SOURCE: Sarti, Ronald. “Variations on a Theme: Human Sexuality in the Work of Robert A. Heinlein.” In Robert A. Heinlein, edited by Joseph D. Olander and Martin Harry Greenberg, pp. 107-36. New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1978.

[In the following essay, Sarti traces Heinlein's treatment of gender roles and sexuality in his short fiction.]

By the end of the 1950s, Robert Heinlein had established himself as the Dean of science fiction, a beloved storyteller whose ways had grown familiar after twenty years of pleasurable reading. Few would have wanted him to change, and fewer still would have expected it. And yet, abruptly, Heinlein's work did change. With the arrival of the new decade, Heinlein's stories took a startling new direction, the reason for which remained a mystery to his readers. Perhaps most surprising was Heinlein's sudden concern for the theme of sexuality. He seemed to have become fascinated with the subject and began exploring such explicit sexual topics as promiscuity, incest, and narcissism. The avant-garde discovered Heinlein's new work and hailed his vision of the sexual future. At the same time, they generally ignored his earlier works, regarding them as adventure stories devoid of meaningful sexual content. They were wrong.

Heinlein's concern with sexuality did not suddenly leap into existence with the Sixties. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Heinlein had dealt with aspects of sexuality as peripheral themes in his work, and subtly developed a consistent sexual viewpoint through the creation of many unique characters and relationships. With these characters and relationships, Heinlein demonstrated a sexual objectivity and vision almost unseen in science fiction, and rarely matched in contemporary American literature. The importance for the genre is that Heinlein—throughout his career—has always been in the vanguard of sexual honesty in science fiction.

This is not to say that Heinlein has always been successful, nor that his own creations have been as sexually honest as he might have wished. Unfortunately, for all that he accomplished, Heinlein has experienced severe problems in his treatment of the sexual theme. These problems have limited his success and caused failure, most dramatically in the later part of his career when the sexual theme had become central to much of his work. Heinlein has never been able to overcome these problems totally.

Heinlein's whole career must be considered in order to understand the nature of his success and failure, but a study of his work is most easily accomplished by dividing his career into the two most obvious periods: a first period, consisting of the twenty years in which Heinlein developed sexual topics as peripheral themes; and a second period, in which some aspect of sexuality is an important theme in almost every work. In this way, it is hoped that we will arrive at an understanding not only of Heinlein's success or failure with individual themes, but also of those sexual elements common to his work and essential to the philosophy which inspires them.

FIRST PERIOD (1939-1958)

From his first story in 1939 through his excellent Have Space Suit—Will Travel in 1958, Robert Heinlein was the master storyteller of science fiction. As storyteller, his themes were neatly developed in the context of his work through action and characterization, with only minor commentary by the narrator. Many of the themes were familiar to science fiction: the ability of Man to survive and conquer, the evil of slavery and dictatorship, and the need for individual freedom and responsibility. The theme of individual freedom was usually applied to political expression, but Heinlein developed it much further. By logical extension, the concept of freedom had to include sexual freedom, and this freedom underlies Heinlein's intellectual attitudes about sexuality.

However, in the stories of Heinlein's first period, the theme of sexuality was developed only as a peripheral interest rather than as a central theme. There were a number of factors which might account for this lesser interest. For one, Heinlein was more concerned with other themes, other freedoms more directly threatened by the shadow of political dictatorship. For another, the sexless purity of science fiction in the 1940s and 1950s was jealously guarded by editors and publishers. When asked why in the 1960s he had suddenly started writing so freely about sex, Heinlein replied, “Because there was no market for sex in science fiction before then.”¹ This was especially true for the dozen juvenile novels he produced in his first period. The readers were assumed to be adolescents, and therefore restrictions were even more severe than in ostensibly adult science fiction.

In spite of all these restrictions, Heinlein accomplished a great deal with the theme of sexuality. Even in his juveniles, various aspects of sexuality were subtly developed and woven into the fringe of the story line. Through the creation of unique character types and healthy relationships, Heinlein entertained and enlightened his readers with both a fresh look at their own sexual conventions and mores, and a suggestion of the possible alternatives that lay before them.

Heinlein, of course, does not always succeed. He uses techniques which are inherently weak when dealing with a complex subject like sexuality. Yet, he overcomes these weaknesses enough times to have an important effect upon the reader, and to advance the artistic and thematic legitimacy of sexuality in science fiction. Because of these accomplishments, the male and female characters, their relationships, and Heinlein's techniques deserve to be studied separately.

Basically, Heinlein's male characters may be divided into two categories: the competent and the incompetent. The incompetents are of little use in the practical world. They function mainly as caricatures for purposes of contrast, satire, and humor, and include such types as the spoiled brat, the jellyfish father, the pompous blowhard, and the bungling meddler. The competent male characters are divided into two types: the stock competent and the Heinlein hero. The competents are the pragmatic, realistic, capable men who keep the wheels turning. One might be a scientist, teacher, pilot, cop, bartender, whatever. He is a nice guy, sometimes harassed, but doing his job and doing it well. Often a stock competent will have a large enough role to rank as a secondary hero and serve as mentor or partner to the hero. The competent are members of the composite that Alexei Panshin has correctly analyzed as the Heinlein Individual.² This Heinlein Individual may appear in an early, middle, or late stage of life, but he is the same character—losing innocence and growing older and more worldly-wise at each stage, though just as competent as ever.

The Heinlein hero is merely the Heinlein Individual whom the story is about. But the typical Heinlein hero has some peculiarities that make him sexually interesting to the reader. Although he is smart, talented, and able to learn, the young version of the hero is grossly naive about women and sex. In “If This Goes On—” the young hero, John Lyle, begins his narration by implying that he had never even talked to a woman other than his mother.³ And this is an adult story.

A level of ignorance and naiveté might be excused in Heinlein's juvenile novels due to editorial requirements. Yet even in these the ignorance transcends the need. In Tunnel in the Sky, the hero cannot guess that the person he shares a cave with is a girl. And in Citizen of the Galaxy, the adolescent hero—an ex-slave raised in a gutter environment—still has no sexual knowledge or experience, and does not recognize the situation when girls are clearly interested in him.

This ignorance must make us wary of what the naive young hero feels or tells us about women and sex. He is still learning, still losing his innocence. His attitudes (those of twentieth-century America) serve a purpose, since they allow Heinlein to inject our own sexual conventions and mores into the story where they can be criticized. In Starman Jones, the young hero, Max Jones, feels that the heroine Ellie is not too bad a person—considering she's a girl. She can even play a game of three-dimensional chess, which Max feels is beyond the intelligence of most girls. It is only after Ellie has proved her bravery, and admitted that she is a chess champion, that she corrects Max: “Mr. Jones, has it ever occurred to you, the world being what it is, that women sometimes prefer not to appear too bright?”⁴ The hero can learn; it just takes a few gentle taps with a sledgehammer. The reader too has been shown that his own assumption—if sympathetic to the hero's—was similarly incorrect, and that there are alternatives to his preconceived notions. Thus, because of the young hero's inexperience (not to mention Heinlein's purpose), we must be wary of his pronouncements.

In contrast, the sexual statements of the respected, knowledgeable, older heroes can usually be taken as representative of Heinlein's own view. Still, the older heroes have their sexual “oddity,” perhaps left over from their former romantic youth. Seen again and again is the hero's insistence upon marriage (or at least, vows) before having sexual relations with the woman he loves—and this after the heroine has offered herself free of charge. In “The Year of the Jackpot,” the hero, Potiphar Breen, pops the question to his heroine outside an isolated cabin:

After a time he pushed her gently away and said, “My dear, my very dear, uh—we could drive down and find a minister in some little town?”

