Stanislaw Lem. Sexplosion
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© Copyright Stanislaw Lem
© Copyright Alexei Novikov , translation
Date: 04 Dec 2003
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Stanislaw Lem "Sexplosion". 1971.
Translated to English ┐ 2003 by Alexei Novikov
Review of a (fictional) story by Simon Merrill "Sexplosion" (Walker and
Company - New York)
If you believe the author - and we are more and more often told to
believe the writers of science fiction - the current inflow of sex in the
eighties is to become The Great Flood. But the events of "Sexplosion" take
place twenty years later - during the harsh winter in snowy New York. An old
man, who remains unnamed, sinking in deep snow and bumping into cars buried
under it makes his way to an abandoned skyscraper, takes out a key, warmed
by the last bits of the old man's bodyheat, unlocks the iron gates and goes
down to the basement levels. His wanderings interleaved with flashbacks are
what make up the novel.
The dark underground, whose walls become lit by the beam of the
flashlight, turns out to be something between a museum and a part of an
exposition (or, more appropriately, sexposition) for a powerful concern,
evidence of those memorable years when America conquered Europe once again.
Half manual manufacturing of Europeans clashed with an unstoppable pace of
conveyor production, and the post-industrial scientific-technological
colossus quickly won over. Three corporations were left on the battlefield:
"General Sexotics", "Cybordelics" and "Love Incorporated". When the volume
of production of these giants reached its peak sex, out of private
entertainment or group exercise, hobby or amateur collectioning, grew into
the philosophy of civilization. McLuen, who lived to that time still a stout
old man, proved in his "Genitocracy" that it was the destiny of mankind once
it stepped on the road of technological progress. That ancient rowers,
chained to the galleys, loggers of the North with their woodsaws,
Stephenson's steam engine with its cylinders and pistons defined the rhythm,
type and meaning of the motions that defined copulation as the main event of
human existence. After adopting the complications of sexual positions of the
East faceless business changed the medieval shackles into unchastity belts,
occupied artists and designers with creation of copulators, megapenises,
vaginettes, sexariums and pornomats, started the sterile conveyors that
continuously produced sadomobiles, lovistors, home sodomizators and public
homorobots, and founded research institutions that started a struggle for
emancipation of both sexes from the duty of procreation.
From that point on sex became not a fashion, but a faith, orgasm - the
duty, and its frequency counters with red needles took the place of
phonebooths on the streets. But who is he, this old man, wandering through
underground passages from a room to a room? Head lawyer of "General
Sexotics"? Maybe that's why he remembers the big court processes, some of
which reached the Supreme Court, for the rights to replicate - as mannequins
- body likenesses of celebrities, starting with the First Lady. "General
Sexotics" won it (which set it back by 20 million dollars). And now the
shaking beam of the flashlight reflects in plastic boxes, which hold top
movie stars and other celebrities, princesses and queens in exquisite
outfits - exhibiting them any other way, according to the decision of the
Supreme Court, was prohibited.
For mere decade synthetic sex made way from simple inflatable models
with spring mechanism to samples with automatic thermoregulation and instant
feedback. Their human prototypes were long dead or turned into old farts,
but teflon, nylon, pornofoam and sexonil withstood the tests of time. Like
in a wax museum elegant dames, caught in a light spot of the flashlight,
greet the passing old man a stiff smile, holding the tape with their siren
song in hand (The Supreme Court prohibited putting the tape in the
mannequin, but the customer could do this privately, at home).
Slow and unsteady steps of the lonely old man raise clouds of dust,
through which, at a distance, you could see glowing scenes of group Eros -
often with up to 30 participants, something like giant layered cakes or
tight pretzels. Could it be the president of "General Sexotics" himself
marching down the corridor among homorobots and cozy sodomizators? Or the
chief designer of the concern, the one who genitalized first USA, and later
the rest of the world? Here are visuaries with remote controls, programs and
lead seal of censorship, the very one fought over in six great court
processes. Here are piles of containers, ready for shipment overseas, packed
with "Japanese Balls", boxes with pre- and post-foreplay cream and similar
goods, along with manuals and specifications.
That was an era of democracy, finally realized. Anybody could do
anything - with anybody. Following the advice of the staff futurologists,
the corporations, against anti-monopoly laws, secretly divided the world
market and went the way of specialization. "General Sexotics" was in a hurry
to equal the rights of normalcy and perversion. The two others bid on
automation. The samples of masochistic chains, whips and accessories
appeared on the market to convince the general public that the saturation of
the market is not even a possibility, because big business, I mean a really
big business not just satisfies the demand, it creates it! Traditional tools
of home shared the fate of Neanderthal's sticks and stones. The scientists
developed six and eight year long education courses, then the courses of
high school for both sexes, invented neurosexator, followed by mufflers,
suppressers, special insulation materials and sound absorbers so that
passionate moans would not disturb the rest and enjoyment of the neighbors.
But you have to go on, on and on, confidently and persistently, because
stagnation is a death of production. The models of Olympus for personal use
and first androids with the appearance of ancient gods and goddesses were
already being forged out of plastic in white-hot design shops of
"Cybordelics". There was a talk about angels, with a special fund started in
case of a lawsuit with the church. It was only left to make decisions on
some technical problems: What should wings be made out of? Won't they
tickle? Should they move? Will they get in a way? What to do with the halo?
What switch to choose for it and where to place it? And so forth. That's
when the diaster struck.
