"Joanna Russ - Female Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russ Joanna)

to be daring, among themselves, and the third generation doesn't, to be polite, and by the fourth, who
cares? Who remembers?

MC: But surely—that is—

JE: Excuse me, perhaps I'm mistaking what you intend to say as this language we're speaking is only a
hobby of mine, I am not as fluent as I would wish. What we speak is a pan-Russian even the Russians
would not understand; it would be like Middle English to you, only vice-versa.

MC: I see. But to get back to the question—

JE: Yes.

MC (A hard position to be in, between the authorities and this strange personage who is wrapped in
ignorance like a savage chief: expressionless, attentive, possibly civilized, completely unknowing. He
finally said): Don't you want men to return to Whileaway, Miss Evason?

JE: Why?

MC: One sex is half a species, Miss Evason. I am quoting (and he cited a famous anthropologist). Do
you want to banish sex from Whileaway?

JE (with massive dignity and complete naturalness): Huh?

MC: I said: Do you want to banish sex from Whileaway? Sex, family, love, erotic attraction—call it
what you like—we all know that your people are competent and intelligent individuals, but do you think
that's enough? Surely you have the intellectual knowledge of biology in other species to know what I'm
talking about.

JE: I'm married. I have two children. What the devil do you mean?

MC: I—Miss Evason—we—well, we know you form what you call marriages, Miss Evason, that you
reckon the descent of your children through both partners and that you even have "tribes"—I'm calling

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 Joanna Russ - The Female Man

them what Sir ———— calls them; I know the translation isn’t perfect—and we know that these
marriages or tribes form very good institutions for the economic support of the children and for some
sort of genetic mixing, though I confess you're way beyond us in the biological sciences. But, Miss
Evason, I am not talking about economic institutions or even affectionate ones. Of course the mothers of
Whileaway love their children; nobody doubts that. And of course they have affection for each other;
nobody doubts that, either. But there is more, much, much more—I am talking about sexual love.

JE (enlightened): Oh! You mean copulation.

MC: Yes.

JE: And you say we don't have that?