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Sex and sexuality in speculative fiction

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Modern science fiction frequently involves themes of sex, gender and sexuality. This was not always so. During the 1930s and 40s "golden age" of science fiction sex was rarely if ever even mentioned, although there was certainly no lack of innuendo and suggestion. The idea, however, that strong female characters played little or no role in the pulps of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, is wrong.

The "Golden Age"

While the stereotype of the early SF pulp magazine cover is a woman in a brass bikini swooning in the clutches of a bug-eyed monster, while a spacesuited hero comes blasting his way to her rescue, even a cursory examination of the covers of old pulps shows this to be very much mistaken. In a significant number of the covers, if not a majority, women are depicted in strong, positive roles. True, they may be scantily clad, but there is no mistaking the fact that they are very much in charge of the situation. Even the pulp magazine most associated with the stereotypically sexist cover, Planet Stories, featured more than its share of women depicted in strong roles. Ironically, given its leading place in the stereotype, many Planet Stories covers feature a male character being rescued from a monster by a ray gun-toting woman!

Within the golden age pulps there was no lack of strong female characters. It is difficult to go through more than half a dozen magazines without finding at least one heroine---and in some cases, a magazine might feature two or three stories with powerful female characters. There were even popular female series characters, such as Arthur K. Barnes' Gerry Carlyle, whose stories ran for many years.

The "New Wave"

Still, sex rarely if ever raised its head until the New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s, which reflected its times by attempting to break earlier taboos about what could and could not be the subject of science fiction. The men's magazine Playboy published regular serious science fiction stories throughout this period, by both male and female authors, offering them significantly more scope than some other publications.

Two different themes emerged: one trying to explore the boundaries of what "sex" could mean in a world of altered humanity and reality, and another of exploring the position of women in science fiction and feminist issues in what had been traditionally a form of fiction written primarily by and for men.

Notable works with sexual themes

Significant uses of sexual themes in serious science fiction include:

Year Author Title Comments
1919 James Branch Cabell Jurgen
1932 Aldous Huxley Brave New World Only promiscuity is socially acceptable
1953 Theodore Sturgeon The World Well Lost Alien homosexuality
1949 William Tenn Venus and the Seven Sexes Procreation on Venus requires seven sexes
1961 Robert A. Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land The Crèche, a form of group marriage
1961 Brian Aldiss The Primal Urge Emotion Register on forehead tells others when you experience sexual attraction
1962 Naomi Mitchison Memoirs of a Spacewoman Interspecies mating during shore leave; aliens that change their sex
1965 Frank Herbert The Dune series Human breeding and eugenics planned over thousands of years
1966 Samuel R. Delany Babel-17 Starship crews bonded by group sex; sexual relationships with the "discorparate" spirits of the dead
1966 Robert A. Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Various forms of group marriage; professional host-mothers
1967 Harlan Ellison, ed. Dangerous Visions
1968 William Tenn The Seven Sexes A short story in which Humanity encounters an alien race with a seven sex life-cycle.
1969 Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five Naked with a porn star in an alien zoo
1969 Ursula K. Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness A planet of androgynes, where non-androgynous people are 'perverts'
1970 Robert Silverberg Tower of Glass Graphic descriptions of anatomy
1972 Thomas M. Disch 334 Flexible sexual relationships, but compulsory contraception
1972 Isaac Asimov The Gods Themselves Aliens with 3 sexes; co-penetration
1974 Samuel R. Delany Dhalgren Sexual freedom and exploitation in all conceivable combinations
1975 Joanna Russ The Female Man Four parallel universes, one with no men, one with male sex slaves
1976 Samuel R. Delany Trouble on Triton Male bisexual with gender issues
1978 Gardner Dozois Strangers Human must be surgically changed to alien to mate with his alien lover
1979 John Varley Titan A future where sex changes and other radical body modifications are commonplace
1980 Larry Niven Ringworld Rishathra, sex between humanoid aliens of different species
1982 Anne Carlisle, et al. Liquid Sky A comedic science fiction film in which space aliens land to feed off of endorphins released during orgasm
1984-86 Mike Resnick Tales of the Velvet Comet Four novels set on a spaceship bordello
1985 Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale Women are subjugated by men in a theocratic America; five classes of women, one only for procreation
1986 Theodore Sturgeon Godbody Religious sexuality
1986 Lois McMaster Bujold Ethan of Athos Reproductive scientist on a planet with no women
1987 Iain M. Banks The Culture novels Where humans can change sex at will
1987-93 Storm Constantine The various Wraeththu novels Humanity mutates into a hermaphroditic race
1989 Spider Robinson Callahan's Lady The most amazing House of Prostitution Anytime, Anyplace and Anywhen
1993 David Brin Glory Season Sexual vs. asexual reproduction
1998 James Alan Gardner Commitment Hour Children alternate between male and female every year until age 20, when they must choose
1998 John R. Plunkett Star Dancer Sex between humans and genetically engineered human/animal hybrids
2003 M. Christian The Bachelor Machine Sex robots that accept credit cards

Others:

Themes explored

Some of the themes explored include:

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 adult science fiction fans.

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

Examples of science fiction erotica include:

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

Movies and TV Series

Numerous science fiction television series and science fiction films have used science fiction plots as an excuse to fit in gratuitous sexual or fetishistic content: one of the conventions of much filmed science fiction appears to be that the future will be peopled exclusively by attractive people wearing skin-tight clothing in shiny materials. Nevertheless, some science fiction-themed TV shows, such as Farscape, have been acclaimed for their handling of such themes. The series Lexx features sexual themes in almost every episode, one of the main characters of Firefly is a "companion" (upper-class prostitute), and Andromeda is imbued with the carefree sexual spirit that seems to characterize the spacefaring future (or, at least, screenwriters' hopes for it).

It is interesting to consider the varying treatment of sexuality among the sundry Star Trek series. James T. Kirk earned a pop-culture reputation for bedding countless green-skinned alien women portrayed in the soft lighting characteristic of 1970's romantic pulp. Star Trek: The Next Generation, usually regarded as a pinnacle of principled (i.e., less gratuitous) sci-fi TV, featured a risqué theme in episode #2 that involved sex between female officer Tasha Yar and the automaton Mr. Data. The focus on sexy females was ramped up in all of the subsequent series (with increasing obviousness) - notably Deep Space 9's Jadzia Dax, Voyager's Seven of Nine, and Enterprise's sultry T'Pol. 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?

Canonical movie examples include the 1967 movie Barbarella and, of course, Carrie Fisher's dabblings with a certain gold lamé bikini in Return of the Jedi.

See also

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