Story idea
May. 15th, 2005 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrI'm posting this to see if anyone has any thoughts on stuff for the story. "Background details" for the society, scenes/vignettes that illustrate the differences, etc.
A project on the back burner is trying to write a story set in a world much like ours. Except that genders are *chosen*. So you'd still have "boy" and "girl" names and clothes. But they have nothing to do with sex (I decided that boy/man and girl/woman would be the terms for gender and male & female would be the ones for biological sex).
I figure that by their teens most folks would be starting to prefer to be a particular gender. And most would chose one "permanently" by the time they are an adult. There'd still be some who switched back and forth. They'd be thought a bit odd, but that's about it. Some folks would go for an inbetween presentation. They'd likely be thought to be rather weird.
I don't think such a world would be a utopia. But it'd be better than ours about *some* things at least.
One thought that just occured to me is that sex & marriage could be a bit odd. I can see reasons for wanting bot a "man" and a "woman" for parenting. If nothing else, so the kids get close exposure to both roles. And you need a male and female to *have* kids.
But this leaves several possibilities. Some of which might be useful to point out the differences between our society and this one.
Say, a male/female couple being discriminated against because both are masculine or both are feminine.
A project on the back burner is trying to write a story set in a world much like ours. Except that genders are *chosen*. So you'd still have "boy" and "girl" names and clothes. But they have nothing to do with sex (I decided that boy/man and girl/woman would be the terms for gender and male & female would be the ones for biological sex).
I figure that by their teens most folks would be starting to prefer to be a particular gender. And most would chose one "permanently" by the time they are an adult. There'd still be some who switched back and forth. They'd be thought a bit odd, but that's about it. Some folks would go for an inbetween presentation. They'd likely be thought to be rather weird.
I don't think such a world would be a utopia. But it'd be better than ours about *some* things at least.
One thought that just occured to me is that sex & marriage could be a bit odd. I can see reasons for wanting bot a "man" and a "woman" for parenting. If nothing else, so the kids get close exposure to both roles. And you need a male and female to *have* kids.
But this leaves several possibilities. Some of which might be useful to point out the differences between our society and this one.
Say, a male/female couple being discriminated against because both are masculine or both are feminine.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 10:00 pm (UTC)Have you read John Varley's, um, damn. *goes off to look in Amazon*
Okay, it was Steel Beach that I was thinking of.
So, have you read John Varley's Steel Beach?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-16 02:43 am (UTC)Basically, you switch sexes back and forth growing up, and choose at a certain age...
no subject
Date: 2005-05-16 05:32 am (UTC)