All-male worlds?

[Barwickian]

Reuben, Reuben I've been thinking...

 

All-female worlds are something of a cliche in SF. Usually they're presented as a utopia/dystopia. Hell, there's even one in Terran Empire.

 

So what's happened to the all-male worlds?

 

We've had clone-worlds, hermaphrodite-worlds, but I can't think of a single all-male world.

 

I've a sneaking suspicion that the all-female world began in the "golden age", when women having a vote was still an issue, and an all-female world was our own world turned upside down.

 

I suspect it perpetuates because SF in general is comfortable with the idea of women having sex with each other, and SF in general is not really happy with the idea of men having sex with each other.

 

Aside from the growing body of lesbian SF, which is slowly, slowly breaking into the mainstream, all-female worlds are generally either man-hating places (frigid bitches) or hotbeds of unfulfilled desire (they just need a real man).

 

And all-male worlds, as I noted, don't seem to exist. Even gay characters get short shrift from SF - they're always bit players, and invariably deadly sadists (Hammer's Slammers) or effeminate contacts (Neuromancer). Oh, and in the interests of 'taste' and 'decency', let's not forget that their sexuality is only ever hinted at, for 'tis the sin that must not be spoken.

 

This isn't just a factor of science-fiction. Other branches of Sf - fantasy and horror - fall subject to the same, tired old cliches: I vaguely recall the, up til that point, distinctly girl-orientated tomboy heroine (do you spot a cliche here?) in Kane going all woozy when our hero finally showed her what a real man could do.

 

And if gay characters get short shrift in SF, bisexual characters get it even worse. Ecxept, of course, if they'erefemale bizexuals who end up in the arms of the hero. That just adds a little spice...

 

There are exceptions, of course. John Varley, in the SF field, wrote stories where a character's gender and sexuality was, although often a part of the story, handled as commonplace. In fantasy fiction, Elizabeth A. Lynn's The Northern Girl has a protagonist whose lesbianity was not an issue, but simply part of the story.

 

Is it simply that SF is a mirror and that, in a world where it's kind of kewl, even a little sexy, for girls to be bi-curious, but not guys, SF is really just a tame genre whcih only pretends to challenge?

 

Hmmm... I guess you can tell I;ve been re-reading Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions anthologies.

 

And to close the quote I opened with:

 

Reuben, Reuben, I;ve been thinking

What a strange world it would be

If the men were all transported

Far beyond the western sea

(Terran folksong, c.20th century)

[Intrope]

Anime holds (at least) two examples of Sci-Fi Planet of Men:

 

Vandread - they don't spend much time there though; all the action is on a starship from the Planet of Women with 3 (I think) men. Naturally, hilarity ensues.

 

Saber Marionette J - all men on the planet are clones/variants of the 6 male surivors of an otherwise-failed colony. People create Marionettes (female androids) for 'company'. These Marionettes are universally personality free. Except for 3 very unusual ones, which naturally latch onto Our Hero. Hilarity ensues. (This series also features the most flamingly gay character I think I've ever seen. Whose naturally after Our Hero).

 

Also, Aliens 3 should probably count as a Planet of Men story.

 

Edit: I forgot to add: a Sci-Fi Planet of Men also has a consistency problem, anyway. If you've got the tech to clone people, you could almost certainly take the X chromosome from two different guys and 'clone' out a woman, after all.

 

The Planet of Women doesn't suffer from this problem, so it's somewhat more plausible.

 

[Sociotard]

I swear on the graves of both grandfathers, I have only watched one episode of LEXX (it stank, imo. Except for the assasin character, who was cool)

 

On that one epsiode, the crew of LEXX, encounters a planet of monks, who have carefully purged themselves of all knowledge of women. They have a great library, but only one monk knows how to read at any given time. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but one of the crew (she being one of the reasons I only watched one episode) is a former sex slave, and starts to vamp the monks. The head monk realizes that he won't be able to fix things when she goes, so he blows up the planet. So ended what they called "the planet of milkfed boys"

 

Like I said, stupid series.

[Kristopher]

Lois McMaster Bujold's Ethan of Athos.

[BNakagawa]

Human Occupied Landfill has no women on it.

[Jhaierr]

Good points.

 

(Another author of fantasy books that tends to "equalize" sexualities is Mercedes Lackey.)

[AlHazred]

The Galactic Patrol of the Lensman series had no women in it (well, okay, there was one exception).

[ghost-angel]

Anne Rice's "Tale of the Body Thief" had some very well done gay male sex scene in it.

 

But that's one of the only places in any Fantasy book where gay sex scenes were done both tastefully and naturally (ie without going "ooh that was wrong" right afterwards).

 

But I can't think of any Sci-Fi instances off the top of my head.

[Tom Carman]

One of A. Bertram Chandler's Commodore John Grimes novels had an all-male planet in it. The title was "Spartan Planet".

[travellerne]

"Mars Needs Women!"

 

That should tell you something about all male worlds.

 

Kris

[AmadanNaBriona]

Good fiction

 

Steven Perry's Matador series ( The Man Who Never Missed, Matador, Machiavelli Interface, Albino Knife, Black Steel, Brother Death, The 97th Step, and a couple of others in the same universe) presents a future society setting that is basically nonjudegmental about sexual preferences. Most of the characters, male and female, are portrayed sympathetically as bisexual. It his future, its more a matter of attraction and desire than any particular labels. Generally, the bad guys show some form of "nonexceptable" deviancy, such as pedophilia, and often it is the factor that eventually destroys them. Oh...and its a damn good series as well, especially if you're looking for ideas for a martial arts oriented Star Hero game. Long before the first edition of SH came out we had our house "Space Game" set in a modified version of his world.

[AmadanNaBriona]

oops

 

that second book should be titled "Matadora"

My bad.

[tkdguy]

The Left Hand of Darkness had a race of androgynous people. They only mated at certain times and became either male or female depending on who they were keeping company with. So it was possible to sire one child and bear another.

[BoneDaddy]

The Forvever War featured a future where most everyone was gay, except the protagonist, who was a relic from a bygone era (he spent a LOT of time at near-light speed in a galactic war, thus the name of the series). People got together to reproduce, but they found the straight relationships just too complicated to be worth while.

 

This is a FANTASTIC comic series, well-worth exploring.

 

Edit: Originally a Nebula award winning book. Who knew?

 

As to all male worlds, once you have only one gender, don't you effectively lose the concept? It seems defined by its duality. So, I propose that any race that reproduces without gender (budding, perhaps, or maybe all members of the species can inseminate AND carry offsrping to term, like slugs) would count, either as all male or all female, probably at the whim of the writer.