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Here's a thought to ponder on. If a planet has no men, just a store of sperm containing the X chromosome. Lesbianism would be the only form of sexual release. Babies would be eggs fertilized with the best possible genetic match and dumped into a uterine replicator. Babies are cared for in a creche setting with plenty of Mommy visits if her job allows. With only women, all professions and careers are open. This is the origin I have created for Lori and Liz.
What kind of sex education do you think they would have? How about regular education? Would there be monogamous marriages? Why? Would flirting or dating be a common practice? I only know one Lesbian and not well enough to quiz her on her sex life. I have to guess. I would also guess that self stimulation would be common and pairings or line marriages would be more temporary. (I actually think that monogamous marriages on this Earth are an endangered species. We got married under the old rules and it has worked [more or less] for 47 years.) On Hegira, conraception would not be necessary, sexually transmitted diseases would be rare to non-existent. I also had the Hegiran scientists come up with a way to have painless periods and eliminated menopause. The uterine replicators would allow many children from a particularly good gene combination and no woman would need to carry a baby or birth one. Creches would provide care for them. What do you think that would do social skills, family values, ..... can you think of anything else that would be very different? How would a missionary preaching the male dominated major religeons of Earth be received? Ponder away... then let me know.
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That has been done in the reverse. The planet was all males. No one even knew there were females. Well, a small handful did but they kept that knowledge a secret. It was a John Grimes novel, which are being republished, even though I can't recall the writer. No word on sex education though.
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The missionary would be toast! Monogamus marriages, or joinings, would still be, for love is love. I am not gay but have gay friends and their lives are just like heterosexuals when it comes to relationships and problems. Please don't eliminate menopause, it's a wonderful right of passage (speaking from experience!) Those women should be considered elders with some respect due (just my opinion). You might want to have the major medical problem be high breast cancer rates as women who do not bear children have a higher risk factor due to no lactation during their lives. Lots of good ideas here with wonderfull ways you can build this society. Good luck.
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I think I've read several variations on that. Mostly fan fiction although there may have been a couple of professional novels with a premise similar that I checked out of the library. None of them "felt" real.
This is background. You need a strong story to really make it work. I'm fighting that with this novel of mine. It can't be about the idea. There has to be conflict and story development. Cherryh's Cuckoo's Egg is a story you might need to look over.
Wait! There WAS a story...I think it was a professional sale. Can't remember the title. Human (male) is sent as emissary to this world where women have (what is it called? they have kids who are basically clones of themselves except during some solar event when they can chose to have sex with the men of their race who are kind of wimpy or something --with the men of their race who live somewhat separate lives except when the yearly (?) solar event occurs. Can't recall the details, the title, nor who wrote and what house published the novel. Big help, huh?
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LDWriter2,and arriki Lois McMaster Bujold did a great story about an all male planet. David Brin wrote Glory Season which is the second one. Cuckoo's Egg is a different problem. It supposes that a male baby was raised by an alien of a warrior race. Cherryh always does a fine story.
Kelly Tharp: Menopause may have been benign to you, to others is is Hell for as much as 23 years, to my certain knownledge. Thanks for the breast cancer idea. I'm assumining that their medical progress has eliminated that tough problem, but maybe I'll mention that it was one of the last ones to conquer. Or, I might have the cure developed on Earth and have it as a trade item. Thanks. Carl
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Joanna Russ's THE FEMALE MAN was about an all-female planet.
Lois McMaster Bujold's book was ETHAN OF ATHOS, I believe (all-male planet).
The one about men and women living separately may be GATE TO WOMEN'S COUNTRY by Sheri Tepper.
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C.J. Cherryh's Cuckoo's Egg is an allegory for a familiar stranger raised in and coping with an alienating and hostile native culture, fanatically hostile to the stranger. The stranger may represent anyone whose lifestyle alienated the mainstream majority culture's beliefs. It's deep.
The mission experience has two common scenarios throughout history. One, the shock and awe of a superior culture imposing its culture upon an unsophisticated culture, and the other, the shock and awe of a superior culture persuading an unsophisticated culture to adopt its culture. Cultures with comparatively equal sophistication crossing paths clash too.
Shared cultural and spiritual beliefs are centripetal cultural forces. "Centripetal," from a political geography perspective, is cultural forces that strengthen group bonds. Centrifugal cultural forces are forces that strain or break group bonds. Neither is inherently more or less beneficial or more or less harmful. Close bonds tend to alienate and exclude outsiders, for example. And strained bonds serve to strengthen as well as estrange group insiders.
I don't know from what's given what the message or direction of the novel project is, what position it takes with regard to the contact tableau of a matriachal culture visited by a patriarchal culture. Historically, very few matriarch-dominant belief system institutional cultures survived contact with patriarch-dominant belief system institutional cultures.
Neolithic and prior cultures practiced an equal division of labors and leadership predicated upon gender divisions. Elder women managed internal, domestic labors and government matters, and men managed external, abroad labors and government matters. If a matter concerned both internal and external circumstances, a council of mixed-gender elder and respected leaders determined a course of action.
For a novel project of this or any type, the intended outcome is probably where the crux of the features, motifs, and theme, and the central or main dramatic complication, lies. Whose personal and external, tangible and intangible, main want and main problem wanting satisfaction (dramatic complication) that drives the plot is to my thinking the vanguard of the preplanning writing phase.
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