I shame the matriarchy

shake it, baby...

ok - assuming you figured out a way to hide from the zapulating colloidulizer ray, what would happen next to you? to the world? to the boys and old men? how did the space aliens get here? why did they pick only men to zapulate? how did they know which humans were male and which were female? (I mean it's obvious to us, but maybe it wouldn't be if we didn't know where to look or what to look for.)
 

what would happen to you next, I mean. not what would happen to anything in close proximity to you.

(can't even blame absence of caffeine for that...just simple stupidity...)
 

w00t! YEAH baby, YEAH!!
 

would people try to dress their sons in girls' clothes as camouflage?
 

I can't wait until Lis gets here to comment.
 

I would be sad. Very sad. Everybody thinks my son's a girl anyway, so no danger there. I would...damn. There go half my favorite bands.
 

except for the plasmatics...

(oh that was the worst joke ever...)
 

Green Jelly
 

Although I haven't read it, a popular comic book called Y: The Last Man has a similar premise. Some kind of plague kills every mammal with a Y chromosome, and the book focuses on the only man to survive.
 

Unfortunately, my attempts to think more seriously about what I'd do in the aftermath (besides arranging a lot of funerals) got derailed by a sudden reminder of the 1980s shlock movie guilty pleasure Night of the Comet...
 

I can't wait until Lis gets here to comment.

Um, whoops. Well, did I meet your expectations? :)

Darn, now I've got Night of the Comet stuck in my brain and I can't get it out.
 

as usual, women will be left to clean up the mess...can you imagine the entire world covered with slime?

maybe it was preparation for a giant planet-sized petri dish.
 

sounds like an awesome comic.

what would happen to the men who were left behind?
 

sounds like an awesome comic.
I've heard good things about it.

what would happen to the men who were left behind?
I don't believe there were any others in the comic, thus making him a target of government pursuit. [Although that raises some interesting questions about FTMs. I wonder if/how the comic deals with that? Instant outing, I suppose, if the plague is based on chromosones...]
 

as usual, women will be left to clean up the mess...
As i suddenly imagine the rest of the human race (womanity?) wiped out shortly thereafter due to a fatal combination of (1)vermin overrun given the lack of men to deal with them, and (2)the inability to reach the upper shelves...

Or maybe that's just me. :)
 

antip, are you familiar with Joanna Russ? she's written at least a couple of SF stories that deal with exactly this premise. well maybe not the aspic part.
 

sorry, if it doesn't have rayguns and protein jello, I'm just not interested. I gotta draw the line somewhere.

Here I stand, I can do no other.

I wonder if Joanna Russ is in the library or if I have to go hunting.
 

More likely to be in the library than the bookstore, sadly (or not).

From her novels, I like "The Female Man." I actually like her crit writing better; try "To Write Like a Woman" and "What Are We Fighting For?"

I think the short story I had in mind was called "Whileaway," but that may not have been the title.
 

STO - the "Cage"? what's the "Cage"? what's that guy talking about?

eh. who cares...zapulate first, ask questions later...

maybe we'll round up all of Jean's favorite bands and put them in protective custody.

See how much I love you, Jean?
 

*jiggle*

Are we at least still cilious organisms? Because it'd be a bitch if I could no longer reach the Chee-Tos on top of the fridge.

And as far as I can tell, at 13 I was pretty much just a quivering blob of aspic anyway. But enough about my hobbies at that age.
 

I'll start with Poison. Especially Poison.
 

Freeman - unless you can play guitar at least as well as CC DeVille, you're soylent-green-flavored jello.

(HA!)
 

guys like him give decent self-respecting perverts like me a bad name.

Zapulate with extreme prejudice!

(I probably shouldn't say that. that's totally non-civil. and talking behind his back. and a hundred other violations of my precious rules...The Blog Gods will strike me dead I'm sure...)
 

"maybe we'll round up all of Jean's favorite bands and put them in protective custody."

Awww, you're so sweet...make sure you forget Lar$, etc.

"unless you can play guitar at least as well as CC DeVille"

!!!!
 

yeah, jean, I'm all (ahem) HEART...

but I gotta draw the line somewhere. I know, some may say I set the bar too high, yea, impossibly high, but that's just too bad...again, here I stand, etc....

(I'm kidding, of course.)

STO - I'm the last person to condemn someone for being kinky - however there's something seriously disturbing about this fellow. let me think on it and see how closely I can make the words I type match the thoughts in my head.

NOW - With all necessary gravitas and authority, I'd like to guide the comments back to the very deep and serious and discussion-worthy topic of space aliens zapulating men into jello.

remember that some men would remain, and these men would include presidents, diplomats, assemblymen, other petty bureaucrats in the twilight of their careers, football coaches, CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations, grizzled newspaper bureau chiefs, veterans of dubyadubyatwo, and assorted dirty old men.

any thoughts?
 

do we write to the aliens and beg them to come back and finish the job?

'cause i'm thinking if you leave all the 50-and-ups it immediately results in a concerted effort to return to the days of good ol' fashioned patriarchy, with a dozen nubile young things assigned to every aging patriarch, for to perpetuate the species.
 

... i mean, that's pretty much what the whole damn Bible (Odyssey, u-name-it) is all about innit? There's a war; the invaders come and kill all the men and boychildren, take the women and girls. (unlike the aliens, who just go away, I suppose).

there is also the question of: what happens to all that aspic? cause I'm thinking: ew.
 

the aliens slurp it up with their extendable mouth parts (like bendy straws).

"'cause i'm thinking if you leave all the 50-and-ups it immediately results in a concerted effort to return to the days of good ol' fashioned patriarchy, with a dozen nubile young things assigned to every aging patriarch, for to perpetuate the species."

but without all the younger fellows to enforce the patriarchy, how would that affect the power structure of the old dudes?

the phrase "you and what army" comes to mind.
 

Oh, I think 50-somethings can be remarkably spry when they want to.

also don't underestimate the power of persuasion.

you gotta figure a lot of women are freaking out on account of what's happened and are looking for some sort of structure...
 

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 

between the ages of 13 and 65, then, belledame.
 

well--what do *you* think would happen, antip?
 

I think that after two or three generations masculinity will look a lot different - almost unrecognizable.

I think people would get it in their heads that penis = death, and would go to great lengths to disguise masculinity.

After a while, nobody would remember why they disguised masculinity, but the habits would persist.

of course, I'm still wondering what attracted the space aliens in the first place.

LL = hi! welcome! glad you like it! I will scurry after those references forthwith.
 

>of course, I'm still wondering what attracted the space aliens in the first place.

duty-free shopping? those interstellar taxes can be a bitch...
 

But, but but.... I don't WANNA be Jello!

Can't I get out of it with a note or something? I'm sure I could produce female character witnesses!
 

freeman, I can't play favorites here - if you can't play guitar as well as CC DeVille, it's the jello mold for you. see you wiggle, see you jiggle...

or you can try to figure out something to crawl under or behind, or some way to outwit the zapulator.
 

I don't play guitar, but I'm a hell of a drummer. And of course you can play favorites!

*Shouts* "I will not be punished for the crimes of the PATRIARCHY!"
 

I don't think it's personal for the aliens...I think they're just hungry.
 

"I will not be punished for the crimes of the PATRIARCHY!"

That's what you think. *Rubs hands together and chuckles evilly*