by kbrowne » March 22nd, 2006, 9:45 am
jo,
You don’t mean the hrossa literally mate only once, do you? As I remember, Hyoi said that they have sex only for a few years. That’s still not very generous but it is more than once.
I am quite sure that Lewis meant something by this and was not just imagining a different way of life, although he was doing that as well of course. I’m not quite sure what he meant, though. Perhaps it had nothing to do with sex, really. Didn’t Hyoi go on to talk about how the memory of the pleasure is part of the pleasure itself? The idea that no one should hang on to a pleasure and that, if they try, the pleasure itself will be lost is a recurrent theme in Lewis’ writing.
I don’t think Lewis said anything about the sex life of the other species.