Sex and Snakes from the Seventies

I had no knowledge of Vonda McIntyre’s Dreamsnake before reading. I read it because two podcasts I enjoy, The Hugos There Podcast and Hugo, Girl! had covered it. After reading the novel and listening to all their discussions, great discussions by the way, I did a quick bit of research about Dreamsnake. This is all to say I had no knowledge of the feminist history of the book. Others, have already said what I want to say, but I do not care. I was pleasantly surprised with how progressive sex was portrayed in Dreamsnake. It is a sexy book. Not in an erotica sense, but in an “it’s good to have nontraditional portrayals of male-driven sex in science fiction” sense.

The first thing I noticed was how forward about wanting sex the protagonist Snake was. It shouldn’t be, but it still feels surprising when a woman wants sex for the sake of her pleasure, not as some sort of ends to a mean. I probably am not not reading or watching the appropriate media with these portrayals, so it’s on me for being a philistine. There was even a scene where Snake acted a pretty inappropriately with a man. She was way more excited about getting into bed than him, and she persuaded him until he said yes. Snake never was threatening, but she did not take no for an answer. She felt like if she could just talk to this man, he would see it her way and be ready to bone down. While consent is paramount and nobody should ever feel pressured into sex, how many times have we seen that exact scene but in reverse? There are hundreds, thousands of examples of a man persuading a woman into bed and not taking no for an answer. So while Snake acted inappropriately, it was interesting seeing the roles reversed.

Another inversion comes with Arevin, a young man in love with Snake. He meets Snake when she visits his village for a few days to help a young child through illness. Snake and Arevin have a bit of a connection but Snake moves on with her journey. Arevin occupies the small-time village girl who falls for the wandering hero trope all too common in stories. He decides to leave his village to find Snake and has his own adventures. Multiple times he is propositioned for sex by men and women but because he is the naive village virgin, he does not understand the propositions. Eventually one of the women has to come out and directly say “I think you’re handsome and I would like to have no-strings attached sex with you tonight,” which Arevin declines. He claims it would be because his mind would be on someone else. So the woman offers to wake her brother who is camping with them because he has also been in a bit of a dry spell. It’s a fun scene.

There are many other little bits like a polyamorous triple portrayed as a loving and caring group. A large part of the world involves internal birth control for males and females. The resolution of the story happens when Snake ignores her traditional ideas of sex and reproduction to embrace something new. There is a lot more to the book that made it extremely deserving of all the awards it won. I am not doing it enough justice so go out and read it yourself.