Snail

It's all a matter of perspective!
Jim Sinclair

I suppose it was careless of me to put the newspaper under the fishbowl. I just wanted to protect the countertop. I didn't realize that Fibonacci not only could talk, but could read as well. But Fibonacci could read, and did, and was waiting with a question when I got home. "What are homosexuals?"

Fibonacci is a healthy, normal (though unusually intelligent) snail. Like many kinds of snails, Fibonacci is a hermaphrodite. Not surprisingly, Fibonacci is also homosexual. Snails don't have many alternatives to being homosexual, since they only come in one sex. Therefore, I thought the question would be easy to answer. "Homosexuals are people who prefer to mate with other people who are the same sex they are," I explained.

Fibonacci considered that for a moment. "What's a sex?"

Maybe this wasn't going to be so easy after all. I decided to back up a little. "You know how snails have two different types of sex organs," I began. Fibonacci looked blank. "You know," I said, "you have one kind of organ to produce eggs and another kind to produce sperm."

"Oh, yes. I never thought of dividing them up that way before, but I suppose you're right," Fibonacci said.

"Well," I continued, "humans do divide them up that way, and have different names for them. The egg-producing organs are called 'female' and the sperm-producing organs are called 'male'."

"I understand." Fibonacci said. "Two kinds of organs. Two names. Is that all?"

"No, there's more. You see, humans, with very few exceptions, have only one set of sex organs."

Fibonacci was beginning to look confused again. "Which one?" xe asked.

"Some have the male kind," I said. "They're called males. Others have the female kind, so they're called females. There's about an equal number of each."

"You mean the people are named after their sex organs?" Fibonacci found that very amusing. Then xe had a startling thought. "Wait a minute. Do you mean that humans not only don't have all of their parts, but they don't even all have the same parts of the parts that they don't have all of?" Fibonacci tends to talk in spirals when xe gets excited.

"Yes, that's right." I waited awhile for this to sink in. Then I added, as gently as I could, "Most humans are heterosexual. That means the males prefer to mate with females, and the females prefer to mate with males."

"So what?" Fibonacci asked. "What difference does it make which parts they like better?" Then xe realized: "Oh, I forgot. They can't get all the parts on the same person. But then, that would mean they select different people as mates depending on their . . .?"

"Sexual orientation," I filled in.

Fibonacci's eyestalks were writhing. "And you say most of them choose mates whose parts are different from their own? That would be like me trying to mate with one of those goldfish! How can they stand so much intimacy with something so alien? Although--" Scientific objectivity struggled to reassert itself. "I suppose it does make a twisted kind of sense. After all, there would need to be at least one of each part in order for anyone to lay eggs."

"Well, sort of. Humans don't lay eggs. But," I added quickly, as Fibonacci began turning pale, "you have the general idea. There does need to be one of each part in order to make more humans. And most humans choose mates who have the parts they don't. But some humans are homosexual. That means the females prefer to mate with other females, and the males prefer to mate with other males."

"Just like snails prefer to mate with other snails." Fibonacci cheered up considerably. "I was beginning to think humans were all unnatural perverts. It's nice to know that at least some of them are normal. At least," xe amended, "as normal as they can be, with only half their parts."

Click here to return to the intersexuality page

Click here to return to the main page