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...