail how a ship moves at or faster than the speed of light, you've got a strange ambiguity on your hands. Modern science states than any object with mass travelling at such a speed would do so at infinite energy expenditure and enlarging to infinite mass. Or the object would go back in time. Which would really upset everything. So while someone may use or even explain "warp speed", it just isn't real. But somethings have to be different or unreal if the book is science fiction, right? Or else you just end up with fiction.

The genre has suffered since the 50's and, with it, Disneyland's Home of Tomorrow. The expectations of hover cars and robotic nannies featured in Jetsons are a long way off if anyone ever gets around to them. Computer hacking, genetic splicing and cloning, and biological warfare are the subjects of modern hard sci-fi.

I am not passing judgment on whether one end of the spectrum is better than the other. Hard science fiction can be fascinating because the hypothetical has a chance of becoming the real. I also find that hard science fiction writers take their readers a little more seriously, anticipating our rigorous and analytical questions and probing in ways that the early Star Trek and Star Wars actors and writers could never imagine. But hard science fiction can also be tedious and overly pedagogical. The trick is to find a balance between the science and the fiction, not forsaking one for the other.

Classic Examples:
Ringworld
Inconstant Moon
The Mars Trilogy
Rainbows End

A Word About Genre

Science-fiction is a genre in itself but it consists of several sub-genres, many of which can be furthered divided. To save myself the difficulty of frequently writing out "sub-genre" and "sub-sub-genre", I am going to shift science-fiction into its own category in which further divisions can be drawn.

I intend these posts to be a basic primer to terms I might throw around carelessly. Each genre will have it's own label. Any entry on a work of science-fiction that falls into a particular genre will also bear that label. This way, you can search "genre" for all of my entries on the various genres and subs as well as the name of each genre for both the description and posts that fit within the genre. Most science fiction has multiple themes and a single work may fall into more than one genre. I will, however, attempt to classify works by their most salient genre.

As I add genres, I will try to label all the appropriate works. I will also, eventually, include a list of works under each genre description. I will probably only add titles of the works most appropriate to that genre as a heuristic of the genre rather than attempting to create an exhaustive list.

Genres:
Hard
Soft
Alternative Reality/Parallel Universe
Social
Cyberpunk
Utopia/Dystopia
Post-Apocalyptic
Mundane

*This post has been back-dated to place it at the head of the "Word about Genre" posts. I have also edited some of these posts in recognition that I might some day have an audience who does not suffer from my chronic condition in which I hear every thing that I think.*

Science Fiction and Sex: Incest

Since I began this primer on sex in science fiction, I keep going back to a conversation I had with a friend of mine. It happened unexpectedly when I was walking home from work late at night. The conversation lasted less than 5 minutes and it was among the most bizarre conversations I have had. Life always seems to happen when we are preoccupied, doesn't it? I find it a little irritating that so many important conversations take place outside, in the cold, underneath a street light. We talked about the taboo of incest, why we feel so immediately disturbed by it, if it is just a culturally built thing. You may have noticed in one of my other posts that, to me, the taboo of incest is just an evolutionary trait that keeps the gene pool sufficiently mixed and viable. Here was his premise:

Suppose a brother and sister, both adults, have a very close relationship. They decide they would like to have sex to deepen their relationship. They use contraceptives so that she will not become pregnant. No one else knows about it. No one is hurt by it. And there is no offspring. Is it wrong?

If you are like me, your mind screams that of course it is wrong. But why? I have stated my claim of evolution and yet I know it is wrong. Incest happens all the time, in many species. Definitions of incest vary from culture to culture, with some societies considering taboo what other societies accept as normative. Levi-Strauss suggested that the discouragement of incest was a social force. Marriage and offspring form strong bonds and social networks. Forming such alliances strengthens communities by linking up several members of families. A marriage is not just between two people but also their families, the in-laws they join.

Think of times when incest was common. European and Egyptian royalty come to my mind. Marriage between close relatives, even half-siblings was common. Such close marriages keep material wealth and power concentrated. A pharaoh and his half sister need not worry about an interloper or concubine staking her claim since the half sister is the first wife, through whom inheritance is determined. In a situation where one person has multiple spouses, the sibling-spouse may be merely a figure of power and not a source of reproduction.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, many sci-fi books set in the future involve the political intrigue of feudal lords and ruling classes. With such concern over power and wealth, marriage is often a dangerous game. It threatens the stability of the family as well as the government. In other cases, alien species may reproduce in a manner different from our which renders concepts such as siblings, family and incest null. While the narrator or a character may seek to justify this, do not be misled - the author includes this element to make you uncomfortable, to make you distrust and dislike certain characters, and to make you put a wall between yourself and the incestuous persons.