She looked at him steadily. “That wouldn't be very bright, would it? I mean, nobody knows we're here and that's the way we want it. And besides, your car might not make it back up that road.”

“No, it wouldn't be very bright. But I want to do the right thing.”

“It's all right, Potty. It's all right.”

“Well, then … kneel down here with me. We'll say them together.”

“Yes, Potiphar.” She knelt and he took her hand. He closed his eyes and prayed wordlessly.

When he opened them he said, “What's the matter?”

“Uh, the gravel hurts my knees.”⁵

Besides the opportunity for humor, there are several possible explanations for this characteristics, all equally valid. First, the scene is a case of ego gratification for the hero. The Heinlein hero never has to grovel for sex—it is always offered free of charge. In Heinlein's second period, the hero Lazarus Long comments upon this tendency: “‘I never risk being turned down; I wait to be asked. Always.’”⁶ A second probable explanation is that much as Heinlein criticizes our restrictive sexual conventions, he cannot entirely overcome them himself. There is still the recognition that vows will make it morally right in some way. A final explanation for this characteristic of his heroes is that Heinlein actually believes that a special relationship between a man and a woman can exist and deserves to be marked and differentiated from the common affair. That this is the case will be seen in our discussion of relationships.

However, before discussing relationships, Heinlein's women deserve consideration. More important to science fiction than Heinlein's male characters are his female characters. Because of their importance, they have drawn more attention and been roundly praised and condemned. Anne McCaffrey feels that “Robert Heinlein's women are horrors: excuseless caricatures of ‘females,’”⁷ while Pamela Sargent admits that they “may represent an advance over much previous sf.”⁸ We will see that they contribute greatly to Heinlein's early accomplishments with the theme of sexuality.

Heinlein's female characters closely follow the male categories. The major division is between the competent and the incompetent, with the incompetent again being caricatures such as the hysterical parent, or the snobbish lady. Fittingly, Heinlein matches male and female incompetents into couples, as in “‘And He Built a Crooked House,’” where they provide much of the comic effect.

The competent female characters compose the equivalent of a female Heinlein Individual, and are used both as stock competents and as heroines. The stock competents are of a type rarely seen in previous science fiction and important for the assumptions which they imply. They appear in the background of many stories, functioning as space pilots, military officers, medical doctors, scientists, and mathematicians. They are professional in their duties and respected for their competency. Theirs is a society in which women have proved themselves and are judged according to their ability rather than their sex. In the 1940s and 1950s, this vision of the future must have had a great effect. A whole generation of young readers—conditioned to a male-dominated society where women airline pilots were nonexistent, and a woman doctor the exception—saw that women might be capable of more than their traditional roles.

This effect was intensified with the extraordinary Heinlein heroine, a female remarkable for her competence and achievement, and almost unknown in American literature and society. Damon Knight tells us that Heinlein's wife was the model for many of these heroines:

Heinlein's red-headed wife Ginny is a chemist, biochemist, aviation test engineer, experimental horticulturist; she earned varsity letters at N.Y.U. in swimming, diving, basketball and field hockey, and became a competitive figure skater after graduation; she speaks seven languages so far, and is starting on an eighth.⁹

The Heinlein heroine may not have all the skills Ginny has mastered, but whether child, adolescent girl, or adult woman, she is interesting for the unusual qualities she does exhibit. All Heinlein's heroines are brave and intelligent, the adult heroine often a skilled professional in a scientific or military field. And these qualities are more important than the size of a bustline. Ignoring that unkillable stereotype, the Heinlein heroine is not necessarily beautiful, nor even pretty. Physical beauty, while occasionally noted, is not emphasized.

Even more startling for a literary heroine is the fact that she is sometimes faster-acting and more rational than the hero, and able to kill ruthlessly when he is endangered. While fleeing catastrophe in “The Year of the Jackpot,” the hero, Breen, stops his car and finds a pistol thrust against his head by a stranger. The heroine, Meade, responds in typical Heinlein fashion:

Meade reached across Breen, stuck her little lady's gun in the man's face, pulled the trigger. Breen could feel the flash on his own face, never noticed the report. The man looked puzzled, with a neat, not-yet-bloody hole in his upper lip—then slowly sagged away from the car.

“Drive on!” Meade said in a high voice.

Breen caught his breath. “Good girl—”

“Drive on! Get rolling!”

(2)

This is refreshing. Too long have storybook heroines screamed and fainted while some poor slob gets stomped on by Igor the Monster. Wounded, pregnant, even slug-ridden, the Heinlein heroine remains dedicated to the survival of her hero and herself.

Intelligent and courageous, the Heinlein heroine embodied a positive new image of womanhood, an image that was not lost upon the readers. The Heinlein heroine was exciting. She was a woman they had never imagined, and she presented possibilities that were strangely appealing. To a generation of impressionable minds, she was Woman as capable human being.

Yet, there is one flaw to the remarkable Heinlein heroine. The adult heroine—strong-willed, competent, well-adjusted—becomes a meek and obedient kitten when the hero commands. In The Puppet Masters, the hero, Sam, and the heroine, Mary, find themselves in the middle of a battle:

Mary had walked west on the highway with the downy young naval officer while I was examining the corpse. The notion of a slug, possibly still alive, being around caused me to hurry to her. “Get back into the car,” I said.

She continued to look west along the road. “I thought I might get in a shot or two,” she answered, her eyes bright.

“She's safe here,” the youngster assured me. “We're holding them, well down the road.”

I ignored him. “Listen, you bloodthirsty little hellion,” I snapped, “get back in the car before I break every bone in your body!”

“Yes, Sam.” She turned and did so.¹⁰

Yes, Sam. Yes, Potiphar. Yes, master. When the hero puts his foot down, that's it. Me man. You woman. Obey.

So much for pilot training and karate lessons. The skills and intelligence of the heroine—and her individual freedom—are subordinated to the ego of the hero. Of course, in each case he just happens to be right (odd coincidence that, no?), but the total obedience of the heroine is unexpected. It becomes incomprehensible when, in The Puppet Masters, the same hero later insists upon the individual rights of his wife as a human being:

“… Those records were snitched out of my wife's head and they belong to her. I'm sick of you people trying to play God. I don't like it in a slug and I don't like it any better in a human being. She'll make up her own mind. Now ask her!”

(30)

In effect, what the hero wants for a heroine is a liberated woman who knows her place.

Anyone have a bigger sledgehammer?

The Heinlein heroine's inconsistent behavior cannot be explained away, nor excused. It stands as a—pardon the expression—male chauvinist tribute to the hero, implying that women—even such as the heroine—enjoy being dominated. The image of the Heinlein heroine is thus not the ideal that it might have been. Heinlein himself could not break away from his own emotional attachment to the obedient female.

Nevertheless, on the whole the standing of the heroine and of the female competent must be judged highly. Rather than being condemned for this single fault, they should be applauded for the stereotypes they broke and the progressive outlook they embodied. In their time, they were a great advance both for science fiction and for literature in general.

Following close behind Heinlein's female characters in importance are the relationships between heroes and heroines. For convenience, we may classify them into four basic sets: (1) the young hero and young heroine, as in The Star Beast; (2) the adult hero and young heroine, as in Have Space Suit—Will Travel; (3) the adult hero and adult heroine, as in The Puppet Masters; and (4) the adult married couple, either as hero and heroine as in “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag,” or as competent parents (actually secondary heroes and heroines) as in The Rolling Stones. With these four sets, Heinlein is able to highlight patterns of sexual behavior, such as love, romance, marriage, and role-playing; to demonstrate the effects of environmental conditioning and sex discrimination; and to promote intersexual need and partnership.

