Talk:Sex and sexuality in speculative fiction/Archive 1

Archive of talk page up to beginning of 2006. Please do not edit any of the entries here.

This archive contains discussions about inclusions/deletions which no longer are in issue.

Issues about the table for Notable works with sexual themes

Moved from article's sentence on Farscape: "breaking away from the political correctness of the more popular Star Trek" I have no idea what this means in this context.

Also, I'm going to go back and replace Friday with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress--it's a better book, and better on this theme, and, frankly, less icky--the heroine of Friday winds up marrying a man who had raped her, a matter neither she nor the author considers worthy of discussion. Vicki Rosenzweig

Dunk Plunkett?

I vote for deletion of Plunkett's online novel - anybody disagree? Cbdorsett 07:25, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Go for it, I don't think it merits being up there with the other entries. I've been a distant fan of anthropomorphic work, but in my opinion, Furry fandom has yet to create a respectable body of literature for itself. Mind you, there have been some good short stories here and there. But nothing that would qualify as a ground-breaking exploration of sexuality in a science-fiction setting that hasn't been done by other authors. A lot of Furry science-fiction sex stories have either bizarre aliens based on the author's personal kinks, or have genetically-engineered sex slaves gaining sentience and/or battling for their civil rights. User:Tomt 14 May 2005

You unilaterally removed my addition to the Table of Examples without commenting on my talk page or even at the level of this discussion page. That would probably be contrary to Wikipedia etiquette. The work I added, in fact, does describe a science fiction world where sex requires love AND marriage, distinctly different from so many of the other works in the Table. It could hardly have been considered by any reasonable person as an endorsement or plug for any work, business, web page, etc. See my talk page regarding this issue. You could not possibly know who made the addition and assumed incorrectly as to its source. More worrisome is your apparent desire, like with Dunk Plunkett? above. That is, you appear to desire to force your POV on readers of Wikipedia, as to what is appropriate on a page and what is not. NPOV is not just desired, but mandated by Wikipedia. The book I referenced is relatively new, but deals with modern folklore and mythology among many other issues. I first found out about it over the winter seeing an ad in an airline in-flight magazine, which has an international audience. That wasn't enough to make me want to read it. But after it was also reviewed by the local daily newspaper, I decided to see about a novel where gender bias had been extinguished and was also described as a satire. There may be other reviews out there. I have no idea. As I said, I am not the spokesperson for the work. I just thought it was noteworthy enough to be included in the Table. I am not sure I agree with other inclusions in the Table; there may be better or other examples. But I'm not about to delete one that obviously someone else thought was important enough to be included. The goal of Wikipedia, as I understand it, is to inform and educate in a nonbiased manner and let the reader then do his own research. Please replace the addition you removed. And while you're at it, correct the typos in the Table that have been there at least as long as I have been looking at the page.

As for Plunkett, the reference is hardly "hurting" anyone and might present readers of Wikipedia with other information that they might be looking for. Leigh71 03:15, 24 May 2005 (UTC)Leigh71

I didn't see any typos - you can correct what you see, and if people disagree, it will get changed back. As far as your addition to the table, my impression was that it was a commercial plug, which would be a violation of Wiki policies. I also felt that the table was meant to convey new concepts in sexuality, and the book you reviewed did not seem to be doing that, but instead was pushing traditional Christian morality, which I also thought would violate Wiki notions of bias. Cbdorsett 15:13, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Removed Blood Electric

I went ahead and removed Kenji Siratori's Blood Electric from the list of SF lit. There was no explanation as to why it merited inclusion, and on visiting: Siratori's homepage, Creation Books (publisher)'s homepage, AND the Amazon book page I was utterly unable to figure out what this book was about much less how it pioneers sexual themes in SF. If someone wants this included, please at least include a comment to explain its notability. Kit 10:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The Lovers?

Just dropped in from a couple doors down (Science fiction, no sex) and wonder why Philip Jose Farmer's 1952/1961 (magazine/book pub.) novel isn't on the list. It's literally the textbook example of a story that foregrounds sex--and that was considered over the edge in its time. RLetson 00:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)