h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A mate and I were discussing sci-fi and I was saying how it's become a great vehicle for exploring humanity and providing allegories for real world situations to be explored. Neither of us could think of a sci-fi where issues of sexuality are explored/discussed.

The closest I came was X-Men which is contentious both as sci-fi and as a discussion of sexuality, it can just as easily be read as a commentary on race rights/liberation. Can any hootooers do any better?

Ursula le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness is an expolration of sexuality in general.

Some of the Mass Effect series of computer games. But the relationships are more of a sideline, whether hetro, homo, or inter-species.

There's the episode of Star Trek called The Outcast.

If banging anything with a pulse counts, there's always Torchwood.

Oh yeah, Torchwood - how could I forget that For all of its B-movie shagathon start, Torchwood ended up doing a wonderful job with Ianto's bisexuality.

We were thinking about substantive discussion/exploration rather than just background. DS9 had a few bi characters but they were never really explored, nuBSG, nuWho and Firefly have all had gay and lesbian characters in the background but nothing more than that.

The Culture (Iain M Banks) seems to be tri-sexual: everyone'll try anything!

Srsly tho, it seems to have the happy state where the characteristics (ie, gender) of those being shagged aren't very important. And folk can change sex, so it seems unlikely there'd be much sexism.

David Gerrold's 'The Man Who Folded Himself', is definitely what I'd deem gay scifi. It's also hilarious.

Some, (including myself), don't classify 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' as scifi, but others would:

And there's Neil Gaiman's 'The Sandman' (again, more weird fantasy than strict scifi, IMO)

I've read a lot of scifi, and mostly sex and sexuality didn't seem to be very important to the plot, unless it was alien sex/sexuality, such as in Niven/Pournelle's 'Motie' novels

Interesting thread

In 1951 sci-fi author Philip Wylie published The Disappearance.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/347397.The_Disappearance#

From the comments section at that link:
"..stunning example of speculative fiction. What if all the men
disappeared from the world, leaving just the women ? What if
the same thing happened to the men, with all the women
disappearing from their world. The world seems to split into
two alternate realities, one with just men remaining, and the
other with just the women."

The book is somewhat dated today and there is only some very mild
erotica but the speculation runs deep between the lines. I read it
in 1960 and the scene of the Russian navy (in the all female whirled)
sailing into New York was quite chilling. In the male whirled, slavery
and buggery and thuggery on the order of 'Oz' is hinted at but never
portrayed too graphically for 1950's tastes.

A good read indeed.

~jwf~

On alien sexuality and viewpoint, I'd personally rate Harry Harrison's "East of Eden" series as the all time best in the genre that I've ever read.

Fantastically good treatment, working up an entire alien psychology from the biological imperatives of the species.

There's a story ... ... about a world run by women ... some are workers and some are queens, like ants ... Asimov, I think, but it was a long time ago I read it. Not much about sex though.

Mol

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Feghoot

This one perhaps?

Or something more serious minded?

Rudy Rucker had Mick Stones doing some Bi stuff.

On a related note, we know a lot of hippy/New Age/yoga/Buddhist types, none of whom are gay. Is it rare to find gay hippies?

In Anne McCaffrey's books it's openly stated at one point that two dragon riders (obviously not the golds, they are ridden by women, or bronzes, only real men ride bronzes) are in a relationship. It's also hinted that this is a common occurrence. But then the riders of greens and blues are generally considered to be a bit too promiscuous anyway, so it's probably a bit more open.

It can be read very differently, but I see it as an indication of how 'enlightened' the dragon riders are, in an otherwise very male dominated, feudal society where offspring have a value in terms of their labour, marriage material, making connections etc.

It's still a bit dismissive, but then if I were writing sci fi I don't know that I'd make a big deal out of it either. To look too closely could seem like you're making a big deal out of something that it seems we mostly accept should be entirely normal in the ideal (or not) worlds we like to immerse in.

Sturgeon's Venus Plus X is an interesting read.Though it's not really gay sci-fi but it certainly made me think hard about gender and sexuality back in the 70s.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/theodore-sturgeon/venus-plus-x.htm

Oh and Maureen McHugh wrote China Mountain Zhang which has a gay hero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mountain_Zhang

Actually McHugh is a very powerful novelist and her other novels are certainly worth a look.

Just to be clear, when we say "gay" do we mean "gay" or "gay"?

Cos if it's the latter I nominate Babylon 5.

Mind you, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and the original BSG were like, totally gay.

I only really know a couple of proper* hippies, one is gay the other Bi... but that may be more to do with me and who I know, rather than my happening to have a broad spectrum of hippy friends

Talking of alien sex.
One of the cloest things to ever shocking me, well... naa... but even I at the notion of such a thing existing... there is clearly a market for it, as they make it... yes... an alien 'Sex doll' seriously... err... I was doing research like... or something... when I noticed it

Doesn't the very idea that in a lot of SciFi sex/gender of the 'aliens', doesn't often get mention, in itself, partly exploration of differing sexualitities, and the idea, or notion that just because on earth we've got X Y Z and wahtever, doesn't necessarily follow that its devided along the same lines in other extra-earth species...

Somewhat surprised that no one has yet mentioned
'Gus' the gay android on 'Tripping The Rift' who
is strangely enough also a 'Believer'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPiX46FVAro


~jwf~

Anne McCaffrey's approach to sexuality is ... interesting.

Tent pegs.

TRiG.