The Transformation of Sexuality within Science Fiction

The transformation of sexuality is a common theme in Science Fiction. Science fiction, as a genre is perpetually redefining contemporary societies within a number of different contexts; be they space travel, the advent of advanced medical sciences, cybernetics, or even slightly alternate future timelines set in the present or near future. The transformation of the human body and, by default, the deconstruction of the binary codification of human sexuality are two of the largest social constructions affected by the genre. Sexuality is re-imagined within and outside of the boundaries of the human form. From the influence of mechanical technology to the differing constructions of sexuality, Science fiction has proven to be a genre that doesn't only imagine a mechanical future, but also the social and sexual changes found in this future.
The Influence of Mechanical Technology on Sexuality
One of the classic iterations of alternative sexuality in science fiction is that seen between human beings and some sort of mechanical or inorganic stimuli, either directly involved or being used through an auxiliary capacity. These stimuli are almost universally tied into the story as simulacra. J.G. Ballard's Crash re-imagines a sexuality where the automobile plays an important role; namely that of one where the simulacra of modern culture is penetrated through heavily sexualized collisions, automobiles acting as the technological other in all of the sexual relations. Other Science Fiction inverts this, generally imagining the extraspecies influence as a simulacra of sorts itself. In Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , the main character, Rick Deckard, finds himself falling in love with the humanoid android Rachel Rosen, to the point where he begins to doubt his marriage, while Rachel is merely a bio-engineered representation of Eldon Tyrell's (her creator) niece. William Gibson's Neuromancer exemplifies this in a manner completely distanced from physical contact when Henry Dorsett Case and Linda Lee's consciousnesses are working within the Neuromancer construct and ultimately engage in intercourse. This is closely related to the manner in which Science fiction reconsiders the role of sex and love in relationships taking place within a society of advanced technology.
The Re-imagination of the Body and Gender Roles
In 1956 a movie was released called the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, in which the protagonist, Dr Miles Bennell returns to his small town practice to find several of his patients suffering the paranoid delusion that their friends or relatives are impostors. This film is one of the earliest iterations of the transformation of the human body; namely, the transformation from the individual to the possibility of it being merely a vessel for something foreign, something alien. William Gibson makes a much more pointed note of this in Neuromancer, evinced by naming the main character "Case". Gibson uses this name in conjunction with mentions of the body as a sort of 'meat' case to illustrate the concept that one of the ways in which science fiction re-imagines our bodies is by taking us out of them entirely, ultimately setting up a mind/body disconnect that still manages to keep the mind alive and relevant.
Mainstream western culture in science fiction changes the views of a woman's body. In the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the author Philip K.Dick shows that androids have human qualities and can feel emotions. The androids resemble human behavior and humans become more like machines. When the roles are reversed, the humans revert to a machine-like sexual behavior. Philip K.Dick imagines androids as almost impossibly humanoid, to the point that the only way to differentiate between a replica and real human being is through an empathy test. The androids possess human behaviors, and ultimately bring into question the idea of the construction of human beings, as well as androids. In The Stepford Wives, directed by Frank Oz, the women are mechanical objects that happily do laundry, cook, and clean while pleasuring their husbands with a simple command. Due to science fiction the body is sublime, technological, and looked at as a tool. The ways that science fiction increasingly influences constructions of sexuality, particularly for female youth. The entertainment of science fiction disseminates information about sex, identity, individuality, and “empowerment”.
The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G Ballard, the body is taken and spliced into fragments, mirroring the fragmented structure of the novel itself. Through cutting it into these pieces that are then displayed publicly, the female body becomes a modulus, a product of the mass media.
Interspecies Sexuality
In science fiction, it becomes possible to explore the idea of consensual sex between individuals of differing sentient species. Larry Niven, in his series of Ringworld books, coined the term for this practice as "Rishathra," though limited its use to include only bipedal species. The idea of inter-species sex is not novel to the science fiction genre. Suggestions of zoophilia (or bestiality) have been a part of human culture globally for about at least 8000 years, though the level of social acceptance of such acts at that time is almost impossible to determine. Sexual zoophilia is a rare, but not unheard of practice to this day, though frowned upon and even illegal in many countries. The inter-species sex highlighted through science fiction is not zoophilia, however, as it introduces the possibility of other intelligent and sentient races besides humans, between which sexual relations could become available. The characteristic of sentience is one of extreme importance, as it elevates the sexual encounters to the level of consensual relationships between two equals.