The basic assumption in all of these relationships is that the heroine—in spite of her occasional obeisance—is as capable as the hero. Promoted is the idea that women are the equal of men in courage, intelligence, and skill. At least, they have the potential for such equality. That they had not fulfilled (or been denied) their potential during Heinlein's lifetime was obvious: no women were piloting his flights. Yet able women such as his wife, Ginny, did indeed exist, and so there had to be reasons for the status of women in twentieth-century America. One reason is given in Magic, Inc., when a competent, worldly-wise male character observes:

“It's like this: Most women in the United States have a shortsighted, peasant individualism resulting from the male-created romantic tradition of the last century. They were told that they were superior creatures, a little nearer to the angels than their menfolks. They were not encouraged to think, nor to assume social responsibility. It takes a strong mind to break out of that sort of conditioning, and most minds simply aren't up to it, male or female. …”¹¹

But more than just this type of environmental conditioning is at work. For those who overcome the restrictive conditioning of their society, there is also sexual discrimination to contend with. Heinlein tears down the banners of discrimination with a romantic but effective little story symbolically entitled “Delilah and the Space-Rigger.” A competent female radio technician arrives to work on a space station under construction by an all-male crew. She is frustrated by the stubborn engineer in charge who doesn't think much of her and refuses to accept her ability:

Then he called her in. “Go to the radio shack and start makee-learnee, so that Hammond can go off watch soon. Mind what he tells you. He's a good man.”

“I know,” she said briskly. “I trained him.”¹²

In a microcosm of our own society, the heroine is not allowed to learn the rules, but then is blamed when she breaks them.

In many of the stories of his first period, Heinlein creates a different sort of society in which women are accepted—at least to some degree—on talent rather than sex. In other stories, as we have just seen, the futuristic society is not so very different from our own. Ellie in Starman Jones has to hide her abilities to be “feminine,” and Maggie in “If This Goes On—” has been trained for nothing except the position of domestic and mistress. In both works, the heroines reflect twentieth-century limitations on womanhood, and it is clear that Heinlein dislikes these limitations upon the freedom of women. His works echo the opinion that women are potentially capable, and that in a possible future society they will assume a rightful, integral place in the professional world, with the same freedom as men to develop themselves into competent individuals. But Heinlein's work also implies that in our own type of society, the majority of women—due to environmental conditioning and sexual discrimination—have been forced into an artificial mold of incompetence. Denied the chance to develop herself, it is only an outstanding woman who overcomes her environment, and even she may be forced to hide her capabilities in order to fit a romantic role of womanhood.

Perhaps this is why so many of Heinlein's adult heroes are matched with adolescent or preadolescent heroines. Heinlein may like younger heroines because he considers them unspoiled by cultural conditioning. There is evidence for this in a novel from Heinlein's second period, Glory Road, in which the hero's mentor explains that the typical American woman is sure of her domestic genius, in bed and out. The mentor adds that it is impossible to convince her otherwise “‘Unless you can catch one not over twelve and segregate her, especially from her mother—and even that may be too late. …’”¹³ In another novel from Heinlein's second period, Time Enough for Love, the hero does literally “catch one” and then raises her on a pioneer planet with the help of his mistress, who “was born on Earth but had shucked off her bad background when she migrated; she did not pass on … the sick standards of a dying culture.”¹⁴ When the child is grown, the hero marries her.

This marriage follows logically. The Heinlein hero—in order to find a heroine worthy of him—must raise her himself, in his image. By early contact, he will mitigate the cultural conditioning which the child-heroine will later encounter. This may explain some of the brief, puzzling relationships we see in The Door into Summer and Time for the Stars. In these instances, brief contact between adult hero and young heroine results in a later marriage.

In any case, where a relationship is developed between competent characters of different sexes, the characters are fundamentally equal, regardless of their ages. This equality is inherent in the interdependence of hero and heroine which is necessary in order to survive and succeed. It is suggested in the relationships of “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag” and The Puppet Masters, but it is shown most clearly in the last work of Heinlein's first period, Have Space Suit—Will Travel. Kip, the hero, and the eleven-year-old heroine, Peewee, accomplish things together. But they do so only after each has persuaded the other to act in the most prudent and competent manner. Their relationship is complementary. He reins in her impetuosity and she gets him to ignore his male ego. For example, Kip and Peewee are climbing a mountain on the Moon in a desperate attempt to escape danger. Kip (the hero) narrates:

I wanted to be a hero and belay for her—we had a brisk argument. “Oh, quit being big and male and gallantly stupid, Kip! You've got four big bottles and the Mother Thing and you're topheavy and I climb like a goat.”

I shut up.¹⁵

Each partner encourages the other to do what is necessary for survival, rather than letting their particular masculine or feminine nature—and their romantic conceptions of the proper behavior—take control and ruin them. They function as a team to which each brings different skills and talents, and it is a team in which each has an equal share, an equal responsibility in the struggle. Alone, either would have failed to overcome the odds.

With a relationship established on such equal and solid footing, respect and affection follow naturally. And where the hero and heroine are of suitable age, the partnership will also develop into a deeper emotional relationship. The expression of their love is a total commitment to each other which is romantic in its idealism. There is a total need for the other person, as Kip in Have Space Suit—Will Travel recognizes in his parents' relationship:

I have talked more about my father but that doesn't mean that Mother is less important—just different. Dad is active, Mother is passive; Dad talks, Mother doesn't. But if she died, Dad would wither like an uprooted tree.

(5)

In Farmer in the Sky, the hero's mother has died, and his father must flee all the way to the moon Ganymede in order to start life over again. Lifelong permanency and fidelity are implicit in the unwavering devotion of each partner for the other.

Fortunately, these ideal relationships are not allowed to become overly romantic. Heinlein recognizes the problems of marriage, and he always recalls the difficulty of such relationships, as with the various marriage contracts (“term, renewable, or lifetime”) offered the hero in The Puppet Masters.¹⁶ And in Methuselah's Children, Heinlein suggests that people could not or would not live out relationships which lasted longer than a normal lifetime.

Even the characters temper their own romanticism with realistic observations about the limits of love. The Heinlein hero, knowing life for what it is, does not expect his heroine to be a virgin. In “If This Goes On—” the heroine Maggie readily admits her sexual past to the hero, who shrugs it off and marries her anyway. And in The Puppet Masters, the hero casually dismisses any worries about the heroine's sexual experience as “her business” because “marriage is not ownership and wives are not property” (21). Heinlein may indulge in romantic notions, but he is not ruled by them. The ideal relationship is held possible in spite of a hard look at the reality in which it must exist.