Science Fiction and Sex: Dimorphism

Males are taller, more muscular and hairier. Women are smaller, have a higher percent body fat and less hairy. Peacocks are bright and flashy; peahens are dull and brown. Female angler fish are large with a funny lantern projecting for their heads; male angler fish are teeny tiny. These sex-based differences are call dimorphisms. The most common cause of dimorphism is sexual selection.

When mates are determined by members of the same sex (usually males) competing for a mate, ornamentation distinguishes the sexes. For example, larger antlers become more attractive. The antlers are not really for fighting, at least not fighting to the death. If species really had death-matches, there would be very few viable mates next season. Aside from drawing attention to oneself, ornaments, especially those that are detrimental to their bearer, are signs that the possible mate can survive with such handicaps. These ornaments also take extra energy to grow and support. The greater the ornament, the more fit its possessor must be to survive.

The Sexy Son Hypothesis (I'm not making this up!) is based on the idea that a female will seek in her mate the best genes for her own son. If her son is well endowed, he will be more likely to reproduce and pass along his genes. Essentially, sex appeal becomes its own reason to exist. This is essentially the much-abused "selfish gene."

There is some relationship between the amount of dimorphism and the number of sexual partners in species. However, while these are fun to consider and wonder about, there is not enough to say that one causes the other, or that they are even positively correlated. However, if you are an evolutionary biologist focuses in dimorphism, please get back to the lab and get me some answers!

When thinking about evolution, most people remember natural selection, but sexual selection is just as important, especially when an animal looks weird, like the hairless ape.

Science Fiction and Sex: Sexual Mores

All societies have standards and expectations the govern sexual behaviours. These standards include consent, sex as it relates to marriage, fidelity, number of partners, identity and status of partners, diseases, incest, rape. Some of these we feel are innate laws that create better, healthier, stronger, fitter offspring. For example, incest is a taboo in society but it is also dangerous for a species as inbreeding increases the likelihood of passing on bad genes. However, sex as related to marriage, fidelity, number of partners, etc, are considerations for the society in which one lives.

It is safe to assume that any science fiction novel that mentions sex (and there are a lot of them!) will challenge their society's expectation of sexual mores. The heyday of pulp science fiction occurred at a time when pre-marital sex and promiscuity were becoming more widely practiced, if not socially acceptable. Oral contraceptives reduced the risk of unwanted pregnancy leading to unwanted prolonged attachments (ie shotgun weddings). Control over fertility offered women the opportunity to engage in sex without the risk of becoming pregnant which allowed women the same sexual freedom that men enjoyed. Cars provided young lovers a place to experiment outside of the public eye. The hippy generation brought its ideals of free lover and experimentation.

Sex is taboo. Sex is everywhere. Sex sells. Sex kills. It is appropriate that English lacks a neutral term for it. Sex, intercourse, coitus - these are all clinical terms. Making love is positive. Screwing is negative. There is just no word for it that would not cause someone else to blush or blanch. We joke about it. We use words for reproductive organs as insults. We can't get enough of it and we a terrified of the consequences. Anything that a society obsesses about is rich fodder for science fiction.

Science Fiction and Sex: Reproduction

Reproduction can be either sexual or asexual. Sexual reproduction produces offspring that are similar but not identical to their parents. Asexual reproduction creates either identical or very similar offspring. Slight variation and mutations are possible from both types of reproduction. There are two common methods of reproducing. One in which few offspring are created, usually nurtured for a time. The other method involves producing many offspring, most of whom die shortly after death.

Humans, generally, reproduce by the hot and sweaty method that leads to a live birth. Sterile procedures, like in vetro fertilization, take some of the hot and sweaty work out of the beginning but the giving birth to a tiny human being is always messy. Some people may question my use of "live birth" but I only want to distinguish this from laying an egg, which is birth to a live thing (sorta) but generally has less blood and cursing. Giving birth is a dangerous thing. For a really, really long time, we're talking thousands of years, most women died in child birth. And most children died, too. Not a pretty picture but it is the harsh reality. Our method takes a lot of energy and years of nurturing.

