Written for Hot Press 24th July 1997

There was a documentary on Arthur C. Clarke recently. He’s the author, internet guru and visionary, the guy who first thought of satellite communications, who wrote 2001 a Space Oddity, lives in Sri Lanka, you’ve heard of him. They were discussing the future as seen by him in 3001, in which the astronaut left floating to oblivion in the earlier film is revived, and we see the new world through his eyes. All sorts of exciting imaginative possibilities were played with, and it was very thought-provoking. But one thing struck me right between the eyes. In the clips they showed, set a thousand years from now, a doctor and nurse were bringing our hero back to life. Amazingly, the doctor was male, in a white coat, and the nurse was female, in a figure-hugging white uniform with a little white cap. Clarke may have profound prescience when it comes to technology and humanity’s relationship to it, but his lack of application to the issue of sex roles, from the brief insight I gained from that programme, is quite surprising.
Humanity is vigorously engaged in the process of pushing against boundaries. These boundaries are wherever we find them, in whatever excites our imagination, challenges us to excel. From the worlds of sport to science, art to politics, philosophy to theology, the standards constantly change, the ideals advance, the search continues.
What Clarke seems to ignore is that this same force is at work in human sexuality, in our relationship to our own bodies and to each other. Camille Paglia, the renegade lesbian academic, whose unpopularity stems largely from the fact that her bombastic personality dissuades people from reading her lucid and enthralling written work, has this to say about homosexuality, in “Vamps & Tramps”:

“Nature exists, whether academics like it or not. And in nature, procreation is the single, relentless rule. That is the norm. Our sexual bodies were designed for reproduction. Penis fits vagina: no fancy linguistic game-playing can change that basic fact.
However, my libertarian view, here as in regard to abortion, is that we have not only the right, but the obligation to defy nature’s tyranny. The highest human identity consists precisely in such assertions of freedom against material limitation. Gays are heroes and martyrs who have given their lives in the greatest war of them all.”

Paglia’s acclamation of gays as heroic is typical hyperbole, for an essential ingredient of heroism in my opinion is choice. I don’t know any gay men whose sexuality is a conscious choice. But there is a grain of truth in what she says. Those gay men (and Paglia is solely concerned with men in the above passage, for she is scathing on lesbian culture) who embrace their own sexual natures, and explore their own creativity to the full, but who simultaneously form bonds of friendship that are life-long, are perhaps living lives that are a foretaste of what is to come for the rest of humanity.
Currently, in Britain, the norm is under threat again, in religion and in the law. As I write, the Church of England Synod is going through paroxysms over the issue of homosexual priests; and the New Labour government has signalled that the UK is finally going to follow Ireland’s lead and remove the inequality between gay men and everyone else with regard to the age of sexual consent. As happened in Ireland four years ago, the reactionaries are out in force, muttering darkly about the repercussions of the advancement of homosexuality into mainstream culture, such as the erosion of the nuclear family as the primary social unit, and the inevitable next step, the “bizarre manifestation” of homosexual marriage.
So where are human relationships heading, if we are to explore the bigots’ fears and our own imagination?
Assuming that human sperm counts don’t spiral us all into extinction in the next 100 years, it seems to me that it is children who will be the glue that keeps relationships together a thousand years from now. This may seem Victorian, even banal, but what I mean is that they will be the only factor in keeping people of any kind together for committed periods of twenty years or more; and I don’t even mean that these partners will necessarily be involved in a sexual relationship. Monogamy is dying, or at least life-long partnership, and this is due to the increasing emphasis on independence and individuality, and gays are leading the way on this one. Technology is playing its part too in this change; from the contraceptive pill to in vitro fertilisation to cloning, the “natural” way of procreation is not necessarily going to be the only way of bringing children to the world in the future.
The expectations of partnership are so enormous now that disappointment is endemic. The romantic ideal is so prevalent, and the concept of The Family so outdated, that I believe things are going to get much worse before they get better. There will be so many children growing up in households seething with disillusionment, resentment and insecurity that many future generations of adults will be right royally fucked up. Eventually, humanity will cop on to the fact that, ultimately, children’s needs will have to come first for a society to be healthy; and with this change in attitudes will come the financial and social structures to enable a new sort of child-centred family unit to emerge. This may not be based on a romantic attachment; indeed romance may even be frowned upon in the future as a basis for offering stability to children. Two or more people may make a commitment for 20 years to bring up a child, and they may be male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, lovers, friends, or none of the above. It won’t matter. It doesn’t matter. The quality of the commitment is what matters. From the gay perspective, friends are for life, lovers come and go.
The vast majority of children will of course be produced by heterosexual lovers, but the mother may decide to bring up the child with her best female friend; or the father may decide to bring up the child in his household, which may contain a gay couple, a close friend, a teenager, two cats and a budgie.
Starting in the final months of pregnancy, the mother will arrange for her co-parent or co-parents to go on a fully-paid Training For Life course, at which the latest psychological and practical knowledge about parenting is passed on, by people who have been co-parents themselves in the past, and yet are also familiar with the latest schools of thought. This educational resource and support network will be available throughout the child’s life, and will be fully funded by the state. The act of deciding what is best for the upbringing of the child will be something that is ritualised, and equivalent to a combination of today’s marriage and baptism rolled into one; the caregivers or co-parents making a public oath of commitment to the child, not to each other. One or more of them will have the privilege of being a full-time carer; and will be paid by the state, according to their means, on behalf of the child. The bond between co-parents and their children will be fortified and supported by the culture, because that is what is best for the child.
Inevitably, because children never read the manual, there will be exactly the same amount of traumas and tears in their upbringing as with any other child in any other millenium. But in a truly child-centred culture, they will be surrounded by committed adults who have their best interests at heart, with the best available knowledge to ensure that they make the transition from child to adult in as healthy a way as possible. In this future, a child will not be seen either as a burden or as a fashion accessory, but an opportunity to enjoy one of the most fulfilling and rewarding occupations there is.
No model is perfect. But the institution of marriage is decaying rapidly because of the advancement of women into the workplace, with an implicit denigration of the role of motherhood. It is absurd that a child’s emotional security depends on the vagaries of romantic attachment between a man and a woman. It is the least reliable of attractions, the worst possible basis for a serious commitment.
As the narcissistic war of the sexes rumbles on, and men and women vie with each other for power, and childcare workers remain underpaid and undereducated, it is the children who suffer. Let those who want children look after them.
Well, I can dream, can’t I?