That the relationships should lead to a family would be expected, and great store is placed in family life. This fact, strangely enough, has earned Heinlein some criticism. Representative of several Heinlein females, one of his characters has voiced an explicit desire for nothing more than a man, “six babies and a farm.”¹⁷ This attitude has been interpreted as an attempt by Heinlein to put women “back in the kitchen where they belong.” It is overlooked that male characters are also devoted to the family, and that the quality of this domestic life is more important that professional careers. Several sets of married couples seem to have given up hectic careers in order to devote themselves to the profession of parenthood. In The Rolling Stones, Edith Stone is an M.D., and Roger Stone is an engineer and retired mayor of Luna City. She stays home—and so does he, by writing space opera serials in his living room with his family around him for inspiration. In Have Space Suit—Will Travel, the hero's parents, a former mathematician and his most promising student, have established a quiet life in a small town, providing a permanent home rather than the hotel rooms the hero remembers from his boyhood when his parents pursued their glamorous careers. The message is that parenthood is more important than anything else. Not to be forgotten is the fact that characters—male and female—choose domesticity as a mode of personal fulfillment; they are not forced into it by conditioning or discrimination. Pamela Sargent makes note that:

As a matter of fact, Heinlein's female characters choose their fates to a certain extent. They are generally not passive creatures but strong-willed sorts who make up their own minds about what they want. … It seems that Heinlein genuinely believes that parenthood is an exciting occupation and as fulfilling as anything else might be. This is a good and defensible position.¹⁸

If Heinlein advocates parenthood and domesticity in his first period, it is not that he wishes to restrict either sex to a subordinate role, or reinforce society's conventions. Rather, it is his own appraisal of each sex voluntarily finding fulfillment in important roles for which they are biologically suited, forming a complementary partnership between competent equals.

Obviously, Heinlein's relationships are relatively complex, and it is difficult to squeeze them into a rigid mold. There are elements which might be criticized as uninspired repetitions of society's romantic conventions and traditional mores. Certainly, Heinlein is a victim of his own environment and his own emotional nature. He could not sluff off all the mores and all the conventions. Some are too appealing and enjoyable, sentimental and clichéd and irrational and chauvinistic as they might be. But Heinlein was able to discard many conventional notions, and his intellectual honesty and love of freedom resulted in a progressive view of the relationships between the sexes. The partnership of man and woman, their interdependence, their equality and individual freedom, and their free choice of life-style connote a vision far removed from romantic or sentimental tradition. Like the Heinlein heroine, these relationships rank as one of Heinlein's real accomplishments with the sexual theme during the first period of his career. Their importance—both to the artistic and sexual development of science fiction, and to the sexual philosophy of Heinlein's readers—must not be underestimated.

As successful as Heinlein's characters and relationships are on the whole, the ability of any single character or relationship to promote the sexual theme is dependent upon the techniques used to portray that character or relationship. Unfortunately, Heinlein uses two techniques which are badly suited to the development of this theme, and the result has been occasional mediocrity and failure.

Heinlein's first technique is to use a highly selective point of view, in which he “ignores completely the pain, jealousy and uncertainty that are the ordinary stuff of human experience.”¹⁹ We rarely see doubt or worry or fear at work upon a character. He or she may be experiencing intense jealousy or pain over a relationship, but we will not see the restless days or sleepless nights. The character might mention the fact at some point, or state that he has gotten over it; but we will rarely see the emotion at work upon the individual. Sam in The Puppet Masters rationalizes away jealousy (“her business”), and that is that: no twinges, no doubt, no curiosity. The result is that there is little emotional development with which the reader can identify.

The second technique Heinlein uses is the distancing of himself and the reader from those moments when intimacy and emotion are required. He often accomplishes this distancing by employing conversation to convey the scene. The conversation itself often consists of a continuous banter which attempts to be casual and relaxed, but is actually artificial and uncomfortable. In one scene from Beyond This Horizon, the hero (upon their first meeting in his apartment) disarms the heroine, wrestles her into submission, and then kisses her:

… “That,” he observed conversationally, “was practically a waste of time. You ‘independent’ girls don't know anything about the art.”

“What's wrong with the way I kiss?” she asked darkly.

“Everything. I'd as lief kiss a twelve-year-old.”

“I can kiss all right if I want to.”

“I doubt it. I doubt if you've ever been kissed before. Men seldom make passes at girls that wear guns.”

“That's not true.”

“Caught you on the raw, didn't I? …”²⁰

The action, when it is described, can be horribly romantic and clichéd, and Heinlein's attempts to portray the emotional side of a feminine nature often are simply trite mannerisms such as the liberal use of “dear” in conversation, or bursting into tears at touching moments. Again, going to Beyond This Horizon for an example (Heinlein really was out of sorts with this one), we have this sentimental little exchange between another hero and heroine:

“I—But … Oh, Marion, Marion!” He stumbled forward toward her, and half fell. His head was in her lap. He shook with the racking sobs of one who has not learned how to cry.

She patted his shoulder. “My dear. My dear.”

He looked up at last and found that her face was wet …

(12)

What we are deprived of is a close look at the complex psychological and emotional elements common to humanity, and a realistic translation of those elements into action and expression. Heinlein strips his stories of the distractions and crosscurrents that make up a human being and a human relationship. And this omission is due, simply, to Heinlein's uneasiness about portraying such intimate matters of human experience.

This is a particularly important failure, because for all their originality, Heinlein's characters are only two- or three-dimensional, and the success of a character depends upon the close, careful development of those dimensions. If those dimensions are not developed, the character fails to come alive. For example, in Methuselah's Children, Mary Sperling has the usual heroine competency. But she also fears death. These are the two dimensions of her personality. We are told often enough of her fear, but we never really see her wrestling with this problem. It just sits on top of her, weighing her down, making her dull, and never changing. Mary is thus relatively uninteresting to a reader accustomed to the Heinlein heroine's competence.

Similar problems apply to Heinlein's relationships. In The Door into Summer there is a love affair between an adult hero and a twelve-year-old heroine who remains one-dimensional throughout. Suspended animation and time travel even out their ages so that they can have a conventional marriage, supposedly after the heroine has spent her entire adolescence without seeing the hero (he's in cold sleep), but still loving him enough thereafter to go into cold storage herself for twenty years. As sketchily drawn as the heroine-child is, she is an essential element of the plot, the motivating factor behind much that the thirty-year-old hero does:

She would not look up and her voice was so low that I could barely hear her. But I did hear her. “If I do … will you marry me?”

My ears roared and the lights flickered. But I answered steadily and much louder than she had spoken. “Yes, Ricky. That's what I want. That's why I'm doing this.”²¹

It is understood that the hero needs to know the heroine as a child in order to save her from her environment. But why the hero loves this particular child is never shown to us. Heinlein does not reveal the process by which this attraction has been reached. We would like to be happy for them in the end, but the question of why always comes back to haunt us.

There are a goodly share of failures due to Heinlein's discomfort, and his subsequent exclusion of emotions and arm's-length distancing of the intimate. Yet, in a substantial number of works he is able to overcome this discomfort and enjoy a more relaxed handling of characters and relationships. He does not abandon his techniques entirely, and the situations remain romantic, but he achieves a more intimate tone, and we get to see brief, revealing glimpses of the vulnerable, human side of his characters. The result is those stories which are most successful and do the most to advance the sexual themes with which Heinlein is concerned. One success is “If This Goes On—.” Heinlein gives us some well-paced, well-developed scenes in which we see the emotional confusion of hero and heroine. For example, John Lyle is struggling against his own sexual impulses as he watches the heroine swimming nude:

Again I could not take my eyes away if my eternal soul had depended on it. What is it about the body of a human woman that makes it the most terribly beautiful sight on earth? Is it, as some claim, simply a necessary instinct to make sure that we comply with God's will and replenish the earth? Or is it some stranger, more wonderful thing?

I found myself quoting: “How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!

“This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.”

Then I broke off, ashamed, remembering that the Song of Songs which is Solomon's was a chaste and holy allegory having nothing to do with such things.²²

Here, the character comes alive as a vulnerable human being, subject to the doubts and fears which chain us all.

