Fiction of Ideas

"We're still fighting our way up from the neo-puritan reaction to the sex freedom of the twentieth century."

This week we read Aye and Gomorrah in class. It's a short story by Samuel R Delaney about Spacers (people who were castrated at a young age so they wouldn't feel the effects of radiation when they were sent out to work in space, and so they are both genders and also genderless) and their offhanded search for "frelks"(people who fetishize spacers). This story was written in 1967, and explores the spectrums of gender and sexuality. 
The way the story was written was interesting in that it doesn't offer much in explanation of the world and history--you're thrown right in, and most of what you learn is from context clues. All show, no tell. From the line I quoted earlier, there's a strong implication that the twentieth century in this world was a time of increasing sexual freedom (not that it wasn't in our world, but the story was written in the sixties, so this had to be somewhat predictive on the author's part), but the backlash was so severe that it led to the creation of Spacers decades (centuries?) later. 
I felt a bit distanced from the main character as I was reading, and I think it's because the author is trying to show a hindrance of emotions. The Spacer doesn't feel anything strongly, and mostly they are wandering from place to place passively searching for something. The main character says, ""What will you give me? I want something," I said. "That's why I came. I'm lonely." Maybe the author is making a connection between emotion and gender, and the frelks are a metaphor for what was taken from the spacers. Both people hold a fascination with the other, but neither can truly fulfill what they're looking for because it extends beyond physicality.