Aye and Gomorrah... by Samuel Delany

In the world of Samuel Delany’s Aye and Gomorrah, spacers are astronauts who, to prevent the harmful affects of radiation, have been neutered. They are, in a sense, genderless. They can transport from place to place as they wander about between the earth and the rest of the galaxy. They often look for frelks—people who are sexually interested in spacers—for physical pleasure throughout their travels. However, spacers are viewed as outsiders to the rest of human society—a situation that, as our spacer narrator implies, can feel lonely at times. One day, our narrator (who remains nameless throughout the story) meets a young female frelk in Istanbul, and together, they discuss their respective experiences. Throughout their conversation, there are times when our narrator becomes defensive, believing that the frelk misunderstands him, and often pits her actions as something that all frelks do. The frelk, in turn, replies that she is being misunderstood by the spacer, and often has to explain the reasoning behind her decisions. In the end, they go their separate ways.

            What I find fascinating about this story is that, even though the spacer claims that he is being misunderstood by the frelk, he, too, fails to understand the frelk. He (our narrator, as we later learn he was born male) feels that the frelk is making generalizations about spacers, while he, at the same time, seems to judge frelks as all behaving the same way. She calls spacers “loose meat” (pg.130); he refers to frelks as “you frelks” (pg. 131). The calm with which the narrator listens to the frelk’s rants about how disgraceful the whole spacer-frelk sexual relationship is signals that the narrator has come across this sort of tirade before—and is accustomed to it. The spacer is used to being stared at, judged, and told to leave wherever he goes. Bias against him is everywhere. And yet, he still fails to get past his own biases against frelks in order to understand this woman. No one is innocent in their stereotyping of others. Not even the ones being judged. As readers, it forces us to examine our own biases, not just simply in terms of sexual identity, but everywhere. Everyone has their biases; that’s simply the way the world is. But are you willing to recognize them, so that you may go beyond them to truly see the other person, is the question.