A like achievement is found in “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag,” where the hero and heroine are a married couple who grow more confused and frightened as they delve deeper into supernatural mystery. Heinlein allows us to see these emotions at work, acting upon them, and they come alive as characters. And in Have Space Suit—Will Travel, the hero and heroine's understanding of each other develops throughout the novel, as does their mutual respect and affection.

In all these stories, our sympathetic interest and understanding of the characters and of their relationships make us receptive to the points Heinlein is making. In “If This Goes On—” Heinlein scorns a society where women are either virgins or whores, and blind sexual repression is the norm. With “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag,” he shows us that a married couple can be friends as well as lovers, partners against a harsh and threatening life. And in Have Space Suit—Will Travel, the interdependence of man and woman is exemplified again and again. The points are well made—as well made as the characters and relationships are drawn. They have all been given the care and attention they deserve. Heinlein is at his best here, relaxed and comfortable. And so is the reader.

In retrospect, the development of sexual themes in Heinlein's first period was an important achievement and success. For science fiction, Heinlein created characters and relationships far more honest than the stereotypes previously used, and touched upon subjects that the genre had hitherto ignored. For his readers, he had presented observations and alternatives that were different and exciting. If his techniques implied discomfort and resulted in occasional failure, he was able to overcome his deficiencies in many works.

Thematically, by its distinctiveness and merit, this first period in Heinlein's long career must be regarded in its own right and evaluated by its own accomplishments and failures. Yet, this period may also be kept in mind as the essential foundation for Heinlein's second period. Early sexual themes, and the philosophies they embodied, would undergo development and manifest themselves in the sexually preoccupied novels of Heinlein's second period. More ominously, the deficiencies that lurked in his techniques would become crucial as he gained interest in the many variations of the sexual theme, and pursued them not as peripheral interests, but as themes central to the purpose of his work.

SECOND PERIOD (1959-)

In 1959, after twenty years of enjoyable continuity, Heinlein began the second period of his career in which he changes from Heinlein the storyteller to Heinlein the moralist. This change is marked by three principal characteristics: first, Heinlein becomes increasingly didactic, subordinating story, plot, and character to the development of his theme; second, his work becomes implicitly pessimistic and defeatist; and third, the theme of sexuality becomes central to much of his work. Although we are only concerned with sexuality, all three characteristics are closely associated with each other in a tangle of cause and effect, and thus their interaction must be considered. By so doing, it may be possible to understand the overall sexual philosophy and psychological viewpoint from which Heinlein is writing. But before we can adopt this approach, we must first study some of the individual works of this period, analyzing the sexual theme of each, deciding upon its success or failure, and familiarizing ourselves with those elements which repeat themselves and form the expression of Heinlein's sexual beliefs.

Based upon his original belief in individual freedom, Heinlein's toleration of sexual activity broadens throughout his second period. With this toleration comes an impatience with subtlety. His stories slow to an agonizing crawl as elaborate views and ideas are put forth for the reader's consumption. Long, involved discussions between characters allow Heinlein to lecture upon every aspect of sexuality, and the result is that Heinlein enters all the sexual worlds forbidden to science fiction, such as emasculation, promiscuity, group sex, incest, narcissism, and the nature of hetero- and homosexuality. However, with the sexual theme foremost, the discomfort and ineffective techniques which earlier plagued Heinlein's work also come to the front and limit his study of each sexual theme.

Heinlein continues to express interest in the same aspects of sexuality which concerned him during his first period. The family—extended beyond the conventional nuclear unit—plays a major role in his novels, as does parenthood. And stripped of such notions as fidelity and permanency, love remains as a powerful force in Heinlein's work. All of these appear time and again as critical elements in his second period.

As with everything else in his work, some aspects of sexuality do change. For instance, the Heinlein heroine experiences a sad degeneration in many novels. Heinlein no longer bothers to develop his heroines, and they usually devolve into vaguely drawn sex objects. Perhaps Heinlein's basic attitudes toward women remain the same, but the patience required to create an enjoyable heroine is lacking. The heroine's only new characteristic is the urgent desire to be impregnated by the hero, some even going to the extremes of artificial insemination (against the hero's will) in order to bear the child of the Heinlein hero.

Another change from his first period is Heinlein's direct concern with specific aspects of sexual behavior. Sex in all its permutations has become a thing of endless wonder to Heinlein, as evidenced by the sexual variety of the stories which Heinlein has written in this period. “‘All You Zombies—’” is an unusual short story utilizing time travel and a sex-change operation to create a solipsist's nightmare. With Podkayne of Mars, Heinlein attempts a feminine point of view (an exception to the heroine degeneration) by having a female narrator. Glory Road is a parody in which Heinlein creates the ultimate Heinlein heroine, (the second exception) in order to satirize the romantic notions implicit in his long line of characters and relationships. Besides this, he tosses in a reversal of conventional sex roles, and flirts briefly with a situation conveying tones of bestiality. And Farnham's Freehold is a novel in which all the male characters are emasculated and rendered impotent in one way or another, while The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress provides a detailed picture of life in a “line family” with multiple wives and husbands.

Individually, these works are less important to our study and must be set aside in order to consider the three novels in which Heinlein is most concerned with sexuality: Stranger in a Strange Land, I Will Fear No Evil, and Time Enough for Love. These three novels not only provide specific examples of Heinlein's success and failure, but also most clearly illustrate the philosophy which Heinlein has adopted in his second period.

Stranger in a Strange Land (published in 1961) is the first sexually important work of Heinlein's second period. It is a conglomeration of many things, including religion, satire, and adventure, but is most interesting to us for its development of the sexual themes of promiscuity and group sex.

It is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who is raised by Martians and learns superhuman powers. He returns to Earth humanly inexperienced, is educated, and then forms a sexually active church in which he teaches “grokking” to those who are qualified to understand the nature of existence and thus share in the superpowers. He is killed by a mob at the end of the novel because of his rejection of all conventions and mores of a hypocritical society.

Robert Plank has criticized the novel as a series of “primitive sexual fantasies” with no informative value,²³ and Alexei Panshin mentions that “the sexual relations are beyond criticism, self-justified,”²⁴ because Heinlein gives them as being right, and either a character can see this truth and “grok,” or he cannot. Both observations are valid. The novel seems to be a long and loud bugle call for a perfect sexual freedom between all the spiritually beautiful people in the world. The dastardly villains preventing this dream from becoming a reality are human jealousy and the Judeo-Christian moral code.

The hero Michael Smith feels that sexual union should be a merging of bodies and souls in shared ecstasy, but that:

“… Instead it was indifference and acts mechanically performed and rape and seduction as a game no better than roulette but less honest and prostitution and celibacy by choice and by no choice and fear and guilt and hatred and violence and children brought up to think that sex was ‘bad’ and ‘shameful’ and ‘animal’ and something to be hidden and always distrusted. This lovely perfect thing, male-femaleness, turned upside down and inside out and made horrible.

“And everyone of those wrong things is a corollary of ‘jealousy.’ …”²⁵

Linked to this human emotion of jealousy, and possibly growing out of it, is our religious code of sexual morality. This time Mike's mentor, Jubal, has his say:

“… 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.”

(33)

As we see, Heinlein is not blind to the emotional and environmental factors ordering our existence. He succeeds in clearly putting his ideas about them before us. The only thing needed is the evidence to validate these ideas—but this we never get. Instead of showing us how we might throw off “constraints” and achieve these heights of emotional and sexual freedom, Heinlein simply gives us a finished product, a perfect community free of restrictions such as jealousy and morality. Promiscuity and group sex are given as the natural order, and the solution for everything from job dissatisfaction to menstrual cramps.

