The Bene Gesserit are not supposed to love; the order mistrusts love
deeply, and Jessica is considered by some of them to be the ultimate
traitor for having altered their plans for the universe by having a son
too early out of love for her duke. I think it's Darwi Odrade that
discusses some of that in detail in, I think _Chapterhouse Dune._ They are
quite willing to use sex as a method of bonding people to them, but love
makes them itchy. Not all the B.G. see it that way, however, Odrade being
one of the rebels, but it's a silent rebellion. She has to keep her
subversive tendencies hidden.
The Bene Tleilax axolotl tanks are almost certainly their women. There
are hints dropped to that effect all through all six volumes, and the B.T.
go to great pains to keep the organic nature of the tanks hidden. Too,
no-one ever sees their women. I think it's also in Chapterhouse Dune that
some of that begins to be overtly stated. I came away from the series
with an impression of the B.T. axolotl tanks as something like those ants
whose queens do the breeding for the whole colony, and who become totally
immobile, with their hind ends swollen enormously to many times the size
of a regular ant. I picture normal-sized women's heads and torsos, with
vast organ cavities to house enormous wombs, and vestigial legs....gah.
-nalo
"He walked so far/On stilts of songs, of masqueraded story, that the
stars/Were near."
-Kamau Brathwaite, "Jou'vert"
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