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The Supernormal Stimulus

Text: Stefanie Jensen    Images: Heidi Rognskog

Manchester in 1998. A crowd is gathering in the lobby of an old and venerable hotel. Opposite the entrance a small stage has been set up, the lights are low. Men and women are crowding in front of it, the air is hot. No one wants to miss what is going to happen on this stage in a couple of minutes. A white board on the wall near the reception says: "Today: The next millenium’s striptease show!"             

All of a sudden the spotlight flicks on. White light burning. Into the light walks a woman. Long blond hair, short skirt and black leather bra, stilettos and nothing else. Whistles and shouts from the audience. Nobody knows what to expect, but the air is burning and the stripper walks slowly towards her audience. She is caressing herself, until her hands stop short on her shoulders. Slowly she starts tugging at her right upper arm. The skin comes off and reveals a shiny metallic bone. Waves of desire blow towards her. The stripper flexes her biomechanical biceps and is rewarded with shouts of admiration. Suddenly she thrusts up her chin and in one fast movement tears off the skin at her throat, uncovering her steely airpipe.

Without warning the stage is thrown into darkness. The woman (?) pulls off her hair and scalp. In the growing silence her brain’s electronic flow is exposed, in a fascinating play of red and white lights...

This striptease won a prize for technological refinement at the annual British science fiction convention in 1998. Today science fiction is penetrating everyday culture. It is not a genre anymore, but has become a vehicle, a mode of transport, flying us to the innermost daring and scaring questions about our present, past and future. We are still afraid of sex, and we are afraid of everything that seems alien to us. Then what should we do when we meet the alien at the other side of the universe? The answer is easy. We have sex.

How can one possibly have sex with a big black crab, even if it is presented as a sad and lonely being? For the alien crab in the short story "The Reality Trip", love conquers it all. In Terminator III, Arnold gives up the fight and finds himself a nice, blond girl to have many ... kits with. Yet whatever existence we will live, whether we will end up as cyborgs, symborgs, or other presences continuously under construction, we will still understand our bodies as one big sensual organ. Pleasure will still be our first impulse. Then we will think about reproduction, techniques or dangers. However, a full sensual experience of the future will not be caused by physical stimulation. In the future, we will be able to control, steer and amplify our bodies. Physical stimulation will only be a by-product, like the provocation of neuron synapses. What people will be looking for is not stimulation, but inspiration. We will seek inspiration through spiritual experiments, attracted by the mind which seems to echo our desires. A mindfuck in the best sense of the word: not limited to the mind, but caused by the mind. Today mindfucks are rare in real life, so be sure to read some science fiction to be prepared for the next millenium’s inspirational overload.

Science fiction can offer rather funny sex scenes as in the notorious "Pollinators of Eden", John Boyd’s novel about sex between a woman and an alien flower. More erotic is the problem of how to express attraction when the alien does not have a concept of "I" and "Me" as in Samuel R. Delany’s "Babel 17". But why are aliens attractive in the first place? The late James Tiptree Junior gives a possible explanation in the short story: "And I awoke and found me here on the cold hill’s side". The aliens are called the "supernormal stimulus", alienating men and women from each other. Sex with your ex becomes extremely boring after you have found your perfect alien. Tiptree knows why: "... all our history is one long drive to find and impregnate the stranger." But only half of the human population is busy impregnating.

James Tiptree Jr. was not a among them. Her macho style science fiction irritated and confused many - until her real name was revealed. Then she became a legend of feminist sf. It is not sex, Tiptree said, it is deeper: "We’re built to dream outward." Having discovered and analysed every single being on this planet, we want to move on. Mary Doria Russels novel "The Sparrow", which won the 1996 James Tiptree Award, is the story of jesuits and adventurers leaving earth to find a planet in Alpha Centauri, populated with singers. A people beautiful and innocent ... or so it seems.

Even when meeting a culturally refined alien people, cultural misunderstandings might end up with rape. In "White Queen", the first book of Gwyneth Jones’ trilogy about the arrival of alien entrepeneurs on earth, Johnny, a young white male falls in love with a feminine-looking alien. The alien turns out to be equally interested, but does not return Johnny’s affection in quite the manner he expected.

The trilogy describes an alien culture rebuilding earth in their image, but it is also a story of rape and revenge. Two books onwards, in "Phoenix Café", this rape becomes the motif for an exhausting sadomasochist relationship between a human male and an alien, genetically changed into a female human. Their relationship is the only way they are able to communicate their cultural differences. Among lovers of science fiction, the idea of rape as contact is not popular.

Sex is pleasure or it is violence, period. Octavia Butler makes it even more complicated. In her short story "Bloodchild", humans and centipede aliens depend on each other for survival. Young boys are impregnated by the centipedes and their offspring eat themselves through human flesh to get outside. Yet Butler calls it a love story. The story is ambiguous, not entirely a big bug turn off.

People can express love for many creatures, not only their fellow human beings. With interstellar travel we will be able to explore the borders of our desire to be stimulated. Until then we can have mindsex with science fiction. Kathy Acker’s novels are stimulated by science fictional ideas. Her texts are not what you might regard as safe sex.

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London: Flamingo, 1993.

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