Such a community is possible because Michael and company have the ability to grok those who are worthy. Only the good of heart are able to grok and enjoy the delights of sexual and spiritual union. The rest will never make it through the door. Mike states:

“… I had no slightest wish to attempt this miracle with anyone I did not already cherish and trust—Jubal, I am physically unable even to attempt love with a female who has not shared water with me. And this runs all through the Nest. Psychic impotence—unless spirits blend as flesh blends.”

(36)

Even Jubal recognizes that “it was a fine system—for angels” (36).

This is the problem with Stranger in a Strange Land: The novel creates a sexual utopia that does not apply to the common lot of humanity. Heinlein again ignores the “common stuff of human experience.” For example, we are told that a character, Ben, suffers from jealousy, while a heroine, Jill, is intolerant of a “water-brother” who likes to collect pictures of nudes. Ben and Jill come closest to displaying the emotional elements that make up ordinary human existence. But in both cases, Heinlein keeps their problems at arm's length and solves them with a little superpower, so that suddenly the characters grok. No more problems.

What Heinlein is doing, of course, is utilizing his old techniques, and now as before they fail him. Only now, their weakness betrays his sexual argument and threatens the success of the novel itself. How are we to know who is worthy to share water, and who should be discorporated? How can we tell if another is able to achieve spiritual union as well as physical union? Heinlein ignores this reality. He raises arguments, but offers no proof. He suggests change, but offers no workable alternatives. Heinlein's satire is excellent, and his ideas are thought provoking. But no meaningful discussion can be found of the value and place of the promiscuity which is so highly touted.

I Will Fear No Evil (1970) is the most ambitious of Heinlein's novels, and perhaps that accounts for the fact that it is his worst failure. The novel fails as a satire—if it was meant to be one—because it satirizes very little. It fails as a story because the narration is tedious and the plot dull. It might have succeeded as an exploration of the nature of sexuality, for it is certainly concerned with that subject. Highlighted would have been such important topics as the heterosexual and homosexual drives, and the interrelationship between the physiological and psychological processes in a sexual being. But here, too, it fails.

Instead, I Will Fear No Evil succeeds as nothing more than a long catalog of naughty stories, including: the young secretary and the older executive; the young boy and the housewife next door; the cuckolded husband (three wives—three children—three horns); the high school cheerleader impregnated by the basketball team; the scantily dressed maid; the spanking; the nurse and the seven interns, the society lady and her two servants, and so on. Between these revelations of the life histories of the characters, we are told the story of Johann Smith, an old billionaire in a state of infirmity and kept alive with tubes, wires, and shoestrings. A once-vigorous man, his old age is a living death, and he prefers either to live or to die. The escape is to have his brain transplanted into the first body that becomes available—which turns out to be that of his female secretary Eunice, who has been killed by a mugger. The story recounts the experience of Johann's adjustment to being a woman.

The concept is fascinating, and a host of questions arise. Johann has a man's psychology, but his body is a woman's. How will Johann feel when a man touches him? Or a woman touches him? How will the mind adjust? Which is the homosexual act? When will Johann be sexually aroused—and when should he be? Which will predominate, psychological conditioning or physiological drives? And how will others relate to the change? What about those who loved the hero as a man—or loved Eunice, to whom the body belonged? How will these others respond?

Heinlein raises these questions himself. For example, Jake, a friend of Johann's and the lover of Eunice, breaks down and has to be sedated when Johann proposes a toast to the dead woman whose body he is occupying. And the hero, who finds himself attracted to both men and women, realizes that:

“… I'm in the damnedest situation a man ever found himself in. I'm not the ordinary sex change of a homo who gets surgery and hormone shots to tailor his male body into fake female. I'm not even a mixed up XXY or an XYY. This body is a normal female XX. But the brain in it has had a man's canalization and many years of enthusiastic male sex experience. So tell me, Jake, which time am I being normal, and which time perverse?”²⁶

The hero answers his own question, and makes what seems to be a major point of the book:

“… From my unique experience, embracing both physiological sexes directly and not by hearsay, I say there is just one sex. Sex. SEX! …”

(14)

This is an unusual point to make, and we might expect an author to use every page to prove his thesis by showing the hero adjusting, and explaining how he responded physiologically and emotionally to each sexual step. This does not happen.

Again, as in Stranger in a Strange Land, the rightness of Heinlein's premise is self-justified. Johann experiences no problems adjusting because there is only one sex, and he has done nothing but change the vehicle of his pleasure. An irascible old man before the transplant, Johann becomes an agreeable, charming personality in Eunice's body. He finds himself thinking about sexual relations with his doctors even before he has recovered from the operation. Oh, he says he has trouble adjusting: “The time I'll feel like a queer is the first time some man kisses [me]. I'll probably faint” (10). Johann does not faint, he just enjoys. And this is all we see.

The simplicity of adjustment extends to the hero's acquaintances. Jake, who knew the hero and loved Eunice, should be having gigantic problems adjusting, considering the promising scene in which he broke down earlier. But no, he, too, regains his composure and becomes the perfect gentlemen with Johann (and Eunice's body) out of deference to old friend and buddy Johann. Later, he ends up marrying the hero.

Even if we credit the self-justified point of the story with some validity, it is fatally compromised by plot and technique. First of all, Johann is not alone in the body of Eunice! When he awakens from the transplant operation, he discovers that the consciousness of Eunice still resides in the body, right along with his own consciousness. Eunice becomes Johann's sexual mentor and the heroine of the story, helping Johann adjust to being a woman, not that he really needs much help (later in the novel, Jake dies and they haul his consciousness into their body with them). This circumstance immediately destroys any chance for a viable consideration of the situation, and renders meaningless the many questions that are begging to be answered.

Also, since the point is self-justified and there is no need to deal with the messy, complex development of human sexuality, we are left free to consider such truly profound matters as the quality of different kisses, the difficulty in buying women's clothes, and the erotic histories of the characters (all those naughty stories).

More tiresome than these matters are the endless conversations. Heinlein has the ability to write witty and informative dialogue. Here, he is merely trite and repetitive. The following passage is an example of a conversation between Johann and Eunice (supposedly occurring mentally within Johann's brain inside Eunice's body—got that straight?). Johann has just kissed his female nurse, Winifred:

Winifred left about sixty seconds later. (Well, Eunice? How did that one stack up?) (Quite well, Butch. Say eighty percent as well as Jake can do.) (You're teasing.) (You'll find out. Winnie is sweet—but Jake has had years more practice. I'm not chucking asparagus at Winnie. I thought you were going to drag her right in with us.) (With Mrs. Sloan outside and watching our heart rate? What do you think I am? A fool?) (Yes.) (Oh, go to sleep!)

(11)

This banter fills up page after page in the novel, and we might almost consider it part of a grand parody if Heinlein did not treat it so seriously, and with such repetitious detail.

This type of conversation is also utilized to narrate Johann's reactions to the kisses he receives and bestows. Johann gets to kiss almost every character in the book (Heinlein is fascinated with kissing), and we get to hear about every experience. Yet, for all that Heinlein is constantly suggesting sexual arousal, he never delivers the real thing. As with previous works, no sexual coupling is ever actually described. We are told about Johann's first sexual experience the morning after, and it turns out that Johann was drunk and everything was fuzzy. Convenient.

