How Robert Heinlein Awakened My Sexuality

“Anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

I know, I know, Heinlein can be problematic for a staunch feminist to embrace... however, when I recommend or gift his books to my friends I like to preface with, "just think of him as old uncle Robert." While his ideas may seem sexist, racist, or some other -ist viewed through the lens of 2018, remember that as an author born in 1907, in a lot of ways he was ahead of his time.

Heinlein is credited for fuelling the fire on the sexual revolution of the 1960's. His later novels reflect a preference for free-love, polyamory, pan-sexuality and more. But for 16 year old me, coming from a strictly Christian upbringing where I was expected to only ever sleep with my future husband, to never entertain homosexual feelings, and to fall in line with a nice gender-appropriate career that allowed for child-rearing... Heinlein's was the first voice that spoke to me saying, "well, maybe not."

I was introduced to science fiction literature by my best friend in high school, who just so happened to also want to sleep with me. David. David gave me Stranger in a Strange Land. I liked it in the way a very awkward teenager likes something they feel they maybe shouldn't be exposed to... and I wanted more. 

Time Enough for Love was the book that really woke me up. A man who lives over 2,000 years, loving and making love to so many along the way. I found it beautiful and exciting. I started thinking that maybe there wasn't just one person out there in the world for me (or in my small hometown... as I certainly didn't see world travel as option...), but that life may instead include a series of lovers, to be appreciated for a time, cherished, but not necessarily forever. Life is long, and people do not stay the same throughout - it made sense to me that my partner might not either?

The lightness to which Heinlein approached sex was refreshing. With David's influence I had been reading other sci-fi and fantasy books, but this was a far cry from sex of Piers Anthony novels - where every woman introduced was described as unattainably hot, and ended up naked a few paragraphs later. I mean, I can't say Heinlein was leagues better in this but the difference was evident. 

Heinlein's women had autonomy. Heinlein's women showed me that it was ok to just like sex because sex was great. They showed me it was ok to want my own career. And while the main character in Time Enough for Love is a man perhaps living out a somewhat adolescent fantasy of never being tied down, and sleeping with just about everyone he could, I found hope in his promiscuous pursuit.