Sentient inter-species sexuality is not absent from popular culture. Stories such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings and Splash are widely known and accepted examples of mild inter-species sexuality, to name just a few. The majority of these socially accepted stories of inter-species relationships, though, are between humans and humanoid creatures whose features widely resemble those of humans. However, other examples are available within the genres of fantasy and science fiction, either erotically or speculatively, that involve sentient species that do not resemble each other physically, such as in Samuel R. Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, in which there are "runs" that mirror public bathhouses in which members of various sexes and species gather for casual fornication. This concept tends to relate back to the idea of zoophilia in which the sexual encounters are not between humans and “fantastic” humans but between humans and creatures that physically bear closer resemblance to what could be considered “beasts,” which is where the differentiation between consensual and non-consensual relations becomes especially important. These relations and the importance of sentient consent are unique characteristics in science fiction that also raise the question of “humanity” as far as the distinction between what physically or mentally defines a people as being such.
Sexual Orientation
Authors of science fiction reconstruct sexual orientation in the future by disrupting the male and female binary oppositions as well as the heterosexuality/homosexuality binary opposition. This reconstruction is shown in the novels The Forever War by Joe Haldeman and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.
In The Forever War, the heterosexuality/homosexuality binary opposition is reconstructed. The novel discusses the idea of homosexuality as a means of birth control. After the characters Mandella and Marygay return home, they find their world has changed very much. The society has evolved and the new future society is confusing to them. The world government now officially encourages homosexuality. This is a solution to the overpopulation problem, which has led to famine and starvation of millions of people. Because homosexuality is now highly encouraged, Mandella and Marygay feel out of place as a heterosexual couple. The binary oppositions have flipped from heterosexual/homosexual with heterosexuality being the previously preferred norm and favored behavior in society to homosexuality being the favored norm in society.
In Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, the male/female binary opposition is reconstructed by the use of pronouns. The character Rat Korga, who is a homosexual man, uses different pronouns to describe people depending on his sexual attraction to them rather than their true biological sex. If he is sexually attracted to a person, Rat Korga calls the person a "she", no matter if they are male or female. If there is no sexual attraction towards the person, it is a "he" regardless of their sex. This use or pronouns based on sexual attraction, rather than on a biological basis disrupts gender identity. It flips the binary opposition from male/female, which allocates males as the preferred sex and females as the less preferred sex, to female/male, where females are the preferred sex because when someone is sexually attractive, they are called a "she" and males are the less preferred sex.
Another notable contributor to the deconstruction of sexual binaries is Iain M. Banks; in his Culture series, human beings are able to change their genders at will, and Banks often presents us with characters who have undergone a number of transformations based on preference and in order to experience gender imperative actions (most notably childbirth). While Banks generally uses main characters who fall within the conventional heterosexual binaries, nearly all of his characters have undergone a gender change in some form or another. Through this, he deconstructs the idea that human beings have an innate gender, regardless of the physical manifestation of their person. The ability to change at will instead seems to point to the idea that human gender is metamorphic within a culture where gender isn't as restricting as it is within ours; in a world where one sex isn't linked with domination over the other, or more accurately where the power structure has been laid bare and ignored, people switch between genders out of simple curiosity or for the simple reason of appeasing certain moods.
The Changing Role of Love and Sex in Relationships
Generally, the majority of relationships seen in science fiction are of a particularly promiscuous variety. In The Forever War, the troops on all of the ships partake freely in each other for sexual exploits on a near-constant basis. Relationships in this regard turn into matters of preference, with little regard to the actual personalities of those involved (outside of the vestiges of personality that manifest in intercourse, of course). In science fiction the idea of love seems to disappear according to a review on the novel Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler. In the novel, reproduction is important to the Oankali, an alien life force. Their use of humans as reproductive bodies conforms the body into a tool used completely for reproduction. Reproduction is seen as a process to further the species of man that doesn't necessarily have to be associated with love or relationships. Generally, science fiction values the physicality of a relationship over the emotional necessity of one; utility takes precedence over feeling, effect over affect. Relationships throughout science fiction are almost universally divorced from sex; sex is generally seen as something casual, while relationships are attached to a greater affect of fondness. Rather than working within the conventional mores of monogamous heterosexuality, science fiction is consistently progressive in its consideration of relationships.

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