As a member of a pre-Shlestertrap family, I take no sides. My convention is past: yours, my diversified nzreddi, lies ahead. I am certain of one thing.
The answer is to be found in neither one stereo nor the other. The answer involves unity of the two: a core of relationship which both must share and which, when discovered, will dissolve their apparent inconsistency. Remember, these stereos are the product of a highly civilized creature.
Where is that core of relationship to be found? In the original stereo? In The Old Switcheroo? Or in that book I never finished— Abridged Regulations of the Interplanetary Cultural Mission, Annotated, with an Appendix of Standard Office Procedure for Solarian Missions?
Humanity has solved such problems, and today flicks stars from its path. We must solve it or die as a race, albeit a civilized race.
We will not solve it—and this is most important—we will not solve this problem by the disgusting, utterly futile expedient to which more and more of our young are daily resorting. I refer to the unmentionable and perverted six-sex families…
Afterword
For what the information may be worth, the original title was “The Old Switcheroo.” The editor purchasing the story changed the title, which, while not to my taste, is the one that has been used by anthologists.
In terms of sheer length, “Venus and the Seven Sexes” held the record for many years among my stories. I wrote it surrounded by thumb-tacked charts showing which sex did what and how and to whom. My brother, Morton, sat in a corner of my study throughout, feverishly working out the chromosome patterns. When I finished the story, we had a small ceremony, and Morton formally witnessed my oath: from that day on, I would avoid anything but human characters and the very simplest plots. Well, time passes and wounds heal. I have broken that oath many times—but never since have I been caught in coils of such intricacy.
The story drew my first memorable fan letter, a lovely and gracious comment from Robert Heinlein. I was a very new, very young science-fiction writer, and getting a tribute from one of the two men whose work had shaped mine (the other was Henry Kuttner) simply overwhelmed me. Even praise from a very famous geneticist didn’t mean as much.
Three further notes: I’m not as fond of the piece as I was years ago (the Shlestertrap passages creak badly and are badly dated) but, as Aldous Huxley remarked in a similar context, the younger writer’s self is entitled to have his own story stand—therefore, no late-date rewrite.