On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, farah mendlesohn wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Jun 1997 13:49:11 -0500 Michael Marc Levy wrote:
>
> >
> > For an interesting take on being "desexualized" see Greg Egan's
> new (in
> > the U.S.) novel Distress. One of the major characters is "asex," that
> is
> > the character has gone through surgery to remove all of "ver"
> sexual
> > organs. This becomes a real problem when the protagonist falls in
> love
> > with "ver."
> >
> > Mike Levy
>
>
> I am curious, persumably the character is male or how else can all
> "sex organs" be removed?
>
> Farah
>
Actually, unless I missed it, we're never told whether the "asex"
character is male or female. The character is African and "ver" name
carries no gender connotation (at least within Anglo culture). All
pronouns used are neutral, as for example "ver." It isn't even clear
whether or not the male protagonist knows "ver" original sex.
As to sex organs being removed, the "asex" character has no breast tissue
or nipples. Between "ver" legs is nothing but smooth flesh with a small
urethral opening. If the character was female, the operations involved
would have removed labia, clitoris, ovaries, womb, etc. Presumably both
formerly male and formerly female asexes would look identical on the
outside, although Egan doesn't go into detail about how thoroughly
they're restructured on the inside or how the hormones work out for that
matter.
Mike
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