Some species give birth or lay a clutch of eggs and are basically done. The basic relationship is the more intelligent and the less instinct equals fewer babies and vice versa. Going small is a great way for certain species, but it is not for everyone. When we imagine aliens, we tend to imagine ourselves but hairless and slimy or with lots of arms or with an enormous sloping forehead, one eyed, and laying a small clutch of eggs (or is that just me?). Occasionally, you get what corporate think tanks like to call "thinking outside of the box", or womb in this case. District 9 features aliens which lay/create pods/eggs from which their young are born. Actually, the details are not mentioned but they do not give birth. However, they do have small numbers of children, perhaps due to the humans aborting the fetuses. But they do nurture their young for several years.

Ender's Game features a species of sentient insects who share a collective mind that is controlled by the queen. Like in bees, queens lay numerous eggs over her lifetime. Because the hive thinks as one, nurturing is unnecessary. However, the queens are said to nurture their successors and collaborate with them. In essence the hive is the extended body of the queen's mind which is nurtured by her mother.

Science Fiction and Sex: Gender

Gender is culturally based, socially constructed in humans. Gender determines, to a large extent, the societal role of a person. In most societies, the gender is assigned according to the sex of a the person: Male->Men->Masculinity and Female->Woman->Femininity. Gender has made into social role binaries, in which one gender is defined by opposing the other. Gender is fluid, changing from culture to culture and over time.

But that is all pretend, or only barely true. Many works of science fiction challenge our modern understanding and acceptance of gender. Ursula Le Guinn, hero of gender and sex challenges, explores gender in The Dispossessed. On one planet, Anarres, sex still exists in that there are male and female, but gender is not stereotyped. The protagonist views females as equals and partners. He does not ignore their sex but he does not judge by it. When he travels to Urras, he finds it difficult to accept the limited power women accept and the way men look down upon the women. The people of Urras often challenge his assertions of equality as they cannot believe it is possible for women to be valued as equal to men.

In The Handmaid's Tale, the society is taken to the opposite extreme of Anarres. In response to supposed Muslim attacks on women, theocratic men take control of the government, creating a society based on literal understanding of the Bible, especially the Hebrew Bible. Women are forbidden from owning money and property and from reading. Abortions are illegal. They are expected to be subservient housewives who defer to their husbands and bear them children. Due to ecological collapse and nuclear waste, many people have become sterile. However, absence of children are blamed on the women and never on men. Women are forced to be segregated in society. Sex/Gender can be identified by the color and design of clothing. Homosexuals are called "gender traitors." Sterile women (not wives) are either: sent to colonies to die a slow death; Aunts, who control and train handmaids; Marthas who do domestic work; Jezebels, sex workers; or Econowives, who are expected to fulfill all the roles of a woman. Women who are sterile, widows, divorcees, feminists, lesbians, etc are called "Unwomen."

The stakes are always high when it comes to gender. When gender is considered the same as sex, it is difficult for anyone to step outside of their assumed role. Science fiction explores gender either by presenting a society which is free from modern gender issues or by presenting a society which has pushed those issues to the breaking point of humanity.

Science Fiction and Sex: Sex

In species which reproduce sexually, sex describes the characteristics that distinguishes reproductive roles. For example, humans have two sexes, male and female. Some species are all hermaphroditic, possessing gametes, which in other species have become two sexes.

Some species have three sexes. Take ants for example. There is a queen, a female capable of producing offspring. There are males, who live short lives; their sole duty is to inseminate non-related queens. And then there are all the other ants, worker ants and soldier ants, cemetery ants and nurse ants. These are almost female, would be females, but their reproductive organs do not mature. They remain preadolescences, tweens.

Or consider wrasses. There are many varieties and species of the wrasse and some of them are quite special. Imagine a fish harem, one male and many females, but all the offspring are females. What to do when the male dies? The most dominant of the female fishes changes sex and becomes the new harem leader. You may remember this as a plot element regarding the DNA of some frogs from Jurassic Park.

Finally, lets consider slugs. Slimy, slick, covered in mucus, terribly elegant slugs! Most, not all, are hermaphrodites, possessing both sex organs, able to sire and birth offspring.

These are just some of the possibilities. I am sure the sexual and asexual world have produced many lovely varieties. Ursula Le Guin, the first lady of ambiguity and duality, has imagined another possibility. In The Left Hand of Darkness, the Gethians spend most of their life sexually neutral except for two or three days a month called kemmer. During kemmer, a person goes into heat and must find another person who is entering kemmer, although some avoid others if they have mated for life after their partner dies. Any person can become either sex. Like the slugs, they are capable of both siring and birthing children. There are some who, like us, are trapped in a permanent state of kemmer, living their entire life as a single sex. They are called perverts but are an integral part of a religious rite of insight.

