On Sex and Sexuality

I'm reading The Left Hand of Darkness, and for those who don't know, the author Ursula K LeGuin is one of the most important science fiction writers ever, and for more than just this book, but also for some things in this book.

Possiblities in gender and sexuality are a relatively common topic in scifi, but still her description of this foreign race of people called the Gethenians is really quite shocking, especially in this day (2018/gender identity/etc).

She gets really descriptive about it, but I'll be brief. Everyone in Gethen is an ambisexual androgyne - neither male nor female, yet capable of become both. They are, compared to humans (Terrans in scifi lingo), asexual, but in this story, they are NOT asexual one week of every month. At this time they are in "kemmer" (basically like being in "heat"). And when in kemmer, anything goes, and all you do is go somewhere with a lot of other people in kemmer too, and you put your hand in theirs, and as long as both parties consent, voila, sex! (and gender, see below).

Funny thing is, during today's kemmer, you might turn into a woman, and next month's, a man, and you never know which it will be which until the moment it happens. And the partner is always the opposite. And so it's totally normal for people to both give birth to and sire children all the same, and at different times in their lives.

That's all I'll say about LeGuin's genius, because, as usual, truth is stranger than fiction, and we can now turn to nature for another example of disintegrating delineations of gender.

Behold, the anglerfish, and forget what you heard about checking off the "other" box on your birth certificate:

First-ever observations of a living anglerfish, a female with her tiny mate, coupled for life
Mar 2018, phys.org

Once a male finds a female, a seemingly impossible task in the vast open space of the deep sea, he bites onto her body, the tissues and circulatory systems of the two fuse, and he is fed by nutrients received through her blood. The male becomes a "sexual parasite," hanging on for the rest of his life and unable to free himself, fertilizing the eggs produced by the female. The male completely loses his individuality and the couple becomes a single functioning organism.