I can feel this veering off topic now, but thank you for the information about Larry Niven, Paul.
Those two Ringworld books - or rather, the second one - is definitely one of the books that has shocked me the most, ever. I'm not talking about Niven's attitude to sex, I'm talking about his attitude to women. Just consider: The hero of his book has sex with dozens, maybe hundreds and possibly thousands of women on Ringworld. By the end of the second book, these women are all dead, all but one killed by him!
To me, Larry Niven seemed to suggest that it would be fun to have casual sex with as many women as possible, and afterwards you should kill them all so that you don't risk wasting time with someone you have already "sampled" when there is a world of women still out there just waiting to have sex with you! I can forgive Niven for dreaming about casual sex with thousands of women, but what about dreaming about killing them all afterwards?
Okay, I can see that there is a much "nicer" way to interpret the hero's actions - he had to respect the customs of Ringworld so he had no choice about having sex with innumerable women, it was not his fault that his first girlfriend became a monster so that he had to kill her slowly and painfully, and it was not his fault that he had to stabilize Ringworld in a way that unfortunately killed all the women that he had had sex with on this world - but really, to me it all smacked of wishful thinking from a man who had a wet dream about having sex with thousands of women and then killing them all afterwards. People, just imagine what the Earth would be like if all men here were like Niven's hero. I think it's safe to say that humanity would become extinct within decades, since
all women here would soon be killed by men!
Like I said, I reacted with absolute horror at Niven's book. And, as I've also said before, I reacted with absolute horror at Superman's behaviour in "Superman II". How interesting it is to be told that "Superman II" was inspired by Niven's views on men and women! No wonder I felt like giving up on Superman forever when I had seen that Niven-inspired movie.
As for "Superman Returns", I haven't even had the opportunity to see it yet. Paul, you and I and several others have speculated about what Lois knew or didn't know about Jason's paternity, when she knew she was pregnant etc. All we can do is speculate and state our own preferences, of course!
Ann
