Any way you slice it, The Wanting Seed is obsessed with sex. The novel represents the act—in its heterosexual forms in particular—as a natural, instinctive urge that society thwarts or represses at great cost. On top of that, the novel represents procreation as an even more fundamental drive. Although the Pelagian society in the first half of The Wanting Seed tries to dampen citizens' lust for sex and babies, the orgies, carnivals, and erotica that burst onto the scene in the novel's second half suggest that humans and rabbits have lot in common after all.
Questions About Sex
- Does The Wanting Seed include any scenes of gay or lesbian sex?
- In The Wanting Seed, which kinds of sexual activity are described in the most positive terms?
- Does The Wanting Seed suggest that human sexuality is animalistic? What examples confirm or deny this position?
Chew on This
Although The Wanting Seed spends a lot of time bemoaning the "unnaturalness" of homosexual acts, the novel itself contains no same-sex sex scenes. Instead, its most explicit—and most comical—sex scenes are reserved for heterosexual encounters.
Although fertility rites and wanton heterosexual orgies are lampooned in the second half of The Wanting Seed, the novel's comedic tone in these passages is less critical than the satirical tone that describes state-supported homosexuality in the first half.