Science fiction knows how to play around with sex and gender. The free-lovin' of A Stranger in A Strange Land, Commander Shepard's bisexual proclivities, and William T. Riker's seemingly universal interspecies compatibility are constant sources of entertainment. And the fun doesn't stop with organic entities. Androids, cyborgs, and robots make gender all the stranger. Why is Data fully functional? Isn't it curious that, of all the characters in Ghost in the Shell the two most heavily cyberized characters, Motoko and Batou, are hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine respectively? And, my favorite: as a robot Bender has no gender, so if Bender bends his gender, what gender does Bender bend? Sci-fi sex is fun to talk about, of course, but how can all of that help us understand the actual future of humanity? Simply put: we imagine what we hope to see. So the question is: what is it we imagine and hope for? An utter free-for-all of alien-cyborg-A.I. bacchanalia? I don't think so. Instead, sci-fi is teaching the diversity of our own human sexuality back to us. Science fiction allows for universes in which we can more easily accept alien forms of gender expression and sexual desire. For example, Ruby Rhod from The Fifth Element is perfectly and outrageously androgynous. In a normal action flick, I suspect Rhod would be a controversial and possibly distracting figure. In science fiction, however, Rhod is just another character caught up in the chaos. Sci-fi lets us explore sexuality free of the cultural and social baggage it carries in the here and now. A big part of removing this baggage is breaking assumptions by destabilizing what we presume are the foundations of gender and sexuality. For example, recently the merry old internet produced hipster Mass Effect. One image caught my eye: "I only play as FemShep." I myself am an avowed Mass Effect fanboy and a vocal defender of playing as a female version of Commander Shepard. Jennifer Hale is just a better voice actor. But I didn't know that when I started Mass Effect for the first time. I simply thought a female Shepard would be more interesting. Why? FemShep is a more interesting character because she plays like a he. In his analysis of "FemShep's Popularity in Mass Effect" James Bishop makes the case clear:
People play as the female version precisely because Commander Shepard is male in all other ways. The lines, the character animations and various other tidbits are male-oriented in a way that makes FemShep more than your stereotypical RPG female protagonist. For one, she wears practical armor. Well, mostly, but it is science fiction after all; we can accept floating visors and the like.
