"Stanislaw Lem. Sexplosion " - читать интересную книгу автора

their congregation to wise up, appealing to higher, spiritual ideals. But
the public was deaf to this choir of authorities. Pleas and sermons,
pleading to humane ideals didn't work. It was all useless. Only the
Japanese, known for their obedience, with their teeth grinding, answered the
call. The government tried material means, rewards and bonuses, honorary
medals, the competitions for the best childbearer. When that didn't help
they stooped to repressive measures. The populations of whole regions would
dodge the childbearing duties; young people would run away into the woods,
the older people would produce fake certificates of impotence. Public
committees were eaten away by bribery. Everyone was eager to watch if the
neighbor is neglecting their duties but would dodge, as they only could,
this hard sexual labor.
Now the disaster is just a memory in the mind of the old man who is
sitting on Cleopatra's lap. The human kind didn't die out. Fertilization is
now done in sanitary, sterile and hygienic way, much like a vaccination. The
epoch of great trials changed to a relative stability.
But the culture can't stand the void. And the void that resulted after
the sexplosion was filled with gastronomy. Gastronomy is divided into
regular and indecent. Many gluttonous perversions and the books of
restaurant pornography are in existance. Injesting food in some poses is
deemed to be incredibly obscene. It is prohibited, for example, to eat
fruits while kneeled (And that's what a sect of kneeling perverts is
fighting for). You can't eat spinach and eggs upside down. But underground
restaurants still thrive (could it be otherwise?) where connoisseurs and
gourmets enjoy piquant shows. In the light of day specially hired athletes
gorge so much the viewers salivate. Pornoculinary books are smuggled in from
Denmark and describe such truly awful things as eating eggs through a straw,
while poking fingers into spinach seasoned with garlic and sniffing the
goulash seasoned with red pepper, while lying on the table and wrapped into
the table cloth, with legs tied to a coffee maker that replaces a chandelier
in this orgy. Pulitzer Prize this year was given for a novel about a
shameless guy who first rubbed the floor with truffle paste and then licked
it off having rolled in spaghetti to his heart content. The ideal of beauty
changed - the most beautiful is being a 350-pound hulk, which testifies to
the enviable eating capacity. The fashion also changed - now you can't tell
a woman from a man by clothes. And the congresses of most advanced countries
debate a question of teaching the young people the mysteries of the act of
digestion. So far this questionable topic is prohibited.
And, finally, biologists are really close to solving the problem of
totally eliminating sex - the remnant of the dark ages. The fetus will be
conceived synthetically and grown using genetic engineering and develop into
a sexless individual. That will be the end of horrible memories that are
still alive in the minds of those who survived the sexplosion. In brightly
lit laboratories, in this temples of progress, a great hermaphrodite (more
correctly, sexlessite) will be born and the human kind, having done away
with its shameful past, will, without any inhibitions, taste the fruit.
Gastronomically forbidden, of course.