sex, gender and reproduction

[perlmonger]

fishlifter's comment in dalmeny's LJ gave me to think on treatment of alternatives in sex, gender and reproduction in sf.

It's unsurprising, if depressing, that I cannot think of any thoughtful approaches to this by male writers - plenty of good treatments of relationships, gay, straight or otherwise, but not a lot on people actually reproducing (even, for the most part, in the traditional way :) other than cloning-as-plot-device and variants.

A particular fascination for me is physiological/developmental variations that (cannot but) have a profound impact on social relations. I'm thinking of Mary Gentle (gender established at puberty) and Ursula LeGuin (gender selected by chance and environment for each period of sexual activity) here (Storm Constantine's Wraethu seem something else again). Exploring the borderlands of social construction and genetically determined rôles, and how the latter coincide or otherwise with the presence/absence of a mutilated X-chromosome; I would be very interested to hear of any other variations out there.

The other thread (Sally Miller Gearhart, Joan Slonczewski &c) does away with the need for men altogether - and lands me on a nice Existentialist cusp; I can understand and empathise with this view but it focuses my attention on my own need to find meaning and purpose in my (male :) existence. Something that still works best if I don't look too closely at it, but I have at least learned to feel comfortable with my body/self. Which is something of an achievement given where I was 25 years ago...

Whatever. I don't have any answers and, with two children I haven't had any contact with for four years, I don't have the gall to be prescriptive about parenting. Just trying to find my own way and curious about different insights into the whole sorry mess.