Andrew Robert Lowey, born February 13th 1977, is a pharmacist, currently working within the Quality Assurance department of Leeds Teaching Hospitals, which employs a staff of approximately 14,000 in 8 locations across the greater metropolis of Leeds, England. The combined facility treats over a million patients per year.
Lowey was a winner of the Pharmaceutical Care Awards in 2002. The awards are sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline and The Pharmaceutical Journal and are held yearly in London, England. The purpose of the awards is to honor and recognize those who have made significant contributions to the development of pharmaceutical services. Mr Lowey's award was received following the success of the pharmacist clinic for patients with diabetes and hypertension, which clearly indicated that pharmacists could improve patient outcomes better than other healthcare professionals
Following on from this, Lowey has received a national grant for his work with unlicensed medical products that are prepared extemporaneously, in particular the risk management of the preparation of these products in pharmacy premises.
Mr. Lowey is a graduate of the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, UK. He is currently studying for the Doctor of Pharmacy degree with University of Bradford and is expected to graduate DPharm later this year.
Lowey was a winner of the Pharmaceutical Care Awards in 2002. The awards are sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline and The Pharmaceutical Journal and are held yearly in London, England. The purpose of the awards is to honor and recognize those who have made significant contributions to the development of pharmaceutical services. Mr Lowey's award was received following the success of the pharmacist clinic for patients with diabetes and hypertension, which clearly indicated that pharmacists could improve patient outcomes better than other healthcare professionals
Following on from this, Lowey has received a national grant for his work with unlicensed medical products that are prepared extemporaneously, in particular the risk management of the preparation of these products in pharmacy premises.
Mr. Lowey is a graduate of the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, UK. He is currently studying for the Doctor of Pharmacy degree with University of Bradford and is expected to graduate DPharm later this year.
Periodic Systems of Molecules
Introduction
It is commonly believed that the periodic law, represented by the periodic chart, is echoed in the behavior of molecules, at least small molecules. For instance, if one replaces any one of the atoms in a triatomic molecule with a rare-gas atom, there will be a drastic change in the molecule’s properties. What could be accomplished by constructing an explicit representation of this periodic law as manifested in molecules? Several things could be accomplished: (1) a classification scheme for the vast number of molecules that exist, starting with small ones having just a few atoms, for use as a teaching aid and tool for archiving data,
(2) forecasting data for molecular properties based on the classification scheme, and (3) a sort of unity with the periodic chart and the periodic system of fundamental particles.
Physical periodic systems of molecules
Periodic systems (or charts or tables) of molecules are the subjects of two reviews. In the following paragraphs, references will be given only for those that have undergone development and have appeared in the literature several times; the earliest and the most recent references are given in each case. These systems of diatomic molecules include those of H. D. W. Clark, and F.-A. Kong, which somewhat resemble the atomic chart; of R. Hefferlin, which is a Kronecker product of the chart with itself; and G. V. Zhuvikin, which is based on group dynamics. In all but the first of these cases, other researchers provided invaluable contributions, some of whom are co-authors. The architectures of these systems have been adjusted by the Kong (Reference 7) and Hefferlin to include ionized species, and expanded by Kong (Reference 7), Hefferlin (Reference 9), and Zhuvikin and Hefferlin (Reference 11) to the space of triatomic molecules. These architectures are in some sense extensions of the chart of the elements. They were first called “physical” periodic systems in Reference 2.
Chemical periodic systems of molecules
Other investigators have focused on building structures that address specific kinds of molecules such as alkanes (Morozov); benzenoids (Dias); functional groups containing fluorine, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur (Haas); or a combination of core charge, number of shells, redox potentials, and acid-base tendencies (Gorski). These structures are not restricted to molecules with a given number of atoms and they bear little resemblance to the element chart; they are called “chemical” systems. Chemical systems do not start with the element chart, but instead start with, for example, formula enumerations (Dias), the hydrogen-displacement principle (Haas), reduced potential curves (Jenz), a set of molecular descriptors (Gorski), and similar strategies.
Hyperperiodicity
E. V. Babaev has erected a hyperperiodic system which in principle includes all of the systems described above except those of Dias, Gorski, and Jenz.