Being between two genders, trapped in a sex, being of one sex and the none-correlated gender, is often considered freakish when it is non-normative. However, these in-between people are often considered to have special religious insight because of the ambiguity of the identity.

Science Fiction and Sex: Sexual Behaviour

Since humans are intelligent, very social animals, they engage in sexual behaviours for social, non-productive reasons. Sex, for humans and other social species, can be divided into reproductive, recreational and relational.

In most western societies, sex play is repressed in children and adolescents. Knowledge of sex is considered improper for children. In the United States, most people lose their virginity (have their first act of coitus or intercourse) at the age of 16 or 17. The age varies somewhat by country since different countries and states have different age of consent and expectations. While some humans have sex with only one person throughout their lives, most engage in sexual activity with multiple partners. Ever since President Clinton asked for a definition of "the", what constitutes sex has been greatly debated. Let's be adults about this. Sex includes a variety of activities that stimulate and give physical pleasure to one or more persons.

In science fiction, the type and frequency of sexual behaviours often vary from out own society. In Brave New World and The Dispossessed children freely engage in sexual play, not necessarily intercourse, as part of their socializing education. Sex with multiple partners at one time (an orgy) is common in science fiction novels. In Brave New World and Strange From A Strange Land, orgies are part of religious communion and rites.

Homosexuality may be more common, maybe even normal (shock and awe, right?). The Dispossessed features homosexual and heterosexual persons engaging in both types of relationships. While a person may seek partners of their preferred sex(es), they may have partners of either sex, especially when younger. And, of course, one can just as easily be bisexual, I would assume/hope.

In some futuristic plots, sex is outlawed due to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and /or control of the population. In Demolition Man, sex is preformed through simulators. Since it has been removed from physical engagement and the possibility of pregnancy, sex is exchanged more freely and with less sentiment than it is presently. The society in Brave New World separates sex from reproduction as well since all women either take contraceptives or are sterile. Sex becomes recreational and each citizen is expected to have sex with many partners.

I am sure there is some sci-fi, maybe Catholic Sci-Fi, in which the recreational element has been removed and sex is purely for reproductive purposes, but I've yet to read any of that.
The Handmaid's Tale features sex which is for reproductive purposes only. The Handmaid is the surrogate for the wife and copulates with the husband only to conceive. Sex is considered unpleasant and distateful for women. I can think of a few reasons why I would agree if I lived in that society.

There is a description of such sex which some may find offensive. If you would like to read it, highlight the blank white space below.

"My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for."

Science Fiction and Sex: Dismbiguation

Sex and science fiction are strange but frequent bedfellows. Science fiction has been compared to pornography, in that it is difficult to define both but you know it when you see it. Kurt Vonnegut once said that what pornography and science fiction had in common wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world. Actually, he was referring to his surrogate Kilgore Trout, in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. And he was wrong, about science fiction at least. Which I suppose means that I am wrong since I always remember the quote incorrectly.*

Sex is inescapable in science fiction . . . rather like reality, I suppose. It is complicated, consuming, distressing, satisfying; it can bring people together and tear them apart. Nothing new. But just about everything is up for debate and change. Before we begin exploring anything, I want to set up some terms. I will probably slip back into using regular connotations, but I will try my best to keep these terms true for this exploration.

Sci-Fi Sex Ed
Sexual Intercourse and Behaviours
I will try to use the proper terms for sexual acts, reproductive or otherwise.

Sex
In species which reproduce sexually, sex describes the characteristics that distinguishes reproductive roles.

Gender
Sex and gender are not the same and do not have a 1:1 correlation.

Reproduction
Reproduction is the process in which offspring is created.

Sexual Mores
All societies have standards and expectations the govern sexual behaviours. These standards include consent, sex as it relates to marraige, fidelity, number of partners, identity and status of partners, diseases, incest, rape.

Dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is the difference between sexes. It includes both physical (size, color, pattern, etc) and behavioural (aggression, investment in parenting).

*I sometimes wonder if this is true, even if I got the quote wrong. A universe that includes numerous sentient species, capable of reaching each other, communicating, etc, seems impossibly hospitable to me.