[ SECRET POST #1271 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1271 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

No mudkips, don't worry.

Secrets Left to Post: 25 pages, 608 secrets from Secret Submission Post #182.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - doing it wrong ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

There is a certain validity to that line of criticism in that the LEAD characters were never seen in more "feminine" roles. They are politicians, spiritual leaders, the "king," and all referred to using masculine pronouns -- Genly's choice, which he explains very well, in my opinion.

I did read that Le Guin always regretted that she never got to write the lead characters in that book in the parts of their lives that were less traditionally masculine. I recall specifically that she said something about wishing she had had good reason to show Estraven as a mother with Arek (I am unsure why she chose to use that word, since Estraven was the biological FATHER of both of his children with Arek, but I suppose she just meant having a nurturing role in their upbringing). But then there are her two short stories set on Gethen -- in one, the Gethenians are all referred to as SHE, and that story I recall was actually written before the novel. In the other, they revert to the male pronoun for all persons, but it tells the story of an adolescent Karhider experiencing their first kemmer -- as female. "His" first sexual experiences are as a woman, with other women. I particularly like that story. It does very well to show the complete equality with which Karhiders (I don't recall if Orgoreyn sexual practices are discussed at all) regard any conceivable kind of sex, from homosexual couplings to orgies and there is reference made to the free practice of more creative approaches.

[cordelia-gray.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always thought that the use of masculine pronouns in that book was a totally valid choice, because we're not just getting a story about a genderless society, we're getting a story about that society as seen through the eyes of someone from a society more like ours. Ai's issues in dealing with the Gethenians are an equally important aspect of the book. It's easier for him to assign male terms to people who are acting in "masculine" roles than for him to examine his own assumptions about gender.

This partly all came up for me because I'm working on a fic-challenge thing, and one of the prompts is "mpreg" which is something I really have no interest in writing. But then I thought "what if you screwed with the timeline (and the biology!) a little, and Estraven got pregnant, and Genly had to figure out how to deal with that?" Haven't written it yet, but I might.

I think I read that second story, a really long time ago. I need to re-read it!

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

Paragraph 1: A+, agree. He does the same thing with projecting his ideas about gender onto people in a genderless society by making them more feminine -- i.e., referring to his "landlady," describing a girl who kindasorta tries to get him to boink her on the prisoner transport in Orgoreyn, the way he describes Ashe, who comes off as kind of a flouncy drama queen...


I recall that in part of the book, Genly mentions that some scientists from the Ekumen or something had determined that Earth-type humans and Gethenians would probably be able to reproduce together. There is technically no known reason why they couldn't. The only question would be whether the resulting offspring would have a fixed sex, or be an androgyne with kemmer cycles, or be infertile. My bet would be on the offspring of a Gethenian and Earth-type human being infertile -- an androgyne who does not go into kemmer. I would be curious as to the biological reasons for that, and whether the advanced medicine of Genly's time or even the existing medicine on Gethen would be able to offer a solution, I would assume in the form of hormone treatments. Could a child with one androgyne parent and one fixed-sex parent be born a sexually "normal" person of either type by giving the parent hormone treatments throughout the pregnancy? Or by giving the child hormone treatments throughout childhood or for their entire lives? I WONDER ABOUT A LOT OF STUFF. :O

WRITE IT. I'M TOO LAZY TO BE THE ONLY PERSON WHO WONDERS THIS SHIT.

[cordelia-gray.livejournal.com]

They're all from the same original stock, right? The Gethenians and everyone else in the Ekumen are all descendants of some Old Earthican diaspora? And the Gethenians have been genetically modified to eliminate the sexes, but not in any other way. So it should work, in theory. I hadn't actually got as far as trying to figure out what the baby would be like - I guess I was thinking more that Estraven would die anyway, while pregnant, and then there would be OMG ANGST for everyone. Well, mostly for Ai.

I think sterile androgyne for the child seems most likely. Actually, come to think of it, is androgyne even the right word? Doesn't that technically mean having characteristic of both sexes? Really, a Gethenian outside of kemmer has characteristics of neither gender...

Also, I had to send a business letter at work last week to someone with the surname "Kemmerer" and I felt like I was telling a dirty joke. That no-one else in the world would appreciate. EXCEPT MAYBE YOU.

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

They're all from the same original stock, right? The Gethenians and everyone else in the Ekumen are all descendants of some Old Earthican diaspora? And the Gethenians have been genetically modified to eliminate the sexes, but not in any other way.

That was my understanding, yes. They don't explicitly explain what happened, only that they BELIEVE the Gethenians were an abandoned genetic experiment planted on their planet by ancient Hainish people, whoever they were.

And yeah, Estraven would die anyway and lead to AnGsT but I still think about a lot of shit like that, especially when I like to toss the characters into other worlds and timelines and that sort of thing becomes possible. >.>


I think sterile androgyne for the child seems most likely. Actually, come to think of it, is androgyne even the right word? Doesn't that technically mean having characteristic of both sexes? Really, a Gethenian outside of kemmer has characteristics of neither gender...

It means both, or neither, which is correct in either case when applied to Gethenians. ^_^



Also, I had to send a business letter at work last week to someone with the surname "Kemmerer" and I felt like I was telling a dirty joke. That no-one else in the world would appreciate. EXCEPT MAYBE YOU.

BWAHAHAHAHA