Bases of the Element Chart and Periodic Systems of Molecules
The periodic chart of the elements, like a small stool, is supported by three legs: (a) the Bohr-Sommerfeld “solar system” atomic model (with electron spin and the Madelung principle), which provides the magic-number elements that end each row of the table and gives the number of elements in each row, (b)
solutions to the Schroedinger equation, which provide the same information, and (c) data provided by experiment, by the solar system model, and by solutions to the Schroedinger equation. The Bohr-Sommerfeld model should not be ignored: it gave explanations for the wealth of spectroscopic data that were already in existence before the advent of wave mechanics.
Each of the molecular systems listed above, and those not cited, is also supported by three legs: (a)
physical and chemical data arranged in graphical or tabular patterns (which, for physical periodic systems at least, echo the appearance of the element chart), (b) group dynamic, valence-bond, molecular-orbital, and other fundamental theories, and (c) summing of atomic period and group numbers (Kong), the Kronecker product and exploitation of higher dimensions (Hefferlin), formula enumerations (Dias), the hydrogen-displacement principle (Haas), reduced potential curves (Jenz), and similar strategies.
A chronological list of the contributions to this field is given in Reference 3. It has almost thirty entries dated 1862, 1907, 1929, 1935, and 1936; then, after a pause, a higher level of activity beginning with the 100th anniversary of Mendeleev’s publication of his usually accepted element chart, 1969. Many publications on periodic systems of molecules include some predictions of molecular properties, but starting at the turn of the Century there have been serious attempts to utilize periodic systems for the prediction of progressively more precise data for various numbers of molecules. Among these attempts are those of Kong (Reference 7), and Hefferlin
A Collapsed-Coordinate System for Triatomic Molecules
The collapsed-coordinate system has three independent variables instead of the six demanded by the Kronecker-product system. The reduction of independent variables makes use of three properties of gas-phase, ground-state, triatomic molecules. (1) In general, whatever the total number of constituent atomic valence electrons, data for isoelectronic molecules tend to be more similar than for adjacent molecules that have more or fewer valence electrons; for triatomic molecules, the electron count is the sum of the atomic group numbers (the sum of the column numbers 1 to 8 in the p-block of the periodic chart of the elements, C1+C2+C3). (2) Linear/bent triatomic molecules appear to be slightly more stable, other things being equal, if carbon is the central atom. (3) Most physical properties of diatomic molecules (especially spectroscopic constants) are closely monotonic with respect to the product of the two atomic period (or row) numbers, R1 and R2; for triatomic molecules, the monotonicity is close with respect to R1R2+R2R3 (which reduces to R1R2 for diatomic molecules). Therefore, the coordinates x, y, and z of the collapsed-coordinate system are C1+C2+C3, C2, and R1R2+R2R3. Multiple-regression predictions of four property values for molecules with tabulated data agree very well with the tabulated data (the error measures of the predictions include the tabulated data in all but a few cases).
Introduction
It is commonly believed that the periodic law, represented by the periodic chart, is echoed in the behavior of molecules, at least small molecules. For instance, if one replaces any one of the atoms in a triatomic molecule with a rare-gas atom, there will be a drastic change in the molecule’s properties. What could be accomplished by constructing an explicit representation of this periodic law as manifested in molecules? Several things could be accomplished: (1) a classification scheme for the vast number of molecules that exist, starting with small ones having just a few atoms, for use as a teaching aid and tool for archiving data,
(2) forecasting data for molecular properties based on the classification scheme, and (3) a sort of unity with the periodic chart and the periodic system of fundamental particles.
Physical periodic systems of molecules
Periodic systems (or charts or tables) of molecules are the subjects of two reviews. In the following paragraphs, references will be given only for those that have undergone development and have appeared in the literature several times; the earliest and the most recent references are given in each case. These systems of diatomic molecules include those of H. D. W. Clark, and F.-A. Kong, which somewhat resemble the atomic chart; of R. Hefferlin, which is a Kronecker product of the chart with itself; and G. V. Zhuvikin, which is based on group dynamics. In all but the first of these cases, other researchers provided invaluable contributions, some of whom are co-authors. The architectures of these systems have been adjusted by the Kong (Reference 7) and Hefferlin to include ionized species, and expanded by Kong (Reference 7), Hefferlin (Reference 9), and Zhuvikin and Hefferlin (Reference 11) to the space of triatomic molecules. These architectures are in some sense extensions of the chart of the elements. They were first called “physical” periodic systems in Reference 2.
