Every nightmare is a desire trying to break the surface, right? Or so would a Freudian say. I like the idea of head-in-a-jar as an overblown fear/wish of castration.

You know what? A head in a jar still has eyes and ears and can probably tell it's had its body amputated. A brain in a jar, without sensory input of any kind, would be a lot more like the Matrix interface, in that all sensation being fed to the sensation-interpreters is not acutally coming from the body's own sensation-gatherers.

There's a marvellous John Collier brain-in-a-jar story.

IIRC, Niven has an ongoing long-time (30 yrs+) marriage to an anything-but-stupid woman.

Yeah, and Heinlein had a long-lasting marriage to an anything-but-stupid woman, but he still had very very strange ideas about women and how they worked.

I haven't heard anybody say "Niven is a sexist". I have heard "Mindless females is a really creepy and disturbing idea."

my gut reaction would be a big fat honking "well of course it is. Duh!"

See, me too. Which is where I think the gender thing, or at the very least gender theory, comes in. And no, I have absolutely no intention of getting into gender theory right now because BOORRRING!

because I don't think that something we could recognise as thought/life/consciousness, or that we could engage with in any meaningful dialogue, could exist without a biological body and a context.

Well let's say it's housed in a computer. Doesn't then computer=input/output interface=body? So see, you still have a body, at least by my reckoning. Which is part of what I found interesting about the Matrix--the whole weird cyborg body of the AI.

Which is where I think the gender thing, or at the very least gender theory, comes in

I know you don't want to get into it, but maybe there's a one-sentence answer to explain to me where gender has anything to do with it.

I just don't see it, not least of all because my reaction is, and always has been, "why not?"

I know you don't want to get into it, but maybe there's a one-sentence answer to explain to me where gender has anything to do with it.

Trust me, there isn't. Or at the very least, I ain't gonna be able to compose it. If you can't see how and where gender may fit in, it would take a very long rehash of the history of gender theory to explain it. Ain't gonna go there. And I think the other readers of this thread are, deep in their heart of hearts, thanking me for that.

I just don't see it, not least of all because my reaction is, and always has been, "why not?"

Because bobbing up and down in your bottle full of formaldehyde is not going to earn you that black belt, missy.

Huh.

That just hit a hot button of mine.

How odd.

edit: Burrell, not Betsy. Betsy hit a warm button.

Considering the number of times the Buffistas punch it, I'm surprised it's still a button at all.

It's more of a haematoma than a true button, at this point.

You know I don't want to defend Niven about anything. Put it this way - he is so far to the right I prefer Heinlein.

Nonetheless on this issue - yes his idea of a species eliminating sentience in one gender is squicksome. It is supposed to be. They Kzin enslave (and on occasion eat) humans and other intelligent creatures. Niven was trying to come up with a plausible way an intelligent space-going species could evolve into something like this. His answer was that they couldn't - it required genetic engineering. And why would an intelligent specieis engineer themselves in that direction; he couldn't come up with a rational reason for that either - so came up with an irrational reason - a male-chauvinist group of hunter gatherers suddenly given space travel and genetic engineering decides to re-engineer themselves to live up to their hero-myths. (Think of what the ancient Greeks might have done suddenly given genetic engineering, or the Aztecs or Consquistdors.) And Bestys point is taken into consideration. One of the things that makes the Kzin mean is that they all fantasy about sex with a woman Kzin with the power of speech, and of course (with exceptions in a couple of short stories) can't have one. And it does affect child rearing. (Kzin women are intelligent even if they can't speak -so they are able to do the "hands on" chores of child raising - diaper changing, feeding ans such.) But the long term trope of the Kzin story is their rehabilitation as a species - basically the gradual reversal of the trap genetic engineering reinforced by militaristic culture has gotten them into.