> >POSSIBLE SPOILERS
In response to the points below, there is specific reference in the text to
Morgot's jealousy about the fact that Joshua has to inseminate other women.
As he has to travel between the Women's Towns to do so, I think it is fair
to say that he did it the old-fashioned way with those (fortunate?) women
in the know. This seems to indicate that Morgot's preference would be for
a one-to-one heterosexual relationship with Joshua. I think Stavia's
growing relationship with Corrig is also very clearly of a loving/sexual
nature.
I wonder whether it would be possible to characterise Tepper not as
anti-sexuality, but against sexuality for stupid people - still not an
attractive message, but one that claims a different moral high ground.
Joan
> >I have often wondered about Stavia's mother (sorry, name has slipped me
> >for the moment) and her relationship with Joshua. I assume it was
> >(discreetly) sexual as well as loving; likewise Stavia with (sorry, that
> >name's gone too, Corrig??), father of her daughters, since they were not
> >alone in their houses. (Which, since house-sharing seemed common, would
> >provide additional cover for lesbian relationships.) In fact, I would
> >suspect there might have been a fair number of "closeted" women/servitor
> >affairs in progress: presumably libido was not turned off between
> >festivals!
>
> Since only women who "knew" what was going on (high ranking, done well
> in "women's studies" (medicine) had servitors, I would think it would be
> highly unfair if there were contact (but that's part of what I found odd
> about the lack of sensual contact). I also wondered, but decided that
> if it were as the text put forth (not these people going on in regular
> life) that there was nothing, or it would have been brought out. I felt
> that the servitors (being considered emasculated men by the warriors)
> were considered (sexually) like other women (in a het world). They
> seemed to give up sexuality totally (vs the limited access city women
> had biannually or the access the warriors had to extra-city women or
> "good" women biannually). This was in exchange for being "smart" to
> come into the city (vs the cooks, etc who remained wedded to the warrior
> ethos but didnt' fight)... they knew their genes would be passed along
> and would also help raise the children. The society inside the city was
> a defered gratification for those who "knew".
>
> misha
> bernardm@colorado.edu
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