Chemical periodic systems of molecules
Other investigators have focused on building structures that address specific kinds of molecules such as alkanes (Morozov); benzenoids (Dias); functional groups containing fluorine, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur (Haas); or a combination of core charge, number of shells, redox potentials, and acid-base tendencies (Gorski). These structures are not restricted to molecules with a given number of atoms and they bear little resemblance to the element chart; they are called “chemical” systems. Chemical systems do not start with the element chart, but instead start with, for example, formula enumerations (Dias), the hydrogen-displacement principle (Haas), reduced potential curves (Jenz), a set of molecular descriptors (Gorski), and similar strategies.
Hyperperiodicity
E. V. Babaev has erected a hyperperiodic system which in principle includes all of the systems described above except those of Dias, Gorski, and Jenz.
Bases of the Element Chart and Periodic Systems of Molecules
The periodic chart of the elements, like a small stool, is supported by three legs: (a) the Bohr-Sommerfeld “solar system” atomic model (with electron spin and the Madelung principle), which provides the magic-number elements that end each row of the table and gives the number of elements in each row, (b)
solutions to the Schroedinger equation, which provide the same information, and (c) data provided by experiment, by the solar system model, and by solutions to the Schroedinger equation. The Bohr-Sommerfeld model should not be ignored: it gave explanations for the wealth of spectroscopic data that were already in existence before the advent of wave mechanics.
Each of the molecular systems listed above, and those not cited, is also supported by three legs: (a)
physical and chemical data arranged in graphical or tabular patterns (which, for physical periodic systems at least, echo the appearance of the element chart), (b) group dynamic, valence-bond, molecular-orbital, and other fundamental theories, and (c) summing of atomic period and group numbers (Kong), the Kronecker product and exploitation of higher dimensions (Hefferlin), formula enumerations (Dias), the hydrogen-displacement principle (Haas), reduced potential curves (Jenz), and similar strategies.
A chronological list of the contributions to this field is given in Reference 3. It has almost thirty entries dated 1862, 1907, 1929, 1935, and 1936; then, after a pause, a higher level of activity beginning with the 100th anniversary of Mendeleev’s publication of his usually accepted element chart, 1969. Many publications on periodic systems of molecules include some predictions of molecular properties, but starting at the turn of the Century there have been serious attempts to utilize periodic systems for the prediction of progressively more precise data for various numbers of molecules. Among these attempts are those of Kong (Reference 7), and Hefferlin
A Collapsed-Coordinate System for Triatomic Molecules
The collapsed-coordinate system has three independent variables instead of the six demanded by the Kronecker-product system. The reduction of independent variables makes use of three properties of gas-phase, ground-state, triatomic molecules. (1) In general, whatever the total number of constituent atomic valence electrons, data for isoelectronic molecules tend to be more similar than for adjacent molecules that have more or fewer valence electrons; for triatomic molecules, the electron count is the sum of the atomic group numbers (the sum of the column numbers 1 to 8 in the p-block of the periodic chart of the elements, C1+C2+C3). (2) Linear/bent triatomic molecules appear to be slightly more stable, other things being equal, if carbon is the central atom. (3) Most physical properties of diatomic molecules (especially spectroscopic constants) are closely monotonic with respect to the product of the two atomic period (or row) numbers, R1 and R2; for triatomic molecules, the monotonicity is close with respect to R1R2+R2R3 (which reduces to R1R2 for diatomic molecules). Therefore, the coordinates x, y, and z of the collapsed-coordinate system are C1+C2+C3, C2, and R1R2+R2R3. Multiple-regression predictions of four property values for molecules with tabulated data agree very well with the tabulated data (the error measures of the predictions include the tabulated data in all but a few cases).
Joseph Cernigla (born 1970-1-September 23, 2010) was an American restaurateur who's restaurant appeared on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.
Career
Cernigla owned and worked at the Campania restaurant in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. In Kitchen Nightmares first season, Ramsay paid a trip to the restaurant and helped turn the restaurant back into a top-notch eatery.
Death
Cernigla's body was pulled from the Hudson River on September 24, 2010. Police determined his death as a suicide, ruling out foul play and determined his death to be one day before they found his body.
Cernigla leaves behind a wife and three children.
Career
Cernigla owned and worked at the Campania restaurant in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. In Kitchen Nightmares first season, Ramsay paid a trip to the restaurant and helped turn the restaurant back into a top-notch eatery.
Death
Cernigla's body was pulled from the Hudson River on September 24, 2010. Police determined his death as a suicide, ruling out foul play and determined his death to be one day before they found his body.
Cernigla leaves behind a wife and three children.
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.
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.