Stranger in a Strange Land

Jubal glared. «If I am, sir, does that make my words less weighty? Saints have burned at stakes ere this — would you dismiss their holy anguish as “melodrama”?»

«I didn't mean to get your back up. I simply meant that they aren't in that sort of danger — after all, this isn't the Dark Ages.»

Jubal blinked. «Really? I hadn't noticed the change. Ben, this pattern has been offered to a naughty world many times — and the world has always crushed it. The Oneida Colony was much like Mike's nest — it lasted a while but out in the country, not many neighbors. Or take the early Christians — anarchy, communism, group marriage, even that kiss of brotherhood — Mike has borrowed a lot from them. Hmm … if he picked up that kiss of brotherhood from them, I would expect men to kiss men.»

Ben looked sheepish. «I held out on you. But it's not a pansy gesture.»

«Nor was it with the early Christians. D'you think I'm a fool?»

«No comment.»

«Thank you. I wouldn't advise anyone to offer the kiss of brotherhood to the pastor of some boulevard church today; primitive Christianity is no more. Over and again it's been the same sad story: a plan for perfect sharing and perfect love, glorious hopes and high ideals — then persecution and failure.» Jubal sighed again. «I've been fretting about Mike; now I'm worried about them all.»

«How do you think I feel? Jubal, I can't accept your sweetness-and-light theory. What they are doing is wrong!»

«It's that last incident that sticks in your craw.»

«Uh… not entirely.»

«Mostly. Ben, the ethics of sex is a thorny problem. Each of us is forced to grope for a solution he can live with — in the face of a preposterous, unworkable, and evil code of so-called “Morals”. Most of us know the code is wrong, almost everybody breaks it. But we pay Danegeld by feeling guilty and giving lip service. Willy-nilly, the code rides us, dead and stinking, an albatross around the neck.

«You, too, Ben. You fancy yourself a free soul — and break that evil code. But faced with a problem in sexual ethics new to you, you tested it against the same Judeo-Christian code … so automatically your stomach did flip-flops … and you think that proves you're right and they're wrong.Faugh! I'd as lief use trial by ordeal. All your stomach can reflect is prejudice trained into you before you acquired reason.»

«What about your stomach?»

«Mine is stupid, too — but I don't let it rule my brain. I see the beauty of Mike's attempt to devise an ideal ethic and applaud his recognition that such must start by junking the present sexual code and starting fresh. Most philosophers haven't the courage for this; they swallow the basics of the present code — monogamy, family pattern, continence, body taboos, conventional restrictions on intercourse, and so forth — then fiddle with details … even such piffle as discussing whether the female breast is an obscene sight!

«But mostly they debate how we can be made to obey this code — ignoring the evidence that most tragedies they see around them are rooted in the code itself rather than in failure to abide by it.

«Now comes the Man from Mars, looks at this sacrosanct code with a fresh viewpoint — and rejects it. I don't know the details of Mike's code, but it clearly violates laws of every major nation and would outrage “right-thinking” people of every major faith — and most agnostics and atheists, too. Yet this poor boy — »

«Jubal, he is not a boy, he's a man.»

«Is he a “man”? This poor ersatz Martian is saying that sex is a way to be happy. Sex should be a means of happiness. Ben, the worst thing about sex is that we use it to hurt each other. It ought never to hurt; it should bring happiness, or at least, pleasure.

«The code says, “Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's wife.” The result? Reluctant chastity, adultery, jealousy, bitterness, blows and sometimes murder, broken homes and twisted chil dren — and furtive little passes degrading to woman and man. Is this Commandment ever obeyed? If a man swore on his own Bible that he refrained from coveting his neighbor's wife because the code forbade it, I would suspect either self-deception or subnormal sexuality. Any male virile enough to sire a child has coveted many women, whether he acts or not.

«Now comes Mike and says: “There is no need to covet my wife …love her! There's no limit to her love, we have everything to gain — and nothing to lose but fear and guilt and hatred and jealousy.” The proposition is incredible. So far as I recall only pre-civilization Eskimos were this naive — and they were so isolated that they were almost “Men from Mars” themselves. But we gave them our “virtues” and now they have chastity and adultery just like the rest of us. Ben, what did they gain?»

«I wouldn't care to be an Eskimo.»

«Nor I. Spoiled fish makes me bilious.»

«I had in mind soap and water. I guess I'm effete.»