In [Venus Plus X], Sturgeon makes subtle use of various conventions of the science-fiction genre and of social conventions, particularly sexual conventions. The well-nigh-perfect society of the Ledom, a new form of "humanity," is explained as a consequence of their hermaphroditic sexuality. Everybody is equipped with both male and female sexual organs. Impregnation is a mutual affair. With the lack of sexual differentiation goes, it is assumed, a corresponding lack of other dichotomies…. In a series of alternating chapters devoted to the conventionalized sexual responses of a pair of contemporary American families, Sturgeon presents, as an effective satiric contrast, our alternative and divisive situation. This arrangement serves to disguise the fact that Venus Plus X is really a short story skillfully padded out. The utopia theme simply does not allow for very much in the way of narrative elaboration.
Sturgeon is aware that the English language, as it has developed, is incompatible with utopia, and consequently the Ledom don't use it. The Ledom language appears to be scientific in its unusual exactness and avoidance of metaphorical statement…. The only book referred to is a technical manual.
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