Love Knows No Gender (Blog8)

"Day Million"

Frederik Pohl

(1966)

There is something to be said about a love that doesn't need touch, or physical contact of any sort to be pure and true. What greater love could there be than connecting at the mind? Men and women get so caught up in physical looks, they forget when all is said and done you're left with who a person is, not what they look like. This story greatly advertised this aspect of any relationship.

"Adrift on a sponson city a few hundred yards over her head and orbiting Arcturus, fifty light-years away, Don has only to command his own symbol-manipulator to rescue Dora from the ferrite files and bring her to life for him, and there she is; and rapturously, tirelessly they ball all night. Not in the flesh, of course; but then his flesh has been extensively altered and it wouldn't really be much fun. He doesn't need the flesh for pleasure. Genital organs feel nothing. Neither do hands, nor breasts, nor lips; they are only receptors, accepting and transmitting impulses. It is the brain that feels, it is the interpretation of those impulses that makes agony or orgasm; and Don's symbol-manipulator gives him the analogue of cuddling, the analogue of kissing, the analogue of wildest, most ardent hours with the eternal, exquisite, and incorruptible analogue of Dora."-p.384

"When It Changed"

Joanna Russ

(1972)

This story reflects on the inequality that women face, the message is loud, clear, and bold. Although, I also think that even though there will be men coming into their world that the only way they (the women) would feel belittled is if they let men make them feel that way. Though having men around in general is likely to have some impact on the younger generations.

Just like now, in the human race today, if you want your daughters to grow up strong and independent and never feeling less than a man, you, as her parent, must instill those thoughts and ambitions. No matter what there will always be someone in life who will try to make you feel less than what you are, who will try to take what you've worked for. It doesn't make you the weak one, it makes them the weak one.

"This too shall pass. All good things must come to an end. Take my life but don't take away the meaning of my life."-p.515