The chemical compound, code-named "antisex" was synthesized long ago,
almost in the seventies. Only a select group of experts knew about it. This
chemical that instantly was acknowledged to be a secret weapon was created
in the labs of a small company affiliated with Pentagon. Spraying of it in a
form of an aerosol would indeed make a devastating blow at enemy's
demographic potential. A fraction of a milligram was enough to eliminate all
sensations normally coinciding with sex. Which, by itself, still remained
possible, but only as a form of physical labor, and fairly hard one at that,
a lot like washing, wringing or ironing. There was an idea to use "antisex"
to control the population growth in the third world but it was decided to be
risky.
How it came to a catastrophe of the world proportions is still unknown.
Was really the stock of "antisex" blown sky high because of a short circuit
and a fire and a tank of ether? Or was the fire started by competitors of
the three giants that divided the world market? Or maybe it was the work of
some subversive, ultra-conservative or religious organization? There is no
answer.
Having tired of wandering in the endless underground the old man sits
down on the smooth lap of the plastic Cleopatra (having pressed the "Stop"
button beforehand) and approaches in his memories, like to the edge of a
chasm, to the great crash of 1998. Consumers, all as one, rejected with
disgust the goods that flooded the market. What appealed just yesterday was
today like an ax to a tired logger, like a washing machine to a laundress.
Eternal, as it seemed, charms - biological spell of the human kind -
dissipated without a trace. From that point on the breast reminded only of
the fact that humans are mammals, legs - that man is an orthograde creature
and buttocks - that there's something to sit on. That's it! How lucky was
McLuen that he didn't live to see this disaster, he who restlessly
interpreted medieval castle and space rocket, jet engine, turbine, windmill,
salt-shaker, hat, relativity theory, parentheses in mathematical equations,
zeros and exclamation points as surrogates and symbols of that only act in
which existence manifests itself in its pure form.
Everything changed in mere hours. Human kind faced complete extinction.
It started with a market crash next to which the crisis of 1929 seemed like
child's play. First to go up in flames was Playboy publishing. Starving
workers of strip clubs jumped out the windows. Illustrated magazines, movie
studios, advertising firms, beauty salons all went down the tubes. Perfume
and cosmetics, then clothing manufacturers stalled. In 1999 there was 32
millions of unemployed in US.
What could appeal to the buyers now? Abdominal support, synthetic hump,
gray wig, shaking figures in wheelchairs for the disabled - the things that
didn't remind of the sexual effort, of that nightmare, that hard labor. Only
those guaranteed erotic immunity, meaning rest and peace. Because
governments, sensing the coming danger, declared the total emergency in the
name of saving of the human kind. The headlines screamed with appeals to
reason and a sense of duty, on TV the servant of every religion convinced
their congregation to wise up, appealing to higher, spiritual ideals. But
the public was deaf to this choir of authorities. Pleas and sermons,
pleading to humane ideals didn't work. It was all useless. Only the
Japanese, known for their obedience, with their teeth grinding, answered the
call. The government tried material means, rewards and bonuses, honorary
medals, the competitions for the best childbearer. When that didn't help
they stooped to repressive measures. The populations of whole regions would
dodge the childbearing duties; young people would run away into the woods,
the older people would produce fake certificates of impotence. Public
committees were eaten away by bribery. Everyone was eager to watch if the
neighbor is neglecting their duties but would dodge, as they only could,
this hard sexual labor.
Now the disaster is just a memory in the mind of the old man who is
sitting on Cleopatra's lap. The human kind didn't die out. Fertilization is
now done in sanitary, sterile and hygienic way, much like a vaccination. The
epoch of great trials changed to a relative stability.
But the culture can't stand the void. And the void that resulted after
the sexplosion was filled with gastronomy. Gastronomy is divided into
regular and indecent. Many gluttonous perversions and the books of
restaurant pornography are in existance. Injesting food in some poses is
deemed to be incredibly obscene. It is prohibited, for example, to eat
fruits while kneeled (And that's what a sect of kneeling perverts is
fighting for). You can't eat spinach and eggs upside down. But underground
restaurants still thrive (could it be otherwise?) where connoisseurs and
gourmets enjoy piquant shows. In the light of day specially hired athletes
gorge so much the viewers salivate. Pornoculinary books are smuggled in from
Denmark and describe such truly awful things as eating eggs through a straw,
while poking fingers into spinach seasoned with garlic and sniffing the
goulash seasoned with red pepper, while lying on the table and wrapped into
the table cloth, with legs tied to a coffee maker that replaces a chandelier
in this orgy. Pulitzer Prize this year was given for a novel about a
shameless guy who first rubbed the floor with truffle paste and then licked
it off having rolled in spaghetti to his heart content. The ideal of beauty
changed - the most beautiful is being a 350-pound hulk, which testifies to
the enviable eating capacity. The fashion also changed - now you can't tell
a woman from a man by clothes. And the congresses of most advanced countries
debate a question of teaching the young people the mysteries of the act of
digestion. So far this questionable topic is prohibited.
And, finally, biologists are really close to solving the problem of
totally eliminating sex - the remnant of the dark ages. The fetus will be
conceived synthetically and grown using genetic engineering and develop into
a sexless individual. That will be the end of horrible memories that are
still alive in the minds of those who survived the sexplosion. In brightly
lit laboratories, in this temples of progress, a great hermaphrodite (more
correctly, sexlessite) will be born and the human kind, having done away
with its shameful past, will, without any inhibitions, taste the fruit.
Gastronomically forbidden, of course.
Last-modified: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 05:09:56 GMT