The thread on the effect of Heinlein's women on today's society and kids
education made me remember reading quite a few years back a story whose
synopsys is as follows.
In a postatomic setting, there are two small communities, one all-male,
the other all-female, both depending on a complex and more or less
completely automated machinery for their reproduction. The society was
structured around this machinery, and heterosexual coupling for pleasure
and reproduction is a behaviour not only not performed but also taboo. The
women's community is characterized by long-lasting relationships between
two - maybe three - members, the men's community is characterized by sexual
orgies among many of its members.
The ectogenetic tanks are at last breaks down, for lack of the technology
and the knowledge needed to maintain them, and a woman (non-warrior, and
lover to another woman, a warrior) and a man are made meet because vague
tales seem to say that this way children can be born this way. During a
night in which these two persons barely begin to meet each other, the man
has the first grasps of the relationship between heterosexual coupling and
reproduction, and tries to test his hypotheses. This scares the hell out of
the woman, which screams, calling in her lover, who, in turn, kills the
man, forfeiting therefore all chances of survival for both communities.
I don't remember neither the title nor the author of the story. Can
somebody help me here?
Thanks!
Nicola
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He who would gather honey must bear the sting of the bees.
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