Why Heinlein should tease us all through the novel and then avoid the moment of truth may only be explained by those old problems, his inhibitions. He is still not comfortable with intimate scenes of human emotion, and he falls back on the same techniques he used before, and then some. The naughty stories, Eunice's consciousness, the worthless conversations, and the kissing are all devices to avoid coming to grips with a subject that Heinlein does not know how to handle.

Yet, Heinlein does overcome one inhibition, when for the first time in his work he introduces a sexual four-letter word. He uses it twice, both times in the same paragraph at the very end of the novel and just before Johann-Eunice-Jake die giving birth:

“Everything always hurts, Roberto—everything. Always. But some things are worth all the hurts … It is good to touch—to fuck—be fucked. It's—not good—to be—too much alone. …”

(29)

It is too bad that for all his effort, this is all Heinlein had to say. The sexual themes which are mishandled so badly do need to be explored. But Heinlein's methods are not the ones to use.

In his most recent novel, Time Enough for Love (1973), Heinlein is more successful because he takes care to be a storyteller—and an artist—rather than just a moralist or sexual adventurer. The novel is ostensibly about love, but actually deals with the sexual themes of incest and narcissism, which are given as manifestations of that love.

Time Enough for Love is a rambling, picaresque account of the past life of Lazarus Long. After two thousand years the hero is tired of life, but is prevented from committing suicide by the long-lived Howard Families. They convince Lazarus that he should live long enough to relate his experiences for their benefit, and so he does. Meanwhile, the people he has met form a family around him, and many of the females have themselves impregnated by Lazarus in one way or another, some even serving as host mothers to cloned versions (female reproductions) of the hero. His interest in life revived, but still seeking something new in the way of adventure, Lazarus goes into the past, ends up having an affair with his own mother, and then gets himself killed in World War I. The novel ends with his family of the future snatching Lazarus off the battlefield and reviving him.

Throughout the novel, the emphasis is upon the sexual aspects of his adventures, as signaled in the title of the novel. The key to the title may be found in one of the excerpts from Lazarus Long's Notebooks:

The more you love, the more you can love—and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.

(“Intermission”)

It is also made clear that “whatever ‘love’ is, it's not sex” (“Variations on a Theme IV”). We find love to be much more, as Lazarus explains:

The longer I was privileged to live with Dora, the more I loved her. She taught me to love by loving me, and I learned … Learned that supreme happiness lies in wanting to keep another person safe and warm and happy, and being privileged to try.

(“Variations on a Theme XII”)

So, love is defined as being the supreme happiness of the one who loves, and is achieved by caring most deeply for another human being. Simple enough, and the definition is applied consistently throughout the novel. But the definition is a narcissistic one. Love is supreme happiness. We want to make ourselves happy, and so we love others, and take care of others—not for their sake, but for our own. The principle extends to everything we do:

… once you pick up a stray cat and feed it, you cannot abandon it. Self-love forbids it. The cat's welfare becomes essential to your own peace of mind—even when it's a bloody nuisance not to break faith with the cat.

(“Variations on a Theme VI”)

With this narcissistic interpretation, almost every chapter may be (and is intended to be) interpreted as a variation upon this theme. All of Lazarus Long's sexual and emotional relationships thus become expressions of self-love. The narcissism becomes quite literal at times, as when Lazarus makes love to the two cloned female versions of himself whom he has helped raise:

“… Coupling with us might be masturbation, but it can't be incest because we aren't your sisters. We aren't your kin in any normal sense; we're you. Every gene of us comes from you. If we love you—and we do—and if you love us—and you do, some, in your own chinchy and cautious fashion—it's Narcissus loving himself. But this time, if you could only see it, that Narcissist love could be consummated.”

(“Variations on a Theme XVII”)

Similarly, the theme of incest runs just as deeply through the novel, and is considered in the same type of unique variations. At one point, Lazarus explores in scientific detail the relationship of a set of mirror twins whom he buys out of slavery. They are diploid brother and sister having the same mother and father, sharing the same host womb, growing up together as brother and sister, but with no genetic reason to prevent their mating, as they wish. The result of the investigation is a new understanding by the reader of the nature of incest. It becomes clear that:

“‘Incest’ is a legal term, not a biological one. It designates sexual union between persons forbidden by law to marry. The act itself is forbidden; whether such union results in progeny is irrelevant. The prohibitions vary widely among cultures and are usually, but not always, based on degrees of consanguinity.”

(“Variations on a Theme IX”)

The basic message is that incest is a cultural taboo imposed because of genetic dangers, but often of no logical relation to the genetic dangers which it is meant to avoid. Whether or not one agrees with Heinlein's ideas, his consideration of incest does leave the reader with enough information and knowledge to apply such investigative methods to the cultural and genetic validity of his own incest taboos. In this way, Heinlein has succeeded with his theme.

The theme of incest is carried to fruition when Lazarus Long goes back in time and has a sexual and emotional love affair with his mother. Heinlein overcomes his own sexual inhibitions by finally including a sex scene, the one in which this relationship is consummated. Yes, Heinlein is still uncomfortable, and the dialogue is still artificial, but somehow the scene works, perhaps because of the reader's amazement at seeing such a thing in a Heinlein novel.

Time Enough for Love succeeds in many ways, and it will probably be ranked as Heinlein's most complex and interesting work. The primary accomplishment of the novel is Heinlein's masterful intertwining of the themes of incest and narcissism into each chapter and each example. For instance, one of the most romantic chapters concerns Lazarus and Dora, a child he has saved and raised as his own. When she comes of age, she wants to have a baby by Lazarus. After having raised Dora as his daughter, the incestuous element is clear in the emotional relationship. Lazarus is changing from father to husband. Then, Lazarus himself raises the issue of narcissistic self-love for this act. He has married Dora because she is a stray kitten he must take care of out of self-love. Thus, the relationship has both its incestuous and narcissistic elements. Both themes are also inherent in his relations with his cloned selves, with the mirror twins, with his family, and with his mother. The intricate plotting of these sexual themes is the work of a master craftsman.

By the elaborate repetition of the two themes, the novel is also a success for the manner in which it raises questions and suggests alternatives. Through the numerous variations of each theme, the reader is familiarized with the subject and begins to see the complexities of the theme, and to consider it outside the narrow bias of his own cultural point of view. This is an accomplishment.

However, with the novel's success comes its failure. As entertaining as the novel may be, and as many questions as it may raise and as much thought as it may stir, there is little real human substance to apply to our own situation. The mirror twins are not really normal brother and sister; Dora is not Lazarus' biological daughter; and his cloned female selves are neither sisters nor daughters. Even his mother is no longer his mother. She is a “lovely young matron, just his ‘own’ age” (“DaCapo III”), a woman who happens to be the mother of the child that Lazarus was two thousand years before. In too many cases, scientific manipulation accounts for a sexual improbability. Scientifically, the examples work, and the novel is good science fiction. But these examples fail to offer insights into the human factors that make up so many of these problems. Again, as in Stranger in a Strange Land and I Will Fear No Evil, the complex psychological and emotional elements that make up sexuality are ignored.

None of Heinlein's work in his second period is as successful as it might have been, and the fault is mainly with his inadequate handling of the sexual theme. The variations on this theme are cleverly presented and effective within limits—but these limits are disappointing. Heinlein's persistent reluctance to deal with the human condition of emotional vulnerability forbids any true application of the sexual studies he has undertaken. For this reason, Heinlein's second period must be looked upon as one of unfulfilled promise. Our consolation is that if Heinlein did not provide any answers, at least he asked the needed questions.

Having completed an evaluation of some works of this period in terms of the success or failure of each, it is now possible to consider the philosophy and psychology which have dictated Heinlein's extensive interest in the theme of sexuality.

Heinlein has always put great store in physical survival, and in his first period optimistically showed us the ability of the competent man to succeed against the odds. Heinlein himself was the archetype of competency and success. By the end of his first period he had already written a massive body of literature, carved out an inestimable niche for himself in science fiction, and was regarded with adulation by a large body of fans. Most would view such a life as a great success.

However, by the beginning of his second period in 1959, Heinlein was fifty-two years old and reaching the age when one's own mortality becomes obvious. A man might realize that for all his competence and for all his victories he could not escape the eventual defeat of death. Old age would strip him of his abilities and leave him powerless before this fate.

Heinlein's writing in his second period seems to reflect this type of thinking. For all their competence, his heroes are strangely unable to alter circumstances, are emasculated, and rendered impotent against the forces of the universe. The realities of old age and death also figure more prominently in Heinlein's work. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Michael is killed by the mob. The novel I Will Fear No Evil is about one man's desperate attempt to escape old age and death. And Time Enough for Love is about a man who cannot die. Heinlein was in his sixties when he wrote Time Enough for Love, an aging man writing about an ageless man. The attraction of the fantasy is obvious.

But if a man is not a Lazarus Long, if he cannot affect his fate, if he can no longer find importance in his temporary victories against the universe, where can he seek purpose? How can he give life meaning?

Religion is one answer, but Heinlein seems to have rejected that. If ever a believer in a God, Heinlein implies throughout his second period that he is atheistic. He rejects the Judeo-Christian code in Stranger in a Strange Land, and later makes it clear in Time Enough for Love that “Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help” (“Intermission”). Denying himself this comfort, it is indeed a gloomy realization that death is the end of everything, without either physical or spiritual immortality.

Yet, there is another way to gain a measure of physical immortality. The answer is genetic survival, and it is this answer that Heinlein has grasped in order to give meaning and purpose to life. If a man cannot live forever, at least he can ensure the survival of a part of himself in his children. This attitude is reflected in his novels. Michael Smith impregnates at least half a dozen women by the time of his death. Johann Smith takes great care to have his female body impregnated with his own seed, and far into Heinlein's Future History, Lazarus Long is literally the genetic forefather of an important segment of the human race, and propounds that “racial survival is the only universal morality.”²⁷

To ensure this type of survival, the family is essential. Not only does it protect and educate the children, but it also provides comfort and holds off the grim thoughts of that ultimate fate. The love and adoration of the family, and the careful education of the children in the image of the father (hero) are essential to his psychological well-being, and far overreach any temporary interests in a professional career or adventure to the stars. This is why so many of Heinlein's stories at this time are domesticated, either utilizing the family scene as an essential story element like the “Nest” in Stranger in a Strange Land, or in providing a warm sanctuary from which the hero may venture forth upon occasion as Lazarus does. For lack of this family, Lazarus—having been kicked around the universe for a few centuries—even welcomes death until a new family has built up around him and provided a “home” to return to. It is the family that rescues Lazarus from the battlefield and brings him back to life, in symbolic manifestation of the physical immortality that the family allows.

What the hero gives in return is love. There is that special love for the woman, the tender love for many women, and the warm, asexual love for “that majority who are decent and just,” both men and women. The hero must love all these because it is good to love, as Michael Smith and Johann Smith and Lazarus Long all know. This is why their “families” grow so large. The more one loves, and the more there are to love, the happier one is, and it is this happiness which will deny the Fates and push back the heavy knowledge that weighs down the human spirit.

Thus, parenthood, the family, and love—always important in Heinlein's early work—evolve into essential elements of his later philosophy by forming a consistent denial of one's own purposeless mortality. However, there is another element perhaps just as essential, one that Heinlein has newly turned to in his second period. The “icing on the cake,”²⁸ the bountiful gift which spices up human existence, is sex. In denying death, in making a family, in loving others, “this lovely perfect thing, male-femaleness” plays an essential role that fascinates Heinlein. If all conventional adventures have shrunken in importance, the sexual adventure looms in their place. Sex can provide a first step toward love by encouraging intimacy (“growing closer”), so why not have sex often, with many people, in order to hasten the love (“spiritual union”) in which happiness and comfort can be found? Besides, sex is fun, so why limit it in any way? Why let jealousy create inhibitions? Why let illogical taboos and morals interfere with this innocent pleasure that does so much to deny the reality of our own demise? Why not explore the different types of sexual love and see how we have limited ourselves and denied ourselves this great comfort?

Having evolved this philosophy, having discovered the purpose and pattern by which to live, Heinlein must preach the gospel of his new revelation, perhaps to himself as much as to others. Family! Sex! Love! These are the weapons with which to challenge the universe and deny death. These are the important things in life, the essential elements of a desperate happiness. In our pitifully short lives, there must always be time enough for these.

Notes

1. Robert A. Heinlein, “Views of Robert Heinlein,” The New Yorker, July 1, 1974, 18.

2. Alexei Panshin, Heinlein in Dimension (Chicago: Advent, 1968), 169-72.

3. For this story and for other early works from Heinlein's prewar writing (1939-42), I am referring to versions rewritten for book publication rather than the original magazine versions. For more information on original versions and rewrites, see Panshin.

4. Heinlein, Starman Jones, ed. Judy L. del Rey (New York: Ballantine, 1975), (19).

5. Heinlein, The Menace from Earth (New York: New American Library, Signet Books, 1962), (2).

6. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (New York: Berkley Medallion, 1974), “Variations on a Theme XII.”

7. Anne McCaffrey, “Romance and Glamour in Science Fiction,” in Science Fiction: Today and Tomorrow, ed. Reginald Bretnor (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 281.

8. “Women in Science Fiction,” Introduction, Women of Wonder: Science Fiction Stories by Women About Women, ed. Pamela Sargent (New York: Random House, 1975), xliii.

9. “Introduction by Damon Knight,” Heinlein, The Past Through Tomorrow (New York: Berkley Medallion, 1975).

10. Heinlein, The Puppet Masters (New York: New American Library, Signet Books, 1975), (27).

11. Heinlein, Waldo & Magic, Inc. (New York: New American Library, Signet Books, 1970).

12. Heinlein, in The Past Through Tomorrow.

13. Heinlein, Glory Road (New York: Berkley Medallion, 1970), (21).

14. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, “Variations on a Theme XII.”

15. Heinlein, Have Space Suit—Will Travel (New York: Ace Books, 1975), (6).

16. Chapter 21.

17. Heinlein, Tunnel in the Sky (New York: Ace Books, 1970), (2).

18. Sargent, Women of Wonder, xliv.

19. Panshin, Heinlein in Dimension, 151.

20. Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon (New York: New American Library, Signet Books, 1974), (4).

21. Heinlein, The Door into Summer (New York: New American Library, Signet Books, 1975), (11).

22. Heinlein, “If This Goes On—” (10), in The Past Through Tomorrow.

23. Robert Plank, “Omnipotent Cannibals: Thoughts on Reading Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land,” Riverside Quarterly, V (1971): 30-37. See also Chapter 4, this book.

24. Panshin, Heinlein in Dimension, 151.

25. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (New York: Berkley Medallion, 1968), (36).

26. Heinlein, I Will Fear No Evil (New York: Berkley Medallion, 1971), (14).

27. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, “Intermission.”

28. Time Enough for Love, “Variations on a Theme VII.”